Good post, but you don't really offer a solution.
I think the major advantage interstate clubs have is that they can pick and choose where they want to play, it helps a lot having their owners also own the stadium where they play. This is probably the biggest issue for clubs here, the cost of playing games.
We have a very large stadium in the MCG (100k) and a large stadium in TD (55k). MCG is owned by the MCC, they have no incentive to offer clubs a cheap and affordable venue to play games, they are still trying to pay off extensive upgrades to the stadium, none of which make any difference to most clubs who wont utilise the capacity.
TD is still owned by a third part organisation that is looking to make profits, they have no incentive to offer affordable games to clubs.
Like it or not, AFL forces us to play 2 home games at MCG, despite TD being our home ground. Like it or not, AFL would forces us to play 2 or 3 home games at TD even if MCG was our home ground. They wont let clubs play anywhere else.
We would be more profitable playing our home games from Arden Street just in front of our own members than it would be to play games at TD or MCG because they have horrendous overheads and are just not suited to a team of our supporter size. It would be like Eagles playing at MCG every week and getting 40k people to a 100k stadium. You would be lucky to break even on your home games.
Realistically, if AFL is going to tell clubs where to play in Victoria then they need to do a collective barganing arrangement on behalf of all Victorian clubs with the stadium owners, otherwise free clubs up to play where they want to play.
Clubs should never be put in the position where they can't bargain with the stadium owners because they know we will be forced to play due to moronic AFL agreements with stadium owners.
The problem isn't the money that's being generated or given back to the clubs, it's that there is such a huge gap between the AFL and the next best league/s. There isn't a transition that allows clubs (either new or existing) to build support until they are viable enough to enter the league in their own right. No club is going to be able to enter the AFL and immediately be viable, it's just a fact of life. Football clubs need time to attract supporters. Other than entering the AFL, how can they do that? Like the chicken and the egg.
For a lot of clubs, the VFL to AFL transition is much like teams being born from scratch, especially those that had low supporter bases. They were never going to generate the kind of money that was expected just due to timing of the change and haven't really had the funds to improve the situation. Until last year AFL only really gave us enough to break even assuming a bare bones budget. That allows you to keep your head above water, it doesn't help you to fix the problem.
This year is the first year we are going to be given an amount that allows the club start to do something about our issues. The sooner we do not need that assistance, the better.
Not that I have a solution to the problem either. But I know you can't judge the success, or potential success of a new team in the AFL by the support they will immediately attract. Look 10, even 20 years into the future and judge prospective support levels.
We do have a number of issues, I don't have the answers to all the problems, I just know the AFL is starting to become aware of what the issues are, finally. When you know what the issues are you can at least start to address them.
AFL just does not return enough to clubs, to generate $1.4 billion over 5 years and return about $600 million for a sevice based industry with little in the way of overheads it is a meager investment in the clubs that are all helping to generate that revenue.
That is where it needs to start. AFL distributions do not even pay the salary of players. Football clubs in the USA thrive on just broadcasting revenue alone, if the AFL is going down the track where they throw equallity out the window for the sake fo maximising broadcasting revenue then they owe a lot to clubs to ensure the sacrifices made result in a significant distribution made to the clubs.