Is 18 teams too many ?

[GoldCoastCrow]

Just wondering.
Once the Gold Coast team and a second Sydney side come in, will there be enough talent to fill out 2 more lists ? Will the competition suffer because of it ? Or are there ample young players around, all good enough to play in the big league but not had the chance till now ?

Discuss (if you want to !)
:)

[Cuzz09]

Nah

9 games a week :thumbsu:

[pharro]

What is "enough talent" ? How do you assess? It stands to reason that the standard of teams will decrease slightly with the talent pool stretched. But likewise you could argue that teams would be much better if the AFL shrunk to 6 teams. Should we do that? What's the magic number?

[Bosley]

There are already 4 deplorable teams in the comp this year and there are some on each list who are not up to it.

I really think 12 teams is enuf, then every game would be a great standard ... or a very high proportion.

18 is crazy talk but it doesn't matter cos the league will still be a roaring success.

[Andrew Mc]

Yep, 16 is too many as it is (look at how many sides are getting handouts now). 14 would be better.

[JD-Roo]

Yep, 16 is too many as it is (look at how many sides are getting handouts now). 14 would be better.

So that's gets rid of YOUR side as well as mine. Let's see...... also the Hawks and the Bulldogs as well. So by your own argument you've just got rid of four out of the current top eight. Real smart.

[FootyJunkie]

The league will only expand even more over time. The league will be on 18 clubs for about 15 years before considering going to 20....Tasmania and perhaps a NT/North QLD club....I mean those are really the only regions left in Australia to tackle, you could probably absorb Canberra/ACT region into the West Sydney club.

[Father Jack]

10 is too many in one state for starters.

[littleduck]

10 is too many in one state for starters.

The AFL can easily sustain 10 Victorian clubs indefinitely however weaker Melbourne-based clubs clearly cannot stand on their own two feet without handouts from above.

[Hoops]

18 is too many for one competition IMO. but so is 16 I would rather have 2 divisions with relegation with 12 teams in the top div with a more equible draw. But that doesn't seem to be too popular around here.

[Johnnyprinias]

Way too many. Its going to further limit the talent in the drafts for the future and the game in my opinion has been steady declining anyway. How will they work out the draw? Hope im wrong but its going to be worse. All for the sake of an extra buck. Bring back the VFL!!!

[Papa G]

Get rid of one of North, Melbourne, or Bulldogs and merge the remaining 2. I don't care which one you get rid of but my preference would be Melbourne. Plenty of players available for 2 new teams. So many bird killed with one stone.

[KUNG FU]

The talent pool will only expand with the development of the game in Qld & NSW. That shouldn't be a concern. For a national competition, there are too many teams in Victoria, but that will sort itself out in time.

[Gumbleton4Life]

Way too many. Its going to further limit the talent in the drafts for the future and the game in my opinion has been steady declining anyway. How will they work out the draw? Hope im wrong but its going to be worse. All for the sake of an extra buck. Bring back the VFL!!!

good news for all young players out there - more opportunity to make AFL, how is this a bad thing? i love the idea personally haha

[ANGEL DARK]

Just wondering.
Once the Gold Coast team and a second Sydney side come in, will there be enough talent to fill out 2 more lists ? Will the competition suffer because of it ? Or are there ample young players around, all good enough to play in the big league but not had the chance till now ?

Discuss (if you want to !)
:)
Yes its definately going to weaken the competition when you consider you have to find another 80 players to fill up the 2 extra sides coming in.The standard of footy will drop significantly and the struggling clubs will find it harder to be competitive as they are more likely to loose their good players to other clubs

[woosh_era]

Yes. 16 is already too many.

[VINCANITY]

The more they increase the league the larger the talent pool will get, the more kids in the country who see the game at the highest level week in week out, the more play

[Betfair Pro Punter]

the more teams the better I say. more games to watch on tv , more debate, more players playing.

[Professor Knowall]

We've already had this debate -

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=416184

In the coming years, many more players from NSW and Qld will go on AFL lists - many more than the 87 from these 2 states alrready on club lists.

[chelseacarlton]

yes!

[A Living God]

Population in 1986 - 16,018,350
1,144,169 per team (14 teams)

Population in 1996 - 18,310,714
1,144,419 per team (16 teams)

Population in 2008 - 21,310,000
1,331,875 per team (16 teams)

Population in 2012 - 22,200,000?
1,233,333 per team (18 teams)

[richoatthedisco]

Good article questioning the merits of expansion and cost to current clubs, as opposed to franchises.

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/hidden-costs/2008/05/28/1211654122492.html

[Papa G]

Good article questioning the merits of expansion and cost to current clubs, as opposed to franchises.

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/hidden-costs/2008/05/28/1211654122492.html

The 18 team comp will further dilute not only the viability of the struggling Vic clubs but also their relevance too. As the article alludes to, the struggling Vic clubs get the least attention from the media (unless it's bad news) and 2 new teams will further dilute this.

[SimonH]

The 18 team comp will further dilute not only the viability of the struggling Vic clubs but also their relevance too. As the article alludes to, the struggling Vic clubs get the least attention from the media (unless it's bad news) and 2 new teams will further dilute this.The article is just Niall beating the same old drum he's beaten before (witness the 'western Sydney will be the AFL's Iraq' article a couple of weeks ago).

