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Both AFL expansion teams are playing in the first half of Round 1, but the question still remains, were both Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney worthy of being the new expansion teams?
Looking at the figures you would have to argue no.
We all understand why the two clubs were the AFL’s preferred options – they aren’t in AFL heartland areas, the AFL doesn’t wish for any other codes to dominate across the country and given the potential growth of the two areas, it looks like a reasonable choice.
Gold Coast are now in their fourth season and should be showing growth, as should GWS in their third year.
Currently GC are sitting on 11,269 members for the 2014 season. When added with Brisbane’s 20,105 members, the two Queensland sides have a total of 31,374 members.
Presently, 10 clubs in the AFL have more members than these two clubs combined and last year on final figures, the same 10 clubs had more members than these two sides combined.
When you add that for at least the last five years Brisbane have made a financial loss and Gold Coast are being propped up by the AFL, it means the Queensland market can barely sustain one team, let alone two.
GWS have 9,798 members currently, 1000 less than the same time last year. The Swans are travelling along okay with 34,366 members, but in a city of over four million people and given the recent success Sydney have experienced (a flag and the biggest name in footy moving to play with them), that number should be much bigger.
Seven clubs have more members than the two NSW clubs combined, and interestingly Collingwood are only a few members short of having more than the four clubs combined.
Let’s look at these numbers in comparison to other recent additions to the AFL.
In 1991, Adelaide Football Club entered the league, and began with 25,087 members – at the time making them the most-supported club, membership-wise, in the competition.
They stayed at the top until 2009, when on the back of a Premiership, Hawthorn overtook the Crows.
Fremantle entered the comp in 1995, starting with 18,456 members. They were fifth on the ladder membership-wise in their first season, with just over 16,000 members the average.
Port Adelaide entered in 1997, with 35,809 members, ranking second behind cross-town rivals Adelaide. For the first three years of their existence in the AFL, the two SA clubs ranked one and two, membership-wise.
So can Queensland and New South Wales, with their massive NRL-focussed population, support two AFL clubs each? Early indications would say no, they can’t, and the AFL has made a mistake not taking the game to the people of Tasmania.
Unless things change big time, neither state will support two AFL sides, and they will continue to rely on the AFL to prop them up.
The AFL will never admit their mistake here, but time will show the wrong choices were made.
Not only was the competition compromised draft-wise when the new teams entered, it will forever be compromised financially as well.
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