Will we ever see 2 more clubs?

Philth

Club Legend
Feb 4, 2008
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Chatting to a mate yesterday and he sees the potential for another WA club (we live in WA). I disagreed.
Personally I think 18 teams is enough, and I don't want any more additions, ever.
So my question is, will we ever see more clubs in the AFL?
Because I honestly have no idea if the AFL are happy with the status quo, or would like further expansion.
 
Oct 3, 2007
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Perth
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Chatting to a mate yesterday and he sees the potential for another WA club (we live in WA). I disagreed.
Personally I think 18 teams is enough, and I don't want any more additions, ever.
So my question is, will we ever see more clubs in the AFL?
Because I honestly have no idea if the AFL are happy with the status quo, or would like further expansion.

Almost certainly more clubs will be added over time. Reducing clubs will safe guard the long term future but the AFL live for now and to be honest none of the head office suits care about anything other than their pay packet and what they can get now.
The future of the sport is in their hands sadly.
 

kid_a

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Apr 5, 2010
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The AFL will definitely expand, just when is the real question.
In 2017 there was roughly 700,000 club footy players in the country and the population now is about 25,000,000.
One would assume once the club participation rate gets well beyond 1,000,000 and the greater population beyond 30,000,000 it would become viable for a couple of new clubs to come into the AFL.

I guess WA is a logical choice for a new club given it has quite a deep talent pool and is a state obsessed with footy with a growing population. Personally I dont want a third WA club, but thats just me being an Eagles fan I guess and wanting WA to just have the two clubs to share the state between themselves, thus potentially becoming just super clubs who fill (a to be expanded) Perth stadium all the time and have resources and fans coming out of their ass, like almost NFL sized clubs they could be. But thats just my selfish view on it.

A third Sydney side might work after some time if the Giants can start to win over hearts and minds in the west, the population, and thus potential audience, is growing there.

Ipso facto, as long as they do it slowly and only when the metrics add up expansion should happen, but adding any more than two extra teams in the next 20 years would be just silly imo.
 

Our Game

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Sep 30, 2014
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Nine clubs have joined the league since North Melbourne. Get successful and the internet won't upset you.

I only get 7 new clubs WCE, Freo, Ade,Port,GWS, Bris and GC who are the other two?

Sydney are only the renamed South Melbourne Swans not a brand new club and of course the Fitzroy FC have gone the way of the dodo with Brisbane paying them lip service when it suits them.
 

Benny78

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Apr 4, 2016
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Of course we will. The only reason we see more than 12 clubs is money. Businesses like the AFL create KPI's this year it's 10 million, next decade it's 10 billion, then the following decade it becomes 10 trillion. The AFL will fail to meet these KPI's and need to up ticket prices along with add additional clubs into the league.
 

majortinkle

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Jul 21, 2015
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I’d aim for 23. 10 in Melbourne/Geelong 4 in Perth 3 in Adelaide 2 in Sydney 1 in Brisbane 1 in Queensland 1 in Tasmania and 1 Territories team

Works out at roughly 450k population per team in footy states and 2m per team in non-footy states
 
BoS suggests more teams are possibility in the future.
Canberra/Queanbeyan is estimated to be around 600k by 2031, and by 2050 will have a larger population than the state of Tasmania.
 
BoS suggests more teams are possibility in the future.
Canberra/Queanbeyan is estimated to be around 600k by 2031, and by 2050 will have a larger population than the state of Tasmania.

a) If they hit 600K by 2031, they'll most likely be bigger than Tas by then.
b) Bigger raw population doesn't matter much if half (or more) primarily support other sports.
c) Until GWS is able to stand on it's own feet, that territory will remain theirs, so no new teams will be created in it.
 

Rabman

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Nov 22, 2016
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With the amount of revenue some of the big clubs are now making, i find it hard how any new clubs would be able to compete. Clubs like West Coast and Collingwood are now turning over 80 million dollars whilst receiving the lowest amounts from the AFL and there revenue is only going to go further north. Clubs like St.Kilda and North along with the expansion clubs are right now barely able to keep up and are reliant on large AFL distributions. Personally the league needs to get serious whether some of these clubs are worth persisting with, if they can't keep up then they need to find some where else to play and im not just referring to the expansion clubs.
 

abcde12345

Team Captain
May 15, 2018
334
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About 30 million on gws just this past year
Both the GC and GWS had less than $25m in total distributions individually last year. For reference, the AFL currently runs at over $50m in surplus. The AFL at current income and expenses could afford another GWS and GC without having to cut ANY costs. And obviously another game a week would bring in increased TV revenue relative to what it would receive otherwise.

