20th AFL Team

[Purple Suit]

Of all the options I've seen for WA3, that is unquestionably the worst. All you're doing is setting up an identityless team for theatregoers, so as soon as they lose a couple in a row nobody will show up.
Even Joondalup is a better idea, and Joondalup ****ing sucks.

I think Perth has more identity than anywhere else, it worked for the teams I mentioned before. We are also the only mainland state Capital without a team using the name of the city.

Just have to be careful to not align it to the WAFL side, maybe combining close to all the colours of the three WAFL teams with Perth in their name would be a start and making it clear its history comes from all three and Perth’s Footy History.

The Pelicans, Pirates, Pythons or maybe something else like a Dolphin, Dhuie or Quokka. Whatever, all new teams will take time to embed and get an identity.

 

[Rob]

I think Perth has more identity than anywhere else, it worked for the teams I mentioned before. We are also the only mainland state Capital without a team using the name of the city.

Just have to be careful to not align it to the WAFL side, maybe combining close to all the colours of the three WAFL teams with Perth in their name would be a start and making it clear its history comes from all three and Perth’s Footy History.

The Pelicans, Pirates, Pythons or maybe something else like a Dolphin, Dhuie or Quokka. Whatever, all new teams will take time to embed and get an intensity.

I just can't see where supporters will come from. As you say, the selling point would really only be "you can get a good seat"! which is just going to attract theatregoers. They're not sticking around when times are tough.

 

[EBERT THE KING]

I'm thinking at least 2035 for this.

Tassie won't come in until 2030 in my opinion.

 

[Badja]

We will get a lot more than 12.5k. Who knows on the structure of the stadium deals but I don’t see how more people = less money. Especially since any new deal will get figured out with all parties involved - WAFL, State Government, AFL, WA3.

I don’t understand what you mean by the 32k average for Freo? Are you talking about last season as 2 games is an extremely small sample size.

Again you’re not basing this on anything apart from vibes. Why don’t west coast fans move over to Freo if all they’re looking for is a seat. Why don’t Collingwood fans support St Kilda as tickets are easy to get? And it’s not like the WCE are even actually selling out Optus, sure they’re not doing well currently, but there are still an average of 18k tickets that go unsold each game. At least Canberra Pear extrapolated out from what happened in the Gold Coast, you’re numbers just seem to be “trust me”.

 

[Gibbke]

The only drive that will ever come for team 20 is from the AFL, when an extra billion dollars is promised for tv rights from the networks if they go to a 10 game a week roster. No one is asking for this from any of the boardrooms, because the big headache right now is splitting the profits with 19 teams instead of 20 with the deal as it currently sits. Right now, and believe it or not this is a direct parallel, Mission Beach Woolies refuses to put cleaning staff on from 6am despite a workload need, which would cost shareholders part of their dividend if they change from the current 7am start...$250 a week, maybe a 12c difference in dividends, but it's too radical a proposal and would require actual planning time in the boardroom...that's how these people think! So, multiplying those figures by a zillion, the notion of putting a multi-million dollar franchise in to further eat into profits is on the nose if they can't make it all back and then some with an new expanded deal...

If one of these other places gets heavy and energetic and talks the talks with plenty of walk, maybe T20 becomes a new item on the agenda at Channel 7. It has not happened and won't, and I dare say Tassie is by far the best example of what would be needed going back to the start of the national comp...even Port wasn't this vigorous. Otherwise, Tasmania is an uncomfortable PR reality, and T20 has about as much substance as the bandwidth carrying this thread...!

 

[RedV3x]

Who knows on the structure of the stadium deals but I don’t see how more people = less

It all depends on the rent. Remember football almost remained at Subiaco because of unrealistic rents.

All games will be at Perth Stadium, that’s the whole point of having WA3.

Then it definitely wont work under current rental arrangements.
Perth stadium is a high cost stadium because of where it was built.

There was a report recently that the WA football commission are now open to WA3.

Can we see that report ?

There will be more money in it for them due to the extra royalty, although I hope they do a deal to fix up the WA junior development pathways.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if this came about.

 

[RedV3x]

I just can't see where supporters will come from. As you say, the selling point would really only be "you can get a good seat"! which is just going to attract theatregoers. They're not sticking around when times are tough.

And they wouldn't appreciate attending a lesser stadium which would be the likely scenario under the current rental agreements making Perth stadium unprofitable for anything less than large crowds.