The technique remains the same, too: outline the AFL's official line (or your version of it) with a degree of high cynicism, to lead the reader to infer that the AFL must be wrong; but avoid putting the contrary view, lest the reader see how silly it is.

To wit: the "socialist nirvana" line and the 'cycles of success' theory which supposedly means that there are only 1 or 2 years in any given decade you've got a chance at a flag (unless you're an undeserving northern state given unfair concessions, of course). That's right-- due to the AFL's interferin', social-engineerin' ways, there are 8 or 9 years out of every 10 when hoping your team might win the flag, is a waste of time.

Niall of course doesn't explain the contrary position: dismantle the "socialist nirvana" ('cos that must be bad, right) comprised of the salary cap and draft, and I wonder what will happen? For about half the clubs in the competition, the vast bulk of them Victorian, for 10 years out of every 10 it would be a waste of time to hope they might win the flag. (Tottenham Hotspur are far from the weakest team in the EPL-- but did even the most optimistic TH fan enter the 2007/8 season believing they had any realistic chance of becoming champions?) But no need to worry: because soon enough 3 or 4 teams will go under and so the survivors' chances will automatically improve!

The 'these clubs grew organically from the soil' line was no doubt very catchy in the late '70s and early '80s when the "should the VFL expand, or should the VFL just concentrate on its own backyard?" debate was on in earnest. However, in a national competition, where not a single Melbourne club plays at a home ground suburban oval for premiership points-- ever-- and any Melbourne club that relied only on its traditional 'suburban catchment area' for fans (let alone players) would have been dead long ago, the argument looks about as retro as a Wa Wa Nee reunion.

Watching Niall turn somersaults trying to pretend that the Weagles and Crows were anything other than corporate creations to fill a perceived gap in the market, is hilarious, if not outrageous to those SAns and WAns who actually witnessed these entities being created. As if there was anything "organic" in South Melbourne moving to Sydney (or almost all changes over the last 25 years, like a bunch of teams playing in Canberra or the Hawks taking on Tassie)-- quite the reverse. It was driven from the top down over the vociferous objection of the rank and file, to wrench a long-established club from its roots to go to a supposed 'Siberia' for Aussie rules. Funny how you don't hear Niall saying they should move back.

He even runs the argument that the existing clubs are diminished because, not only do the arithmetical chances of winning the flag drop from 1/16th to 1/18th (who knew?), but each club has "less share of the collective obsession with AFL footy" (that's right, down from 6.something% to 5.something%). I don't even need to say anything to rebut that one-- that dead fish stinks all by itself.

The one legitimate anti-18-club argument that might be raised-- the siphoning off of the young talent pool for the next 4 or 5 years to allow them to be competitive-- barely gets a look-in with Niall.

And he ruins the whole thing for himself by breaking the cardinal rule of his arguments (always criticise, never proffer an alternative) at the end:

Leave those markets [GC and WS] alone, and watch the ferocious competition for games on the Gold Coast among the Victorian clubs. Eventually, after regular winter holidays, one of those clubs would have made the permanent shift.

So the AFL should keep offering massive subsidies to Victorian clubs to play a few games a year on the Gold Coast (because that's really 'organic'), in the vague hope that at some stage (10 years? 20 years?), with no particular prompting from the AFL (is removal of the CBF 'organic'? Who knows?), one of those clubs will approach them and say, 'We want to move up'.

As strategic plans for the future of the AFL go, that is simply laughable.

[Professor Knowall]

Great reply by SimonH. I just posted another pro-Tasmanian article on another thread, but wasn't going to bother with more of Nialls pile of nonsense.

richoatthedisco must've really been at the disco to call that rubbish "a good article". It was so bad, he even based his argument on the dumbest possible reason for a Tasmanian team -


"... the deserving state of Tasmania ... Tassie does deserve a team. ..."

Yeah - lets do it because they "deserve a team". BFD.

[Black Falcon]

Great post SimonH. I'll put you on my friends list.
Similarly, I have been driven to angst by the drivel-ous articles on RealFooty. I got onto BigFooty from a reference on the GC17 site. TC I have.

Are 18 teams too many? ALG has posted re Australia's pop growth from 1987-2008. Tick. NRL fears loss of market to AFL. Tick. AFL takes Auskick to South Africa- home of 44M. Tick.

If enough juniors change over from NRL to AFL then no problem. Isn't that why GC and WS are being included?

Darren Lockyer is Australia's RL captain. He grew up in Roma playing Aussie Rules. If the Brisbane AFL team started ten years earlier, he probably would have played for them and been another Voss figure.

10 per cent of AFL is indigenous players. Imagine if another 10 per cent begin from South Africa- and they will in time. Auskick is only beginning in NZ and (meaningfully) in Pacific Is now. Imagine 5 per cent from there joining AFL- Natanui is the first in this years draft.

[SriLankanCat]

There are already 4 deplorable teams in the comp this year and there are some on each list who are not up to it.

I really think 12 teams is enuf, then every game would be a great standard ... or a very high proportion.

18 is crazy talk but it doesn't matter cos the league will still be a roaring success.

12 teams? Npo way

People always go on about how less teams equals better standard. All i ahve to say is i dont think that will be the case, teams will stil get flogged and personally id erather have lower standard games adn 16teams than better games and 12 teams