Actually grassroots footy on the gold coast is flying. From watching underage games lately, there could be 4 top 20 picks coming through as gold coast locals in the next two years alone. Plus both gold coast teams made it to the prelim final in the vfl. If and when the suns ever become good, the investment will pay off. GWS on the other hand was a Demetriou brain fart.
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I’d love to see that.
I don’t honestly how GWS are going in Sydney but they are doing an amazing job in regional NSW and should start seeing some more kids come through the system
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Sydney can handle more than one AFL club imho and are missing a trick with the Giants.
GWS should be more orientated to north west sydney and they need to go into Sydney full time.
They cant win over the place and grow playing half their games in Canberra.
The ACT would be better off with its own side.
With west coast having over 100k members and freo over 50 i think there is room for one more side in Wa
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Poorly in western sydney, they have only had i think 3 players come through from that area onto the list in over 10 years. In saying that i think storm have only had 1 Victorian play for them in 25 years, so maybe the expectations are too high.
What great things are they doing in Canberra/snsw? I don’t think it’s translated much to rusted on supporters, you’ll always have that issue if they are only a fly in team, i think they’d do well if they became Canberra snsw Giants.
The swans really ■■■■■■ over gws by stealing buddy years back, he was the perfect most marketable footballer in Australia to generate media and fan interest off the back of, no wonder the AFL were so ■■■■■■ off, it put the giants back a good 15 years.
Its ridiculous that the giants flog memberships where they lose 3 home games every year to Canberra.
It means they have a half hearted effort into Sydney and a even weaker effort into Canberra.
Its a 3 hour drive between their two stadiums. Ridiculous.
Completely agree, Sydney is too big to put in a half arsed effort and to split your time between 2 different cities. If anything I’d be playing 8 games at showgrounds and another 3 at Henson park, or ideally the other 3 a redeveloped north sydney oval.
And make the name better, either Western sydney or Greater sydney, this gws crap is ridiculous.
They constantly have players visit schools in the regions and run clinics (Swans players hardly ever visited) and they seem to attracting a lot of people in the area that take a keen interest in them but they defined need to sort out what way they are heading as folks in the regional areas and Canberra don’t want to stump up membership for a couple of games per year and they have no interest in going to Sydney to watch them
Also, investment is needed in Australian Rules ovals in western Sydney, if they want to develop junior talent.
I honestly think they should give up on the West of Sydney as I think it’s a lost cause. The West is pretty much “owned” by Penrith and Parramatta Leagues clubs and it is absolute Rugby heartland. The facilities they have out there and the interaction with the locals is phenomenal. Penrith are just getting another $1bn spent on their precinct with Accor building a 5 star Pullman and a conference centre aswell as training facility upgrades and extra grounds.
I think the AFL are better tapping into the ACT and Southern NSW market and building a base of genuine supporters
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You mean cricket ovals used in winter for footy?
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Yeah agree but they can’t call them Sydney due to an agreement with the swans and i think they’ll pull out of western sydney at some point or want wider appeal as they aren’t collecting any fans from w.s, so the greater sydney is another ‘better’ option. Well better than the current mouthful.
Demetriou panicked when soccer got big in 2006, the fact the a league were gonna put another team in ws and the fact nrl were putting a team in the gold coast. He also claims you needed 2 teams to create an extra game for tv money, but the moron didn’t realise 1 extra team gives 11 extra games, approx 20 mill extra anyway. Bringing in two teams at the same time from non footy areas was a ridiculous decision. If he wanted to bring in two it should have been gold coast and Tasmania. Or, he could have not stuffed up the north relocation to the gold coast and we’d still be at 16 teams.
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Initially it would. Not sure it’d last.
Not sure this report has been referenced here.
One interesting point is that increasing the stadium capacity from 22,500 to 25,000 would cost an additional ~$30M, but would only impact a small amount of events. Still seems a little short-sighted if future interest/memberships grow in Tassie.
They basically want the stadium to be world class and include so many features that only one other benchmarked stadium has that many features and it is currently being built in Brescia, Italy.
What is the timing on the decision? Wasn’t it supposed to be done just after the grand final? Any chance anyone in the media might want to follow up on that?
That’s well and truly out the window now, but the AFL already gave an ‘in principle’ agreement pending the stadium.
Did they? I thought it was supposed to be put to the clubs for a vote. I didn’t think that happened yet?
Bellerieve 20k capacity
York park 20k capacity due to be upgraded to 27k in next couple of years.
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AFL reaches in-principle agreement with Tasmania for 19th team - https://www.afl.com.au/news/866720
They would still need to have the vote I think.
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