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Code war! Fight to the death! Invasion by the southern hordes! And so on and so forth. The GWS Giants – and to a lessor degree the Gold Coast Suns – have polarised opinion and created the latest and greatest sports debate.
Will GWS finally crack the Sydney market for the AFL, or will it simply drain AFL resources until they concede defeat and pull the pin in 25 years time?
I don’t know for sure. But there are some things, thanks to the last 25 years, that I do know.
Expansion for both the AFL and NRL is limited. The AFL is certainly well ahead in expansion, but this has simply shown both codes that an awful lot of time and money is needed to get you… not very far.
The Swans have been in NSW since 1982 and the Lions in Qld since 1987. They are both household names in both states. The Swans have won a flag, the Lions have three.
What has this quarter century of residency achieved for the AFL?
The Swans and Lions both have crowd averages of around 25-30K. This is about twice the average number for the NRL with only the Broncos having a bigger crowd average. This is a great achievement for the AFL in the northern states, but importantly, their only great achievement.
The TV ratings for both teams are not pretty. In fact they’re downright ugly. This year the Swans avg audience in Sydney on the Ten Network was 51K and the Lions in Brisbane was 66K.
To give you some perspective, do you remember the Ten Network’s reality TV show Celebrity Dog School? It achieved a five mainland capital city audience of 545K for its debut episode and was immediately moved to a non prime time timeslot before being pulled from the airwaves the following week. If Swans and Lions games were stand alone products they would have received the same treatment long ago.
Soon the NRL will draw some sort of parity with the AFL. They will get their own independent commission and their ‘product’ will be shown, by law, into developing states TV screens at watch able hours every week. Their next lucrative TV deal will leave them cashed up to also spend big on junior development in developing states. The benefits this will give to the NRL can not be over stated.
So is this the part where I declare the NRL will greatly succeed in foreign territory where the AFL has not.
Well actually, no.
The same brick wall that has greeted the AFL excursion up North will soon greet the NRL down south. A brick wall created by over a century of generational tribal support, the type the A- League and Super rugby would love to have.
So if expansion is so limited, why do it?
Because quite simply, the FTA TV networks will give you more money if you can sell them the ‘illusion’ of a national competition. This is the main reason the AFL received more that the NRL in their last TV deals. This is why Perth is ahead of all the heartland bids for the NRL’s 17th team.
You won’t get great ratings away from your heartland but expanding to the mainland capital cities will generate more money for your code overall – at least for the foreseeable future.
And if you’re still reading this, here’s my two cents.
The AFL has a better live game, the NRL a better TV game.
The Swans and Lions will continue to have great crowds but very poor TV ratings.
The Storm and Western Reds will never have crowd figures bigger than the NRL average of about 15K but will get better TV ratings that the Swans and Lions, although still reasonably poor figures.
And as for GWS?
The AFL already have a team in every mainland capital city to extract the maximum revenue from the networks, and there is no support on the ground for a second AFL Sydney team.
However the AFL simply had no where else to go to get its 9th game (Tassie creates very little revenue through TV advertising), and the AFL have never been in a better position financially to give GWS a go.
Will GWS one day grow to be a resounding success? You should look to the Swans, Lions, Storm and Western Reds for your answer.
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