St Kilda can merge with St Kilda City and play in the Southern Football League ...
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The Geelong Hawks or the Hawthorn Cats.
I prefer shorter quarters (20min no time added), mandatory byes for players (but not teams, players can only play a max number of games in a season) and a 34 game H+A season (Feb to Oct)
Top 4 over 3 weeks. No need to be shortAdd a final 12 and 16 weeks of finals and that's about right.
This isn’t pretty, but I think it will come from 18 teams down to 12, or if they get scared, 14.
Cats/Bulldogs makes geographical sense. The AFL will need to hold onto Geelong as an entity because Hutchy might be right, they’ll have to auction off Etihad and will want a boutique base near Melbourne. (After the merger ... who owns Whitten Oval? Noice real estate, Kimmy.)
St Kilda/Hawthorn makes geographical sense. The new East Melbourne Hawks still wouldn't have a good base, so share digs with Richmond. (Of course, if the AFL were looking to the bigger picture, they’d merge the Saints into the Demons and resolve two millennia of spiritual conflict.)
Carlton absorb North: Carlton Kangaroos, based at Carlton. North’s assets sold and put into the AFL.
Essendon prefers to go bust rather than merge; they survive. Ditto Tigers, but in Tasmania. Collingwood absorb Melbourne.
Brisbane absorbs the Gold Coast, Swans absorb GWS. Basing the Queensland Suns in Logan is not ideal – poor public transport from both Brisbane and Gold Coast. It would be impossible to maintain two home grounds..
Victoria has five clubs and interstate teams are a majority. Victoria is angry; the rest of Australia is happy. Players from merged teams are given the option of moving back to a club in their home state. There are 12 teams, and 22-week home and away season. Just like before ...
It would mean 6*22= 132 games. compared to 9*22=198 games.... that's a huge loss of media money. As it is atm ... the extra game GC and GWS supply pay for their participation.
https://www.theage.com.au/podcast/t...come-back-onto-the-table-20200325-p54dql.html
“Caroline Wilson, Jake Niall and Michael Gleeson discuss the long-term impacts of the shutdown on the game, including the fact that club mergers are back on the table. Is this how the number of clubs in Victoria get reduced?”
I haven’t listened to the podcast, but the premise got me thinking. If the AFL was determined to reduce the number of Victorian teams (through merging) from the current 10 down to 6 (drastic I know) which clubs would make the best fit? Would it make sense for the Hawthorn-Melbourne merge that almost happened many years ago still make sense? Would Geelong be a natural merge with the Western Bulldogs? I know many here, me included, would see the GCS as an obvious team to eliminate but for this exercise (it’s intended to be fun and not deadly serious) I’d like the rationalisation to take place through Victorian teams only.
Any suggestions on teams to merge?
I have just left a meeting with the other Mods...
To make our life a little easier we call on the AFL to liquidate every club EXCEPT Geelong and therefore, present us with the Premiership cup every year...retaining Chris Scott on his present salary, who would then become the greatest coach of all time.
We feel that The Chris Scott thread however should remain, allowing the usual suspects to complain he is paid too much.....and allow debate on why he dropped Stanley for the 2019 QF..... and why he still selects Zach Guthrie, despite him averaging zero possessions. (even though everyone else does as well )
I urged the rest to allow the Cam Guthrie thread to be retained for Patrick Bateman's sake, but this was vehemently overruled leading to my good self being ambushed, tarred and feathered before I could leave the building.
Actually, I have become rather fond of feathers as a result.
There is some doubt this suggestion will gain traction however.
If Geelong merged I would stop watching AFL, full stop.
I reckon it depends how it happens. If your like Fitzroy and your just shut down and they call another team the Lions. Then your done. Nothing Fitzroy about them.Such a lie maxy you have way to much patriotism for the cats to let that happen. What if they merged with tassie somehow and played 8 games in launceston a year you would be all over it like a wet rag. Beats swimming over 4 times a year
I reckon it depends how it happens. If your like Fitzroy and your just shut down and they call another team the Lions. Then your done. Nothing Fitzroy about them.
If they let that merger with North happen they would of been happy.
If we went in to save a team like Norf, not be forced to merge, I would still watch.
It loses you the pay tv games, but not the commercial stations. Will fox sports still be here in 18 months?
Agree, if I was Gil I'd be saying to North & Hawks, "You were happy to take Tasmanian money for so long now you can sleep in the beds you made".....so that takes it down to 8 in VictoriaSeeing as both Hawthorn and North have shown a desire to play in Tasmania I'd say merge them and then play at least 6 home games in Hobart. Melbourne and Carlton seem like a good fit.
Rather than mergers, i wonder if there is the possibility of a revamped VFL that includes relegation. Clubs that go broke - and don’t kid yourself, clubs will become insolvent if the season doesn’t happen - can literally negotiate with creditors to relaunch as a VFL club and get the opportunity to Trade back to solvency with massively reduced costs of VFL. So could we see an AFL that consisted of
COLLINGWOOD
Richmond
Essendon
Carlton
Hawthorn
Geelong
West coast
Freo
Brisbane
Sydney
GWS
Adelaide
A VFL consisting of
Coburg
Williamstown
Frankston
Weribee
Norf
Melbourne
Footscray
StKilda
Preston
Port melbourne
- come round 15-16 - for half a dozen clubs - the remaining games are basically a waste of time
It would mean 6*22= 132 games. compared to 9*22=198 games.... that's a huge loss of media money. As it is atm ... the extra game GC and GWS supply pay for their participation.
If we want to keep the 22 round season, we look back to the 70s and 80s when there were 12 teams in the VFL.If we could only have a system - like the old VFA in its heyday - Div 1 and Div 2 - the premiers of Div 2 promoted and the wooden spoon team in Div 1 relegated
Like if the AFL - ( like the EPL) had the bottom 3 relegated each year - that would create excitement/interst - for the teams occupying the last 5-6 spots - and really the competition - instead of the season dying in the aarse
If we want to keep the 22 round season, we look back to the 70s and 80s when there were 12 teams in the VFL.
Instead of cutting 6 teams, if we add/promote 6 teams to make 24, then split the AFL into 2 divisions (Div 1/Div2) with a bottom4/top4 relegation+promotion system we have a sustainable full H+A fixture combined with a more sustainable team structure. imho
I can see the argument, I'm just not sure what proportion of that media money will be around. There was already a sense that the game had asked for, and got, too much from broadcasters in the last deal. And in any case, you aren't factoring in building up the women's game. Once you do that, you have more games - 264 - not fewer.