 

[RedV3x]

The only drive that will ever come for team 20 is from the AFL, when an extra billion dollars is promised for tv rights from the networks if they go to a 10 game a week roster.

That was the rationale behind G.C. and GWS.
Canberra is way ahead of G.C. and GWS when they started so the media rights would be a great bonus.
Tasmania doesn't add much to the media rights as a team but adds a lot as a 10th game per week.

 

[Purple Suit]

Again you’re not basing this on anything apart from vibes. Why don’t west coast fans move over to Freo if all they’re looking for is a seat. Why don’t Collingwood fans support St Kilda as tickets are easy to get? And it’s not like the WCE are even actually selling out Optus, sure they’re not doing well currently, but there are still an average of 18k tickets that go unsold each game. At least Canberra Pear extrapolated out from what happened in the Gold Coast, you’re numbers just seem to be “trust me”.

Why do you think WC have 18K tickets unsold to each match? Because of their attendance? They sell everything and try and resell some but usually hard to get a ticket still. I do have some WC supporting mates who get tickets to Freo games as they enjoy watching good footy and can't stand to go to current WC matches.

My numbers come from Freo's launch with the edition of a much bigger stadium but I was young at the time and didn't know how hard it was to get a ticket to WC games. There were some Freagle's who went to Freo games but supported WC as there wasn't a rivalry at the time.

I can see some fans making the switch, the same as Freo fans did (I was 1 of them) and getting in on the ground floor. WA3 will never go past Freo like we will never go past WC.

I just can't see where supporters will come from. As you say, the selling point would really only be "you can get a good seat"! which is just going to attract theatregoers. They're not sticking around when times are tough.

We are nearly capped at attendance now (specifically ticket sales) in a rapidly growing big city. By the time we have a 20th team, I suspect WC will be getting their act together and Freo will be full. It will be too late to have team 21 or 22 be WA3 and I think the NRL moving in will spark the AFL to start thinking about the West for the first time ever.

 

[rdrdrdrd]

Canberra gets a team by relocating GWS there and naming them the Eastern Giants.
NT gets a team by renaming Gold Coast to the Northern Suns and they share their home games between Darwin, Alice Springs and the Gold Coast. Actually gives the NT fans a team to barrack for.
The 20th AFL team then becomes SA3 (Mount Barker) as 2 powerful SANFL clubs Norwood and Sturt merge like they nearly did in the mid 1990s - would attract quite a few disenchanted Crows fans who were Norwood and Sturt fans pre-1991.

 

[Purple Suit]

It all depends on the rent. Remember football almost remained at Subiaco because of unrealistic rents.


Then it definitely wont work under current rental arrangements.
Perth stadium is a high cost stadium because of where it was built.



Can we see that report ?



I'd be pleasantly surprised if this came about.

I estimate that WA3 will get an average attendance of 30-33K year one. That would mean 2 Derbies = 110,000 and 24.5K-28K average for the rest. Freo got an average attendance of 24K in year 1 in a much smaller stadium and population of 1.3m people. I assume Perth will be close to 3m by the time WA3 enters the comp if they are the 20th team.

With crowd like that, the new team would be making bank on home attendances otherwise I don't think North would have sold their home games over here.

I also think the State Government would love another team called Perth purely from a state marketing point of view. They will cut a great short term 10 year stadium deal if the Perth Quokka's gets up before they revert to the WC/Freo one.

The report was an article saying that the WAFL was open to it. Pretty sure it's been posted in this thread before.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/af...s/news-story/dd2374bd99452426b509daa4b1d0565d

However on Tuesday WAFC CEO Michael Roberts clearly softened his language around the wealthy state’s willingness to take the 20th licence, telling Code Sports: “it’s positive that a third WA team is being spoken about ahead of potential options interstate.

“We need to make sure the clubs here in WA aren’t like some of the clubs in Victoria who are putting their hands out or struggling for members.

“We need to understand what is viable, and I think there’s still a lot of work to do to see if a third club would be supported here in WA.
“Any future arrangement would also require a review in how community football would be funded given the two local AFL clubs assist in funding local community football.

“We look forward to future discussions with the AFL and state government.”

 

[Canberra Pear]

How many games do they play at Manuka 3? Different than a full season

Don’t think it’s a given they’d sell out against Sydney or gws.

