The Cut the Teams/Too Many Teams in Victoria thread

Sep 6, 2005
144,446
94,353
AFL Club
Fremantle
When was the last time the NFL reduced the number of teams ?
They havent, but they havent ever expanded BEYOND the means of the country to provide pro-worthy talent. The AFL has expanded for too much beyond the means of the country to provide pro-worthy talent. It's evident again when you look thru the lists of every team.
 

SterlingArcher

Brownlow Medallist
May 16, 2014
12,163
15,983
AFL Club
Carlton
Merge Richmond with Brisbane. 'Brisbane Tigers'. Keep the big cat identity, turn Brion into a Liger, gets good growth for the game in QLD with the big support Richmond has.

North Melbourne and Hawthorn combine to play 5 Launceston games, 4 Hobart games and 2 'home' Victorian games.

Western Bulldogs to play 7 Ballarat games, 1 country Victoria game and 3 'home' Melbourne games.

Gold Coast, St Kilda and GWS out.

New WA team.

Becomes:
  1. Adelaide Crows
  2. Carlton Blues
  3. Collingwood Magpies
  4. Essendon Bombers
  5. Fremantle Dockers
  6. Geelong Cats
  7. Melbourne Demons
  8. Port Adelaide Magpies
  9. Queensland Tigers
  10. Sydney Swans
  11. Tasmanian Hawks
  12. Victorian Bulldogs
  13. West Coast Eagles
  14. Western Miners
14 teams - play each other team once (13 games), then play 7 teams again (20). Top 6. 3 v 6, 4 v 5, winners play 1 and 2 in preliminary finals.

Keep the draft age the same. But decrease the rookie list to 3, and reduce senior lists to 37 for a total of 40. Open 'top up' rules for teams with massive injury lists, at the AFL's discretion. Go from about 810 players (combining senior lists and rookie lists) to 560. 240 less players...

Mostly kidding ^^^ but I don't know, apart from the old 'get rid of GWS/GC' and 'Tasmanian' team, it's different to other suggestions.
 

Coolangatta

Norm Smith Medallist
Oct 27, 2007
6,890
5,874
Western Australia
AFL Club
Brisbane Lions
Relocate the Hawks to Tassie, get rid of the Suns, Giants, Saints, Bulldogs, Melbourne and North. Top up the remaining eleven teams and relocated Hawks with the best players from those clubs and you have a 12 team competition where everyone plays each other twice, full of talented squads.
 

jackdanielz3

Senior List
Apr 26, 2015
234
546
AFL Club
Fremantle
18 teams in a country wth our small population and 3 other popular football codes for competition is madness MADNESS
 
18 teams in a country wth our small population and 3 other popular football codes for competition is madness MADNESS
5th highest averaging sporting attendance in the world, madness
 
Apr 7, 2012
18,188
13,947
Sydney
AFL Club
Sydney
Other Teams
Coney Island, GWS, The Exers!
Not entirely....

If they were looking at cutting back to 12/14 as suggested, then I think GWS/GC would go too.

Carrying 4/18 clubs that make serious losses to the game for expansion purposes is one thing, 4/12 would be a lot tougher.

not necessarily if the AFL was to drastically reduce teams it would be the the intention of creating "super clubs" in vic this means not just reduced teams it means owning etithad and moving away from the MCG to increase the league revenue it means increasing ticket prices. etc, etc.

The majority of the money given to the expansion teams has already been dished out, last years report showed that neither expansion side received that much more money then any other club. in fact GWS received less then 3 vic clubs last year.

For mine there's no way the AFL will voluntarily cull teams if it means they would lose drastic amounts of revenue. they don't care about talent levels, what they care about is their bottom dollar. Whether the public see it or not the AFL believes in these ventures so long as they are able to distribute the funds they will keep them.

That said, its far more likely that any culling is forced by situations outside of the AFL's control. namely pokie reforms at a federal or state level. If Victoria gets whacked by pokie reforms several clubs will be facing the abyss and the expansion clubs will instantly come under pressure as the first to go in order to prevent the collapse of several vic clubs. even large clubs would struggle to make profits under their current business models.
 
Apr 12, 2012
45,989
41,667
AFL Club
GWS
Completely different dynamic. Not even an analogy.

Super League was a breakaway comp. So TWO rival leagues playing concurrently. Obviously that's going to tear at the seams of fan loyalty, tradition, etc. Sheer shameless money-grab motivation involved that also rubs fans up the wrong way.

Here, I'm focusing on a real and evident issue of too many teams for not enough pro-worthy talent out there, and the too-young age allowed for rookies to take up list space on AFL teams. And then when you get your typical amount of injuries per year, the league is flooded even more with mediocre players, and the whole skill/talent level, the spectacles, drops right around the league. Looking at not breaking away and creating a new comp. Looking at a fix at many different levels -- cull teams, reduce list sizes, increase age of draft-eligible players, create a more semi-pro state league farm system to support that. A whole infrastructure.

No its not.

The breakaway league was because "some" thought as you do that there were to many teams and there should be cuts.

This started the war.

No way will everyone agree to axe 6 clubs. As such there will be two sides.

You want a war again, this time for Aussie Rules.

You are foolish.
 
Jul 2, 2010
37,953
36,136
Adelaide
AFL Club
Carlton
not necessarily if the AFL was to drastically reduce teams it would be the the intention of creating "super clubs" in vic this means not just reduced teams it means owning etithad and moving away from the MCG to increase the league revenue it means increasing ticket prices. etc, etc.

