Don't take it personally because it's not just the Suns and GWS that would be in the firing line. There are clubs that have been around for 100 years and still require millions from the AFL every year just to stay afloat. But the AFL's current strategy of simply throwing money at clubs without addressing the underlying problem is fine whilst the money is actually coming in. But if the revenue was curtailed significantly then the money may not be there to patch over the cracks.
You say "Nonsense", but what options would the AFL have if they lose $100 million in revenue every year from the TV rights?
Tend to agree on the possibility of TV rights money softening. That seems a real danger, although TV networks may find that they have little choice but to pay up due to the importance of live broadcasts. If any moderation in rights money did occur but more or less affected all sports, this would probably leave the AFL in a relatively decent position due to its strong attendances, memberships and sponsorships.
To me, the "struggling hundred year old clubs" thing seems to be by design really. When total revenue grows, salary caps rise. To ensure a reasonably close competition, all clubs need to lift their spending roughly in line with the salary cap no matter what their relative financial position. That will always require equalization measures -- more now than in the days of state leagues because it is no longer viable to have a few clubs almost permanently down the bottom of the ladder. In the old days, the games were all "local derbies", which helped to pad out the smaller attendances with away supporters.
Yes the AFL could use a club's relative financial weakness as pretext for removing or relocating it but IMO that's all it would be -- a pretext in which the AFL pretended equalization measures were somehow "unaffordable". Within a short time, the reduced competition would once again require equalization measures as a consequence of player-salary and other expenditures being adjusted to movements in total revenue.
For a similar reason, I don't really buy the AFL crying poor when it comes to introducing a Tasmanian team. I think they could and should introduce one.