Does the AFL care about teams in Tasmania and Darwin?

Living in Darwin for 15 years I know AFL is the most dominate sport there and a team should in no doubt be their, the sport is growing due to the NT Thunder in the NEAFL. Alice Springs also can share home games just like the Giants have been using Canberra as their second home. This will also have a huge impact on the indigenous communities who live and breed AFL.

I think Hobart should have it's own AFL team and have Hawks continue playing home games in Launceston and have another AFL team based in Auckland!

Tasmania should definatly get one straight away. Darwin needs to wait a bit longer, but this wont take long. Darwins population is the fastest growing in australia and will reach half a milion by 2050. Canberra and north queensland both desrve a team as well. There is much more need for a team in canberra than one in western sydeny- they already have the swans. Then i think we realy need also to be traying to get a team into North Qld and Papua new guinea. The rugby is already gaining terretory in PNG and planning to establish a team there. This is alraeady land where peoples sport is aussie footy. If we we dont have the guts to go a put teams in remoter areas thern we are gonna lose it out to rugby as they do have the guts and are allready doing it.

Well Andrew Demetriou the CEO of the AFL said in October last year that once the two new teams Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney have setal in to the comp the AFL will go to 20 teams. And he said Tasmania will be the state that gets the 19th team and the 20th will go to either Darwin Western Austraila or North Queensland. The day that happens I will be like the 20th team should go to Darwin becase evry part of Austraila will have a team apart from NT so it should go there. But the promble about Darwin is sport people don't like it because of the weather there it's to hot.

Problem of course is most Canbera people dont identify with Sydney, it is in effect the cultural enemy. The people signing up would be footy fans rather than fans of the new club, in fact if i was still living in Canberra i would be thinking twice about it. Canberra people want their own club rather than a Sydney one, the only reason to sign up for me would be to see some other clubs in town or to expose my kids to more oppurtunity's to make it the AFL via GWS. Having said that, i imagine they will get the required amount, or close to the 5000. When the Swans moved to Sydney they could have got 15,000 pledges to bring the Swans to Canberra rather than Sydney, wonder how many pledges they could have got from Sydney at the time !!. Old ground, but had the Swans gone to Canberra the AFL could have secured both the ACT and the riverina for Australian football, instead of now having to play catch up in the area. But we will never know, maybe a AFL team in Canberra would have gone broke?.

Why are Tassie and the NT not represented in Aust Country Champs - anyone? Well the ACT have missed out on defending their championship title from last year. They defeated Vic Major and WA yet lost narrowly to SA and Qld despite WA defeating Qld easily. NSW actally defeated WA which was their only win of the tournament which offered little consistency due to the truncated format in my opinion. The finals will be played out in the normal full length format and see Vic major v SA in the final, Vic only losing one game for the tournament V the ACT. The ACT will play off v Qld for 3rd and 4th.

Quick update on Aust Country Champs! Qld has defeated Vic 2, ACT def WA, Vic1 def NSW. There will be further fixtures this arfy in what is a new format of truncated games. The finals will see a return to the full four quarter format I believe. The Aust Country Footy site has updates of games for those interested. Enjoy.

Redb It would seem Tassie are cutting off their nose to spite their face in respect of an AFL gig - so they really don't deserve consideration sadly. I think Canberra should be next in line if there is to be an indefinate stale mate across Bass Strait. NZ will trump Tassie if they don't get their house in order - to be sure. Tassie will then become a recruiting source for any NZ concern. Tazealand?

I don't reckon they will get the 5k myself, not in the time frame set, simply because Canberra footy punters have been burnt so often and they don't believe this is anything more than expedience on the part of GWS and will be slow on the uptake. The local business community and footy clubs have been extremely pro active however, which may well be enough to start the ball rolling. Confidence and trust will ensue on the part of the Canberra faithful in time I believe. Meanwhile they bounce the ball in Aust Country Champs today, WA v ACT at Manuka from 11a.m. which should prove a very tough first up encounter for the ACT 18.

No evidence redb. Andrew Demetriou and the AFL commissioners were given a huge wage rise. The AFL has hired hundreds of new employees this year. The AFL has bought 2 high profile rugby league players. The AFL is spending hundreds of millions expanding AFL into Qld and NSW. Soccer is the fastest growing sport in Australia, followed by basketball and netball, not AFL.

Exactly which part of my post is "a load of crap" The fact that Darwin is one of the fastest growing cities? The fact that is has a similar tropical climate to Townsville? The fact that the Cowboys do OK in the NRL? The fact that AFL requires more aerobic capacity and endurance than NRL?

Article on contested footy by Michael D re Tasmania. "Tasmania must show unity in its quest to get AFL licence". http://www.contestedfooty.com/2010/07/tasmania-must-show-unity-in-its-quest-for-an-afl-license/ "Call it the North-South divide, the Launceston-Hobart divide, the Boag’s-Cascade divide – call it whatever. The division that exists in Tassie is holding back the state’s quest for that elusive AFL license..."

Twitter from ACTGWS yesterday reports 500 signed up.

PNG would probably be better off if they export players who send money home, which in effect is what they are doing now.

I suggest you read more on the AFL Independent Commission, its charter, the organisational structure and financial statements.

There is no evidence to support any of your claims.

What a load of crap. The cowboys work because they play night games except for a brief few weeks in the middle of the season. If the AFL went to NQLD they would have to do the same. Not that theres any demand for it.

Read comment no 1, says it all really, they probably will get the 5,000, but there is plenty of scepticism within the Australian football fraternity in Canberra around the AFL. The grass roots base is strong enough, but is the belief in GWS and Sheedy big enough. Good to see Ainslie , Eastlake and co putting their hands in their pocket, possibly they could fund a ACT AFL team to a large extent, i think this was always part of "the plan " for a ACTAFL club.

Lots of profitable companies don't pay dividends and keep it all for themselves. They pay higher remuneration to their staff, hire more staff and expand their business by buying their way into their competitors' territories - like the AFL have to do. Other sporting codes are less profitable, but keep expanding at a faster rate than AFL, because of the appeal of their sport, and not because of how much money they spend on expansion.

The AFL is about growing profit. They didn't give away their AFL TV rights for nothing last time. They are paying kids in NSW and Qld to play AusKick with NAB's money thrown in as well.