So you didn't read my post.

We have one very similar precedent of a city going from three games a year to a full-time team. It shows actually having a home team increases crowds.

And the Swans would absolutely sell out here. They're extremely popular here. It's actually a shame we haven't been able to host them in 15 years.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I'm not sure where this idea that people wouldn't go to a Perth 3 game goes from.

Firstly Freo and WC are very profitable teams so all we need is a home ground average other than the 2/11 home games that will be against Freo/WC to average 25,000 or so which given Perth's population will happen.

Secondly, people will go. Perth Stadium is a nice arena, and West Coast and Freo people will go, because they like footy. Melbourne people go to games that their team doesn't play in, it's because it's a social event.

When there's e.g. Friday night fixtures for the Perth 3 team where West Coast is playing away and Freo are playing a Sunday Night game, people will go, because it's the 'cool thing' to do in the Perth social circles that weekend.

We know this because Freo's attendances have grown by 50% since the early 2000's, without ever winning a flag or playing an attractive brand of football really over 25 years. They've grown because with West Coast games difficult and expensive to get tickets too, by default they've had to swallow up the attendances of Perth's population growth.

Also, I think consideration has to be less focused on whether people will turn up to those games specifically, but moreso about protecting and sandbagging Perth's football interest generally. There's an understanding that while Perth was equally as passionate in footy as Adelaide and Melbourne in the pre-national league era, Perth's population growth in the 21st century with only 2 teams to service them has led to a slight decline in city-wide footy interest, which is declining. The AFL is spending millions trying to convert footy fans in the northern states, but could also gain hundreds of thousands of potentially "lost" Perthite footy fans over the next generations without even having to lose a cent in direct operational costs of a team, something that is untrue of GWS and GC, which have already had tens of millions in total spent on them in order to grow the game and gain a couple of hundred thousand of footy fans that wouldn't have existed without those teams, at best.

Perth interest in games, media and TV wise, in games played in the eastern seaboard is non-existent. Partially due to time-zone reasons, the only way to fix this is to give Perthites a 50% increase in games to care about (again, West Coast and Freo fans will care about how the Perth 3 team does even if they don't support it, because the media will dictate that they will, in the same way that West Coast and Freo fans care more about each other's teams than they do 16 other clubs).

The only way to fix this is to create this own mini-economy out west. If Perth people aren't going to be interested in the AFL outside of the 46 games that Perth team play, the only solution is to give them more games.

Take post #3,519 from earlier in this thread. There's already a shortfall of 7% of the the population that have an interest in AFL in Perth (49% compared to an identical 56% in Melbourne and Adelaide), and lets assume that will drop by another percentage point or two by the time any third Perth team will enter. 8.5% of Perth's projected 2.8 million population in 2040 is over 200,000 people. And don't get confused by this number - this is just the shortfall of football fans relative to Adelaide and Melbourne, this isn't the perfect way to argue for a team.

For comparison at 56% with Adelaide's population growth in 2040 that's enough for about 460,000 engaged AFL fans per team. Perth's projected population of 2.8 million in 2040 with 47.5% AFL interest is enough for 433,000 people per team. But with an identical 56% engagement rate, it's greater than Adelaide, it's more, with 523,000 people per team.

It's entirely reasonable to think that by the 2040's, Freo could become the second-richest and biggest AFL team after West Coast, with Perth dominating one and two, with population growth and footy interest in the city funnelled entirely through the two teams rather than spread out over media, interest, attendance to the 17 eastern seaboard teams.

I understand that branding and location is something that has to be considered, but work your way backwards from there. Find a location with a supportive local council with an appropriate training/reserves/women's venue that can be funded and improved, then make that the branding of the location for the team. The home games will be at Perth and maybe the fast-growing Bunbury/SW region as it's so small that it can sell off two or three of it's non-derby WA games.

 

[Purple Suit]

I'm not sure where this idea that people wouldn't go to a Perth 3 game goes from.

Firstly Freo and WC are very profitable teams so all we need is a home ground average other than the 2/11 home games that will be against Freo/WC to average 25,000 or so which given Perth's population will happen.

Secondly, people will go. Perth Stadium is a nice arena, and West Coast and Freo people will go, because they like footy. Melbourne people go to games that their team doesn't play in, it's because it's a social event.

