13 minutes ago, Tony Tea said:

I don't care if GWS wins a flag. I don't know any GWS fans, I write off their success as an AFL construct, I haven't any 45 years of GWS hate. 

Much rather them win instead of the loathsome Tigers.

Just a null and void year?

On 4/29/2017 at 0:03 PM, Soidee said:

The GWS did not exist.  Imagine how many teams would have more depth with quality players.  Imagine how closer some teams would be to winning premierships.

I could go on and on, however the AFL have done it and now many clubs will just have to watch this mob fly past them and win flags while supporter bases of foundation clubs are left behind frustrated.

it is controversial but real!  A few thousand supporters in Western Sydney will get to see their manufactured team with compromised drafts win flags while hundreds of thousands in the heartland of AFL put up with results of many Compromised drafts.

screw the AFL and GWS!

 

On 4/29/2017 at 3:53 PM, Little Goffy said:

And imagine if the AFL had decided that the $20m a year could have been better invested in grass-roots and second-tier football, women's football, outback football, and so on.

The quality of the game would lift dramatically and AFL would be part of the pulse of every community!

Hell, that much investment in development, they could probably field an extra team with the improved playing stocks. Just say'n.

 

22 hours ago, deebug said:

It's sad to think about, i will always say there should not have brought in another team in QLD and NSW one team in each state is enough.

Little Goffy i agree with you 100% the AFL have left grass roots footy in Victoria a mess and are for $$$.

The real question is whether AFL can survive in NSW with only one team. That would mean only one game every two weeks being played in Sydney and real problems when Sydney plays poorly (like this year). Already the jungle drums are beating about TV rights. Seven has dropped back to three games on most weekends from the previous four;  ESPN is struggling in the US; and Channel Nine is being encouraged to drop its cricket coverage because it's no longer seen to be financially wothwhile. If the AFL don't create a product that gets TV interest in NSW, it would be in big trouble.

If you've decided that you want viewers in NSW, and you've decided the way to do that is have two teams in NSW, there's no point creating a team that can't win the premiership. If GWS wins, that's a big success for the AFL, not the other way around. 

5 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

The real question is whether AFL can survive in NSW with only one team. That would mean only one game every two weeks being played in Sydney and real problems when Sydney plays poorly (like this year). Already the jungle drums are beating about TV rights. Seven has dropped back to three games on most weekends from the previous four;  ESPN is struggling in the US; and Channel Nine is being encouraged to drop its cricket coverage because it's no longer seen to be financially wothwhile. If the AFL don't create a product that gets TV interest in NSW, it would be in big trouble.

If you've decided that you want viewers in NSW, and you've decided the way to do that is have two teams in NSW, there's no point creating a team that can't win the premiership. If GWS wins, that's a big success for the AFL, not the other way around. 

The lack of forethought and any kind of long-term plan is what bugs me the most. I accept that the second team in Sydney at least can be a good long term 'asset' for the game, but that should have been recognised 20 years ago. It should also have been recognised at least 20 years ago that AFL wasn't going to dominate Sydney unless they built up a really strong second-tier competition and the material and social connections that any football club or code needs to become a part of a city.

As for channel seven dropping to three games instead of four, I'd argue that supports the case against the expansion, more than for it. The quality of talent and thus the game is diluted, the proportion of games with no practical (ladder) importance and no emotional meaning for any given club's fans just keeps growing. And having an extra game or two every week that involves those soullesss re-animated monstrosities assembled from the hacked-off limbs of other other clubs isn't helping.

"The acronym team is in the Grand Final! YAYYYYY! There will be lots of seats left for neutral observers! Again!"

Did nobody else notice that Sydney still has basically only mid-table membership numbers and attendences, despite over a decade of borderline AFL-mandated success?

Let's see how that goes with just a couple of bad years. Is the AFL really going to try to bank on a business model that requires that the soft-4rsed fairweather-fan teams are constantly aroudn the top of the ladder?