I'll say it every time something remotely close to the topic comes up.

We need a massive renewal of investment in the second-tier competitions. Revitalising the entire country's second leagues would cost about as much as adding one more AFL club and it would transform the playing, coaching and umpiring talent depth, reconnect Australian football to communities and be much more effective at infiltrating the northern 'markets' than the two styrofoam clubs set up at a $200m dead loss.

11 minutes ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

I read that Eddie McGuire was saying he thinks the Giants should play 11 games in Canberra and 11 games in Western Sydney. Wtf has he been smoking?

 

I haven't seen that, but maybe he means that every other team (bar Sydney) should always play away when they play GWS and at one of its 2 venues.  Smoking is perhaps more plausible.

I suspect you could have a third team in either Perth or Adelaide. 

burwood football club sounds a good idea

you know it makes sense

21 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

burwood football club sounds a good idea

you know it makes sense

Burswood is more likely than Burwood.

Newcastle has the population but rugby-mad.

2 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I think its more likely that a Melbourne-based team will fail first

No Melbourne-based team will fail.  If a team gets into financial strife, it gets propped up by The AFL

Edited May 2, 20231 yr by Orion

1 hour ago, Dwight Schrute said:

I suspect you could have a third team in either Perth or Adelaide. 

If not the Albury Bushrangers (not much chance of that happening) then a 3rd team in Perth - population of 2 million plus. 

45 minutes ago, redandbluemakepurple said:

Newcastle has the population but rugby-mad.

that's kevin sheedy's theory too

7th biggest city population with ~450k and only increasing

Now that we are successful and financially viable the afl can look at relocations and mergers. It may be that I have a self absorbed viewpoint. The Tassie kangaroos and Canberra Hawks sound good. 
 

tongue in cheek.

Perth makes sense - has the infrastructure, almost 1m more people live there than in Adelaide and it will help balance out the current travel-inequality for Perth based teams.

Darwin makes little sense to me.  Population only marginally bigger than Ballarat, would need all new infrastructure and the travel would be a nightmare for all. 

23 minutes ago, DeeMee said:

Now that we are successful and financially viable the afl can look at relocations and mergers. It may be that I have a self absorbed viewpoint. The Tassie kangaroos and Canberra Hawks sound good. 
 

tongue in cheek.

Canberra Hawks Auckland Hawks. Fixed!

B: HOWES SCRIMSHAW MAYNARD

HB : BOWEY FROST MCGRATH

C: PERKINS BRAYSHAW WINDHAGER

HF: LYONS KING SMITH

F: OWENS  KING AMARTEY

FOLL:   MCLEAN SHEEZEL ASHCROFT

20th team.  The AFL Sandringham Dragons.  Recuitment not an issue at least 

Cannot see Norwood getting a licence as it would take too many supporters away from the Crows and lessor extent Port.

Perth has the greater population to possibly accommodate for a 20th team.

My heart says the NT. 
My head says get a grip, heart. As if that’s ever gonna happen. 

I wonder what list concessions will be given over for teams 19 and 20. Last time Suns came in 2011 then GWS followed in 2012. Suns went for the fantasy footy style approach 'guns and rookies', where GWS went all rookies and a sprinkling of valuable veterans. We can all agree that neither worked. GWS was more successful but ran into a list building recurrent nightmare where they had too many players in the same age bracket which was a cap nightmare.

I wonder if the AFL look to reduce list sizes by 4 players across the competition (from 42 not including cat b rookie to 38), equivalent to 72 players off 18 clubs (fills 72 of the required 76 spots). Allow each of the new clubs take up to a combined 4 players per original clubs total without trading (original clubs get comp picks), ideally players who are 22+ or their list balance will be off targeting 18-21 year olds. Hopefully they also don't monopolise the draft, ideally they would have one selection early the year preceding their start, and mid first, early second instead. Would be good to give them the ability to pre-list players in the 2nd tier comps and give them regional zones for a period like they did the Gold Coast Suns to stock them with talent. 

What we don't want are two teams that are 'easy beats' each week, nor do we want to penalise teams who happen to be at the wrong end of the ladder at the wrong time....aka us when Gold Coast and GWS came in. 

Can we also get to a clean 19 game season (each team plays once and flips home and away each year). With an NBA style play-in tournament for 10-7 seeded teams and finals series It will be only be 6 games less than what is played this season. If we need 20 games season for the in-equitable gather round which is not a home game for majority of the comp and actually increase the total games (revenue), schedule it later in the season and have teams in similar brackets on the ladder play each other.  

40 minutes ago, BigMacjnr said:

Can we also get to a clean 19 game season (each team plays once and flips home and away each year). With an NBA style play-in tournament for 10-7 seeded teams and finals series It will be only be 6 games less than what is played this season. If we need 20 games season for the in-equitable gather round which is not a home game for majority of the comp and actually increase the total games (revenue), schedule it later in the season and have teams in similar brackets on the ladder play each other.  

that makes far too much sense to happen!

it's actually quite a few less home and away games, which would have a significant negative impact upon broadcast revenues etc...

