Expansion Wellington Based Club ?? For Sure !!

[LordLucifer]

Pretty sure it's the Hurricanes main home ground, got upgraded for the recent RU world cup

Yep, that makes sense.

 

[nickrebellious]

Imagine the travel from WA > Wellington or Wellington > WA.

Awful.

EDIT: Over 7 hours. I guess A-league teams do it, but a completely different game.

Could work, would give the split round 1 some justification.
WCE v NZ in Perth - Week 1 of Round 1.
NZ v Freo in Wellington - Week before Freo's bye with Freo having an 8 day break.

 

[LBJ6]

I'd like to see this. The AFL would then be renamed to the ANZFL, and i'd love to see how the interstate supporters who argue so vehemently that 'VFL' premierships don't count then change their tune and argue that AFL premierships are still relevant

 

[MrRockett24]

"purpose built" AFL stadium, the answer is 'yes'.

Not having a go...it just informing any more readers.

Heard the ground is as long as the SCG (so horribly small) but is also 20m thinner too.

Sounds like a terrible ground...would be far to quick to move the ball.

Anyways...i like the idea. We should have a Wellington Team. Everyone complained about West Coast when they came into the game...Oh jees, 3-4 hrs is too much and blah blah blah. YES West Coast had trouble early on winning away...and YES Melb teams had trouble travelling the...BUT..havent we moved on.

Look at 2007 Semi..Pies V West Coast...Pies had to travel...and also played an extra 15 mins or whatever it was in a hard fought hard game..then, gave us the fright of a lifetime when they played their guts out..AGAIN in 2007 PF.

Travel is a thing of the past as recovery techniques have come leaps and bounds.

Any hard work travelling for West Coast/Freo and Wellington would be helpout out wiht by AFL Draw (8 day break would work). But 10 years on and it would be a thing of the past.

Bring it on i say.

Only Rule..No Matter what...IT MUST STAY AS AFL!!! Dont change the name.

Edit...if a name change is to take place...make it ARFL Australian Rules Football LEAGUE. Or change the last L for another F for federation, or an A for association.

No way you add letters for NZ and PNG and possible others.

 

[Father Jack]

In the lead-in to the match, one of the TV boffins claims it was a purpose-built AFL ground, don't shoot the messenger.

I heard that too, but I think he qualified it with a quick, almost under his breath "it might as well be" after he said it.

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

Pretty sure it's the Hurricanes main home ground, got upgraded for the recent RU world cup

Definitely is Hurrivcaes home ground. I'm not sure if it got upgraded for the RWC or not, as the whole stadium is new.
It is an oval for limited overs cricket; 50 and 20 overs; with Tests I believe still played at the Basin Reserve. Like most NZ cricket grounds, it is small by Australian standard due to being a snug fit for a rugby field.

 

[Righteo]

Perth is way bigger than Adelaide and to that poster who suggested Perth with be bigger than Brisbane, well possibly but Brisbane can't expand further along the coastline as there is the GC and Sunny Coast. So I highly doubt any Perth Metro area will get to 3.5 million people.

Brisbane isn't far off from agglomerating with GC's metro area is it? Perth is about 5 or so years away from cracking 2 mill but yeah it's not going to overtake Brisbane anytime soon (if ever).

 

[Scotland]

The problem with Tassie is that there are only two genuine options (Hobart & Launceston) which are at opposite ends of the island so there is never the liklihood of generating huge crowds. The population of the whole state was 512,100 in March 2012 so their people are spread way too thin.

The population of Hobart is 211,000. Launceston is 106,000.

The population of Wellington is 395,000. It's hardly an untapped growth market.

The Western Sydney region (which is actually in Australia) is home to 1.6m people, and they get 10,000 people to a home game on a good day.

 

[LordLucifer]

The population of Hobart is 211,000. Launceston is 106,000.

The population of Wellington is 395,000. It's hardly an untapped growth market.

The Western Sydney region (which is actually in Australia) is home to 1.6m people, and they get 10,000 people to a home game on a good day.

The population of Tassie's two biggest cities is 75K less than Wellington and the Kiwis are all in the one place.

 

[Scotland]

The population of Tassie's two biggest cities is 75K less than Wellington and the Kiwis are all in the one place.