When there's e.g. Friday night fixtures for the Perth 3 team where West Coast is playing away and Freo are playing a Sunday Night game, people will go, because it's the 'cool thing' to do in the Perth social circles that weekend.

We know this because Freo's attendances have grown by 50% since the early 2000's, without ever winning a flag or playing an attractive brand of football really over 25 years. They've grown because with West Coast games difficult and expensive to get tickets too, by default they've had to swallow up the attendances of Perth's population growth.

Also, I think consideration has to be less focused on whether people will turn up to those games specifically, but moreso about protecting and sandbagging Perth's football interest generally. There's an understanding that while Perth was equally as passionate in footy as Adelaide and Melbourne in the pre-national league era, Perth's population growth in the 21st century with only 2 teams to service them has led to a slight decline in city-wide footy interest, which is declining. The AFL is spending millions trying to convert footy fans in the northern states.

Perth interest in games, media and TV wise, in games played in the eastern seaboard is non-existent. Partially due to time-zone reasons, the only way to fix this is to give Perthites a 50% increase in games to care about (again, West Coast and Freo fans will care about how the Perth 3 team does even if they don't support it, because the media will dictate that they will, in the same way that West Coast and Freo fans care more about each other's teams than they do 16 other clubs).

The only way to fix this is to create this own mini-economy out west. If Perth people aren't going to be interested in the AFL outside of the 46 games that Perth team play, the only solution is to give them more games.

Take post #3,519 from earlier in this thread. There's already a shortfall of 7% of the the population that have an interest in AFL in Perth (49% compared to an identical 56% in Melbourne and Adelaide), and lets assume that will drop by another percentage point or two by the time any third Perth team will enter. 8.5% of Perth's projected 2.8 million population in 2040 is over 200,000 people. And don't get confused by this number - this is just the shortfall of football fans relative to Adelaide and Melbourne, this isn't the perfect way to argue for a team.

For comparison at 56% with Adelaide's population growth in 2040 that's enough for about 460,000 engaged AFL fans per team. Perth's projected population of 2.8 million in 2040 with 47.5% AFL interest is enough for 433,000 people per team. But with an identical 56% engagement rate, it's greater than Adelaide, it's more, with 523,000 people per team.

It's entirely reasonable to think that by the 2040's, Freo could become the second-richest and biggest AFL team after West Coast, with Perth dominating one and two, with population growth and footy interest in the city funnelled entirely through the two teams rather than spread out over media, interest, attendance to the 17 eastern seaboard teams.

I understand that branding and location is something that has to be considered, but work your way backwards from there. Find a location with a supportive local council with an appropriate training/reserves/women's venue that can be funded and improved, then make that the branding of the location for the team. The home games will be at Perth and maybe the fast-growing Bunbury/SW region as it's so small that it can sell off two or three of it's non-derby WA games.

Perth is currently 2.4m and growing at 3.1% pa. which is 72,000 a year. If that keeps up, then we will be way above 2.8m in 2040.

 

[Canberra Pear]

I don’t understand what you mean by the 32k average for Freo? Are you talking about last season as 2 games is an extremely small sample size.

32k was referencing the two times Freo played as an away team to non-WA sides (Gold Coast and North).

Just because there's a WA opponent doesn't guarantee a sell out.

I estimate that WA3 will get an average attendance of 30-33K year one. That would mean 2 Derbies = 110,000 and 24.5K-28K average for the rest.

Already overestimating. The actual derby often does reach 55k. The lesser derby definitely won't.

Freo got an average attendance of 24K in year 1 in a much smaller stadium and population of 1.3m people. I assume Perth will be close to 3m by the time WA3 enters the comp if they are the 20th team.

Freo were also the only other option, coming from a footy mad area (which I understand Joondalup is not) with the heritage of two WAFL clubs behind them.

West Coast only had an eight-year headstart. Freo will have a 35-year headstart.

Freo and WA3 are very different situations.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Perth is currently 2.4m and growing at 3.1% pa. which is 72,000 a year. If that keeps up, then we will be way above 2.8m in 2040.

I'm going by the lastest long-term ABS projections published in 2022, which naturally predicts some tapering - clearly the growth isn't going to be 3.1% in 2039. Still, I take your point.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Already overestimating. The actual derby often does reach 55k. The lesser derby definitely won't.

This doesn't show any knowledge of Perth as a city. The actual derby could get 150,000 people if they had a stadium big enough, it's the event of the year in Perth, much like how the AFL GF could sell 400,000 tickets every year in Melbourne.

