On face value this seems like a good idea unless you're one of the teams or member / supporter bases. Let's assume they'd be vic teams, correct me if I'm wrong but the lowest vic member base is approx 40k (give or take a k here or there).
Basic addition tells us that's 120k members, and being paying fans of "traditional" clubs they're usually a fickle lot. So it's a fair assumption that they'll turn their back on the league if their team is "chopped", at the least a very large majority would also a fair assumption.
Of course I have not yet mentioned the non member fans who will also have their nose out of joint, let's also conservatively speculate that currently the non member probably doubles those member figures (being very conservative here).
So at the very least we're talking about 300 - 400k you lose from the turnstiles and the tv sets because their team is no longer in it.
Again, the idea of fattening the talent pool by culling apparently irrelevant teams is a noble one, but not without consequence. I'm sure HQ would agree with me otherwise these teams would already be gone in favour of more teams from "other" places than vic.
Being hellbent on the long road to make the two newly incepted teams accepted and relevant by traditional markets is evidence of that.
So then what are the choices? Do we do away with GC and or GWS? Well that would be practical but there's more chance of me winning the Norm Smith than that happening - HQ are hell bent on winning the RL market over.
Gil has already alluded to the idea of a Tas team and it may happen and it will dilute the talent pool further but you can bet your left one it won't be at the expense of teams already in the comp.
North Melbourne claim to have 40,000 members to their crowd numbers simply don't correlate. Their support in their primary market, Melbourne, is not much different to Gold Coast or GWS. I have zero doubt that a Tasmanian side would be better supported (bums on seats) than North Melbourne.