23 rounds x 9 games = 207 home and away games + 9 finals

19 rounds x 10 games = 190 home and away games + 2 play-in games + 9 finals

Edited May 2, 20231 yr by whatwhat say what

Reckon they’ll quickly move to an NBA-style ‘play-in’ tournament pre-finals with 20 teams.
 

Helps keep the season alive for more teams in bottom half of the ladder which will keep ratings up for longer and help mitigate tanking (somewhat)

17 minutes ago, whatwhat say what said:

that makes far too much sense to happen!

it's actually quite a few less home and away games, which would have a significant negative impact upon broadcast revenues etc...

25 rounds x 9 games = 207 home and away games + 9 finals

19 rounds x 10 games = 190 home and away games + 2 play-in games + 9 finals

Could add the "blockbuster round" where teams play their state rival and Victorian teams their "traditional rival" whoever that actually is.

Gather round would also add another round of games.

That would be 21×10 H&A games.

Right now I think it's 23×9 games equivalent = 207 H&A games

Canberra is probably the best option for team 20.

If there are 20 teams.....

4 "conferences" of 5 teams each. This would be randomised FA cup style with a televised FA cup style draw in early november. pull the teams out of a barrel, thus becomes a draw and not a fixture.

you play everyone once and the team in your conference twice. 23 games.

the top seed in each "conference" fills finals positions 1-4. the 2nd seed fills finals positions 5-8 HOWEVER to keep things interesting and in case of an uneven conference you have the 2x best 3rd place teams play the 2x worst 2nd place teams in the bye week as "wildcard" week for spots 7&8. 

ok maybe ill go have a coffee cos im clearly losing it

Perth still doesn't have a team in the AFL

1 hour ago, Jibroni said:

Cannot see Norwood getting a licence as it would take too many supporters away from the Crows and lessor extent Port.

Perth has the greater population to possibly accommodate for a 20th team.

My recollection is that Norwood was happening when the SANFL intervened with Adelaide. I believe a promise was made to Norwood but Port gazumped them. I think Norwood will be pushing.

Edited May 2, 20231 yr by ManDee
Nice colours too

2 hours ago, BigMacjnr said:

Can we also get to a clean 19 game season (each team plays once and flips home and away each year). With an NBA style play-in tournament for 10-7 seeded teams and finals series It will be only be 6 games less than what is played this season. If we need 20 games season for the in-equitable gather round which is not a home game for majority of the comp and actually increase the total games (revenue), schedule it later in the season and have teams in similar brackets on the ladder play each other.

I don’t know how 19 is equitable when it’s not even a proper split of home and away, unless you make derbies a neutral game between teams that share a stadium or location. I also think 2 derbies a year is a must. Apart from financial incentives they’re also big games that fans want. They’re huge in WA and SA and vital to grow the game in NSW and QLD.

Personally I think double up games are wildly overrated on fixture in balance. Home and away, short breaks, travel sequences play a bigger factor.

I’d go 21. That’s 10 home, 10 away, every team once with a double of derby/rivalry round and gather round which sadly isn’t going away.
 

If you play a top 9 side in your double up derby round then you play a bottom 9 side in the gather round. That’s a nice even split. 

 

Edited May 2, 20231 yr by DeeSpencer

12 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

I don’t know how 19 is equitable when it’s not even a proper split of home and away, unless you make derbies a neutral game between teams that share a stadium or location. I also think 2 derbies a year is a must. Apart from financial incentives they’re also big games that fans want. They’re huge in WA and SA and vital to grow the game in NSW and QLD.

Personally I think double up games are wildly overrated on fixture in balance. Home and away, short breaks, travel sequences play a bigger factor.

I’d go 21. That’s 10 home, 10 away, every team once with a double of derby/rivalry round and gather round which sadly isn’t going away.
 

If you play a top 9 side in your double up derby round then you play a bottom 9 side in the gather round. That’s a nice even split. 

 

The problem is the AFL won't want to reduce games because it costs them money with the broadcast deals

Has to be Canberra if there are 20 teams. There will be enough fans to fill a medium sized stadium and there is plenty of visitor infrastructure. No way Geraldton could be a chance. Only 40,000 inhabitants and few people live within cooee of the town. Same as for Alice Springs, Kalgoorlie and Bunbury. Northern Queensland and NT too damned hot and tropical for regular games. Newcastle and Wollongong worse than GWS for appreciation of the game. A combined ‘Gold Fields’ team might be a goer alternating between Bendigo and Ballarat. Extra Perth side playing out of Mandurah? an outside chance as well. 

Edited May 2, 20231 yr by John Crow Batty