A "lesser" derby will be enough of an event in Perth though although demand might not be measured in six figures, it'll be a sell-out. It's the "event" for the city.

 

[Purple Suit]

32k was referencing the two times Freo played as an away team to non-WA sides (Gold Coast and North).

Just because there's a WA opponent doesn't guarantee a sell out.



Already overestimating. The actual derby often does reach 55k. The lesser derby definitely won't.



Freo were also the only other option, coming from a footy mad area (which I understand Joondalup is not) with the heritage of two WAFL clubs behind them.

West Coast only had an eight-year headstart. Freo will have a 35-year headstart.

Freo and WA3 are very different situations.

Every single Derby has been a sellout for 30 years, we could fill the MCG if it was transported over just for Derbies. The interest will be there and it will be full. Even if a WA3 v Freo Derby could only get 52,000 seats sold with 32,000 Freo Fans and 20,000 WA3 fans, I recon 8000 WC fans would go just so they could wear their WC gear and cheer on WA3.

The population dictates that the situation will actually be easier for WA3. The Bulk of Freo fans were WC fans and switched. The same will happen to WA3 as people are happy to get in on the ground floor because they see opportunity.

 

[Canberra Pear]

The population dictates that the situation will actually be easier for WA3. The Bulk of Freo fans were WC fans and switched. The same will happen to WA3 as people are happy to get in on the ground floor because they see opportunity.

Some will. But not as many as you claim.

Again. West Coast existed for eight years when Freo joined. That's not really long enough to get entrenched support.

West Coast and Freo are now very entrenched. And WA3 won't have the historical WAFL backing that Freo will.

Some will make the leap. But not as many as you claim or hope.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Some will. But not as many as you claim.

Again. West Coast existed for eight years when Freo joined. That's not really long enough to get entrenched support.

West Coast and Freo are now very entrenched. And WA3 won't have the historical WAFL backing that Freo will.

Some will make the leap. But not as many as you claim or hope.

As a Canberra person you should understand how malleable the concept of support is. You argue for a future where Canberra people would have an engaged interest in three teams - an existing pre-GWS team loyalty (Sydney the biggest team or maybe an old team loyalty that was brought to them with to Canberra), GWS itself given it's 20+ year history with the city and any future Canberra academy players going to GWS and perhaps staying there even if Canberra becomes a team, and the actual Canberra team itself. The introduction of GWS to Canberra had people comfortable with being engaged in - some going to the level of active support, others not - two teams, so it's not a big jump to conclude that people will add Canberra onto their existing GWS and other team support.

Yet you define Perth support as some sort of binary switch where if you support one of the three teams you are of zero interest and value to the other two teams.

Not only is this absurd - because existing West Coast and Freo fans are more interested in each other's team and of are economic value to each others team (such as being far more likely to watch a Perth-hosted game on TV of the other team, rather than any given game other than the 12 away games their team plays, played in the east), but in fact the entire premise of the new Perth team is based on this logic. West Coast and Fremantle fans hate each other and want their team to win the flag and don't want the other team to win the flag, but also support each other's economy. West Coast fans are invested in reading news articles about Fremantle players in The West Australian newspaper, West Coast fans attend Fremantle games. Groups of friends and colleagues go to any AFL game in Perth with a cross-section of fans in both teams.

The idea of Perth 3 team isn't necessarily about fans "making the leap" - that will come with children, generational support and engaged local interest of wherever they put their training base/reserves/women's team. But in the first generation, the first 20-40 years of its existent, it's almost irrelevant - it's simply to provide AFL games as an entertainment product for the 1.5+ million engaged AFL fans, many of whom are AFL fans as much as they are fans specifically of their team only (and don't care for the wider AFL).

Whether or not the 25,000 people that turn up to Perth Stadium for a random home Perth 3 game vs. St Kilda or whatever deep in their hearts want West Coast, Freo, Perth 3 or other to win the flag is nowhere near as relevant as you make it out to be. What's relevant than they form part of the 25,000 people that handed over money that makes the team sustainable, and have the option of going to a game that reinforces the general wider city vibes/interest in the league as a whole.

You're framing it entirely incorrectly.