If you are meaning the threat of TV revenues diminishing across the board would prevent another two teams like this at the moment then fair enough, I don't disagree with that. However no leagues in Australia are in a position to expand if that concern is considered. The AFL is comfortably the most resilient Australian league to diminishing TV rights in the future due to the higher income from ground attendance. For reference, even the Gold Coast Suns had more ticket and membership revenue than any rugby league team from Sydney that released an annual report, and the Suns are obviously a minnow compared to most footy teams.
 

abcde12345

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May 15, 2018
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That's only what was officially reported, but there's this; https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...year-on-top-of-23m-grant-20190327-p51845.html
Club made 2 million loss + money for stadium naming rights.
Only Sea Eagles have less members than Suns so you're completely wrong on that as well.
How much money exactly does 9th game bring in?
If you add the $2m it still holds my point. The combined distributions to GC and GWS adding in the $2m loan come to $50.595m. This includes the usual distributions that all clubs receive for salary cap etc. So my point about the AFL being able to fund another GC and GWS still stands (AFL profit for the year was $50.443m).

I also never said the Suns had more members so I don't know what that comment was about. What I DID say was that the Suns made more revenue from members and match receipts than any of the Sydney based NRL clubs that released reports did. Suns made $7.3m revenue from tickets and memberships. The reporting entities in the NRL, not including the Broncos (Bulldogs, Cronulla, Roosters and Parramatta were the ones I could find), combined ticket and membership income averages a bit under $3m. For reference, GWS has a similar ticket and membership income to the NRL clubs referenced.

I also only mentioned this point to highlight the AFL would be under less threat than competitors in a declining media rights landscape. The fact that the second smallest club in the league is making double the amount of revenue than the reporting Sydney based rugby league entities highlights this fact (as should be obvious based on the average crowds and memberships in each league).

If the media landscape isn't declining, then the comment you made about the AFL lacking funds for future expansion clubs is moot since it is already experiencing annual surpluses roughly equal to the total distributions of the two expansion clubs. In a non-declining media revenue, the AFL could utilise these revenues to fund two new clubs without being required to cut any costs, and still break even. The AFL also has roughly $175 million in cash balances that could theoretically be used to fund expansion clubs too.

It is very difficult to determine the value of a 9th game in isolation. The media rights deal went from $1.25 billion over 5 years ($250m p.a.) to $2.5 billion over 6 years (slightly over $400m p.a.). Obviously a significant portion of this is from the inflating sports media deal landscape over the period, but it would be disingenuous to suggest it didn't contribute to the increase.
 
Sep 24, 2006
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The other point about the expansion clubs is that they they are central to the AFL charter about 'growing' the game (which is, or at least supposed to be, the primary mission of the non-profit making AFL). In this regard, the GCS and GWS are also about encouraging further participation and greater presence of our Australian game in areas where English codes still predominate. They are not their to make money as such.

That there are now over 100 players from NSW and Queensland on AFL club lists shows that this strategy is having steady success (whereas in complete contrast, after 20 years in existence, there are nil, zero, zilch Victorian raised players on the Storm senior list as per their web page).
 

Pippen94

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Jun 12, 2019
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Last media rights deal was in the background of a boom for such things. NRL deal jumped as well without adding teams. Is the 9th game worth 30 million a year? I highly doubt that.

Suns such a poorly supported club as is gws for that matter. Any numbers they produce I wouldn't accept at face value. Both teams are the worst drawing away. Draft concessions have prevented established sides from achieving success.
My initial point is correct; removing burden of expansion teams would allow established sides to flourish on & off field.
 

Pippen94

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Jun 12, 2019
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The other point about the expansion clubs is that they they are central to the AFL charter about 'growing' the game (which is, or at least supposed to be, the primary mission of the non-profit making AFL). In this regard, the GCS and GWS are also about encouraging further participation and greater presence of our Australian game in areas where English codes still predominate. They are not their to make money as such.

That there are now over 100 players from NSW and Queensland on AFL club lists shows that this strategy is having steady success (whereas in complete contrast, after 20 years in existence, there are nil, zero, zilch Victorian raised players on the Storm senior list as per their web page).
AFL all about money. Never forget that. That's why Tassie was overlooked for gws & GC. Selling pitch to TV was larger audience share in the bigger markets. Of course this never happened & now other clubs must be questioning the logic of funding two failing entities.
 
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