It would also require the Melbourne clubs to be willing to vote each other out of the competition, since the AFL cant unilaterally decide that. Theres also the fact that the AFL would have a hard time pulling a fitzroy scenario again. Further the AFL cant get away from the MCG per se, its contract is for another 27 years.

The majority of the money given to the expansion teams has already been dished out, last years report showed that neither expansion side received that much more money then any other club. in fact GWS received less then 3 vic clubs last year.

I damn near wet myself reading this. You are aware that GWS and Gold Coast funding comes in two parts - the AFLs standard distributions and future fund payments - which as you correctly point out are on par with other clubs. What you've missed is the additional funds provided to GWS and Gold Coast through the separate New Markets budget (Shown in the AFL Annual Report as being 9.387 million for 2014)

Page 22 of the GWS Annual Report says

During the Period, the Club received grant revenue of $20,161 ,867 from the AFL (reported as $13,548,317 in distributions in the AFL report) During the year the Club borrowed $1,250,000 from the AFL which will not attract any interest charge and is to bc repaid over the next four years.

AFL and Government grants accounted for over $23.5 million of a total $32 million revenue. GWS are nowhere NEAR viable at this point.

its worth noting that according to page 17 of Gold Coasts annual Report it recieved $16,506,277 in afl revenue. This isnt too bad compared to the Dogs $14,323,873 as reported in the AFL Annual Report.
 
Jul 28, 2012
11,010
10,327
Melbourne, the lost City.
AFL Club
Geelong
Other Teams
QPR, Buffalo Bills
I think back in the 90's they only wanted 8 teams in Victoria, the only casualty was Fitzroy. The League was desperate to see the Melbourne/Hawthorn merger go through, they have had a red line through the Dogs, Roos and Saints ever since, but they all keep bouncing back! They will never admit it, but the AFL would be more than happy with just 16 teams nationwide. The expansion program was always going to happen, they wanted 2 teams in each state and they got them, what happens from here is anybody's guess? I doubt we will go to 20 teams, the talent pool simply isn't there, i reckon the next 10 years will be the most tumultuous in Australian football history.
 
I think back in the 90's they only wanted 8 teams in Victoria, the only casualty was Fitzroy. The League was desperate to see the Melbourne/Hawthorn merger go through, they have had a red line through the Dogs, Roos and Saints ever since, but they all keep bouncing back! They will never admit it, but the AFL would be more than happy with just 16 teams nationwide. The expansion program was always going to happen, they wanted 2 teams in each state and they got them, what happens from here is anybody's guess? I doubt we will go to 20 teams, the talent pool simply isn't there, i reckon the next 10 years will be the most tumultuous in Australian football history.
But with the Expansion teams the talent level is expected to grow in those areas.
 
Jul 2, 2010
37,953
36,136
Adelaide
AFL Club
Carlton
I think back in the 90's they only wanted 8 teams in Victoria, the only casualty was Fitzroy. The League was desperate to see the Melbourne/Hawthorn merger go through, they have had a red line through the Dogs, Roos and Saints ever since, but they all keep bouncing back! They will never admit it, but the AFL would be more than happy with just 16 teams nationwide. The expansion program was always going to happen, they wanted 2 teams in each state and they got them, what happens from here is anybody's guess? I doubt we will go to 20 teams, the talent pool simply isn't there, i reckon the next 10 years will be the most tumultuous in Australian football history.

The AFL officially abandoned mergers as a concept in 2001. Elliot, who proposed the breakaway comp with less teams in 1986, kept trying to merge with clubs up until the 1999 grand final and then gave up as it was clear the league and its clubs just werent serious about cutting the numbers.
 
Apr 12, 2012
45,989
41,667
AFL Club
GWS
It takes years to develop talent at the youth level.
People taking up AR will occur MORE now in those regions.
But the talent filtering INTO the AFL will not be pro-worthy just because a million more 5 year olds are playing AusKick.
It takes decades of evolution.
Meanwhile....the AFL comp is already over-flooded with SA/WA/VIC let alone NSW/QLD/ACT/etc mature age players who are NOT pro-worthy elite level players.....because.....there are too many teams, the list sizes are too big, and rookies are entering those lists too young.
So carlton 1st to go?

When i see a post saying, "I think we should cut or merge teams and (insert name of own team) should be one of them", then i will take it seriously.
 

deck

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 7, 2004
5,028
3,079
Melburn
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
Liverpool, SF 49ers, FSU
How do you decide who to cut? 4 Melbourne teams?

Based on population numbers and using Adelaide as a base suggests Melbourne have 2 teams too many not including Geelong. Perth should be getting another team.
 
Sep 6, 2005
144,446
94,353
AFL Club
Fremantle
So carlton 1st to go?

When i see a post saying, "I think we should cut or merge teams and (insert name of own team) should be one of them", then i will take it seriously.


Keep Giants in Western Sydney and relocate Bulldogs to Canberra.
Boot the Suns out and relocate Kangaroos to Gold Coast. Or, merge Suns/Kangaroos a la Bears/Lions.
Relocate Saints to Tasmania -- who would play half-half in Hobart and Launceston.
Merge Demons and Blues....Melbourne Blues. Retain the Carlton jumper and colors. Or Blues take over the Dees. Same diff.

That's down to 16, so far.
 
Back