um, what really heavily favours us is the amount of fans that come to our games! no fans, should mean no teams. you said it yourself, non footy states!!!The thing you are not realising is that the 'northern teams' have much more trouble than the traditional footy states to get good people in assistant coaching roles, footy department roles etc. It's far easier for Hawthorn to lure a hot assistant away from one of the other 8 vic teams than it is for Brisbane/Sydney etc because coaches aren't going to have to uproot their entire lives. Clubs in the non-footy states seem to have more issues with player retention, the academies drafting home-grown kids does help that to some extent.
All in all the way the AFL is run still heavily favours the Vic teams, whether it is by design or not.