They also don't like football.

There are 8 million people in New York City, why don't we put a team there?

 

[LordLucifer]

They also don't like football.

There are 8 million people in New York City, why don't we put a team there?

Travel time and time difference for TV broadcasts .............. silly argument there !!

 

[DivideandMultiply]

Brisbane & Adelaide have Perth covered and Darwin is just another Geelong.

By the way, any coincidence that the AFL promotional ads this season show people in other countries watching our game ?? Maybe a conspiracy theory but its all adding up to me.

No, Brisbane has a larger population than Perth, Adelaide does not. It is quite feasible that in the next decade Perth will overtake Brisbane.

 

[dajesmac]

but we already have a sharrod wellington

 

[Rob]

How about a NZ league actually commencing first before talking about teams in the big time?

 

[WeetBixKid]

Travel time and time difference for TV broadcasts .............. silly argument there !!

how about a team in jakarta

 

[Hawkers]

Heard the ground is as long as the SCG (so horribly small) but is also 20m thinner too.

Sounds like a terrible ground...would be far to quick to move the ball.

Not what I heard and not what I saw

I heard it's slightly longer than the SCG and just as wide as Docklands.

It looked bigger than the SCG regardless, no way is it smaller than that

 

[jatz14]

I think there will be a team in NZ, but probably not for a generation, and probably not in Wellington. It will be in Auckland when they get a suitable venue. So its hardly worth debating details here at the moment. For those who think it is a pipe dream regardless of the time frame, AFLNZ has a link to a radio interview done in the lead up to the Saints game, where they said AFLNZ had 83 staff, almost all devoted to game development. Between them they were exposing over 30 000 NZ kids to AFL over a 6 - 8 week programm every year. The best bit is the NZ government is paying for most of it.

If school programs followed up with a couple of live AFL games a year can get just 10% of the kids exposed to it interested, you build a big potential fan base quite quickly.

 

[The Swert]

Auckland would make much more sense. It's 3.5 times the size of Wellington.

 

[Mr Meeseeks]

The problem with Tassie is that there are only two genuine options (Hobart & Launceston) which are at opposite ends of the island so there is never the liklihood of generating huge crowds. The population of the whole state was 512,100 in March 2012 so their people are spread way too thin.

It shouldnt matter. But money talks.

 

[Tas]

Does Sunt Kulda want to go to NZ on a permanent basis?

 

[Blood Bath]

Not for me. This is AUSTRALIA's game, we don't have to be like the NRL, NBL etc...let our game be ours.

 

[yellowandblack21]

Definitely is Hurrivcaes home ground. I'm not sure if it got upgraded for the RWC or not, as the whole stadium is new.
It is an oval for limited overs cricket; 50 and 20 overs; with Tests I believe still played at the Basin Reserve. Like most NZ cricket grounds, it is small by Australian standard due to being a snug fit for a rugby field.

Westpac Stadium was built in the mid-late 90's to replace the old and decaying rugby stadium Athletic Park, which was truly a terrible place to watch/play a game when a southerly was blowing, which it usually is. Not so sure that it was upgraded for the RWC though, has always been about 33k capacity from day one.
Definitely hosts all limited over cricket, All Blacks tests plus the Phoenix in the A-League.

Decent crowd tonight, but would be interested to find out what % of the 16k "local" crowd were Aussies already living over the ditch...

 

[Bacon Warrior]

Not what I heard and not what I saw

I heard it's slightly longer than the SCG and just as wide as Docklands.

It looked bigger than the SCG regardless, no way is it smaller than that

Dimensions are 152m x 120m IIRC.

 

[Dagless]

Yeah, nah. There is a large number of Aus based supporters travelling for the novelty value and I'd be interested how many of the rest actually paid for their seat.

Take Friday off, 4 day New Zealand weekend.

'Sorry, can't physically make it in, in NZ. Yes, we'll talk about it Monday'.

 

[Sherrinator]

Brisbane isn't far off from agglomerating with GC's metro area is it? Perth is about 5 or so years away from cracking 2 mill but yeah it's not going to overtake Brisbane anytime soon (if ever).

Already has. A national park divides Caboolture from the Sunny Coast.