 

[Canberra Pear]

As a Canberra person you should understand how malleable the concept of support is. You argue for a future where Canberra people would have an engaged interest in three teams - an existing pre-GWS team loyalty (Sydney the biggest team or maybe an old team loyalty that was brought to them with to Canberra), GWS itself given it's 20+ year history with the city and any future Canberra academy players going to GWS and perhaps staying there even if Canberra becomes a team, and the actual Canberra team itself. The introduction of GWS to Canberra had people comfortable with being engaged in - some going to the level of active support, others not - two teams, so it's not a big jump to conclude that people will add Canberra onto their existing GWS and other team support.

Yet you define Perth support as some sort of binary switch where if you support one of the three teams you are of zero interest and value to the other two teams.

Not only is this absurd - because existing West Coast and Freo fans are more interested in each other's team and of are economic value to each others team (such as being far more likely to watch a Perth-hosted game on TV of the other team, rather than any given game other than the 12 away games their team plays, played in the east), but in fact the entire premise of the new Perth team is based on this logic. West Coast and Fremantle fans hate each other and want their team to win the flag and don't want the other team to win the flag, but also support each other's economy. West Coast fans are invested in reading news articles about Fremantle players in The West Australian newspaper, West Coast fans attend Fremantle games. Groups of friends and colleagues go to any AFL game in Perth with a cross-section of fans in both teams.

The idea of Perth 3 team isn't necessarily about fans "making the leap" - that will come with children, generational support and engaged local interest of wherever they put their training base/reserves/women's team. But in the first generation, the first 20-40 years of its existent, it's almost irrelevant - it's simply to provide AFL games as an entertainment product for the 1.5+ million engaged AFL fans, many of whom are AFL fans as much as they are fans specifically of their team only (and don't care for the wider AFL).

Whether or not the 25,000 people that turn up to Perth Stadium for a random home Perth 3 game vs. St Kilda or whatever deep in their hearts want West Coast, Freo, Perth 3 or other to win the flag is nowhere near as relevant as you make it out to be. What's relevant than they form part of the 25,000 people that handed over money that makes the team sustainable, and have the option of going to a game that reinforces the general wider city vibes/interest in the league as a whole.

You're framing it entirely incorrectly.

I don't doubt that WA3 will have decent crowds. I just think Purple Suit's estimates are wildly optimistic.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I don't doubt that WA3 will have decent crowds. I just think Purple Suit's estimates are wildly optimistic.

I can disagree, I don't think you have a great understanding of Perth as a city and I trust a person that lives there more than you in this disagreement.

You claim that any derby wouldn't get a sell-out crowd in Perth, I think that's a fanciful comment that lacks an understanding of the city. Freo's home crowds outside of derbies topped 40,000 last year, so any away support in any derby would get at least 35,000+ interested away fans to attend, as a starting point before we get into heightened city interest of the fact that it is is a local derby. To suggest that it wouldn't get a sell-out crowd, to me, suggests both a lack of understanding of Perth footy but also just poor deductive reasoning here.

 

[Canberra Pear]

I can disagree, I don't think you have a great understanding of Perth as a city and I trust a person that lives there more than you in this disagreement.

That trust doesn't seem to transfer to me when discussing Canberra.

They implied Perth could continue growing at 3.1% for the next 15 years. You know that's silly.

They have local knowledge, but you have to recognise the bias in their numbers. Or the others from WA that are disagreeing with what they say.

Otherwise what's the point of debating if you're only going to take their word for it?

 

[threenewpadlocks]

They implied Perth could continue growing at 3.1% for the next 15 years. You know that's silly.

No, that's not actually what they said. They said that my estimate of a 2040 population of 2.8 million was unders because of a current growth rate of 3.1%, which translates to 72,000 per year. They are saying that if the growth rate of 72,000 per year continues, that's a growth of 1.08 million, which makes it about 3.3 million total by 2040. A growth of 72,000 on a population of 3.3 is 2.2% growth, now 3.1%. You misread the argument yet throw around bias with your misreading.

 

[Canberra Pear]

No, that's not actually what they said. They said that my estimate of a 2040 population of 2.8 million was unders because of a current growth rate of 3.1%, which translates to 72,000 per year. They are saying that if the growth rate of 72,000 per year continues, that's a growth of 1.08 million, which makes it about 3.3 million total by 2040. A growth of 72,000 on a population of 3.3 is 2.2% growth, now 3.1%. You misread the argument.

Maintaining 72k for 15 years is also silly.