When it comes to expansion, the difference between the AFL and reactionary short-term knee-jerk panic merchants is that the AFL, when it has made the tough decision, will stay the course and see their commitment through.
They won’t cut and run at the first sign that it won’t be easy.
We’ve seen that before. It was tough for the Swans when they came to Sydney in 1982. Many wondered if they could survive.
There were many who questioned whether the AFL had any business being in Sydney. That the Swans were a waste of time and effort, and would never work.
In 1992, the AFL had the opportunity to kill the Swans off. They didn’t.
They stayed the course, and the rewards followed. Now the Swans are established and secure.
But it took a generation to get there.
Expansion of a league can be a controversial issue.
Gordon Smith’s article on The Roar earlier this week, while reflecting on AFLW not expanding to ten teams until 2019 and the AFL not introducing a Tasmanian team, also spoke of the AFL’s experiences to date with Gold Coast Suns and GWS Giants.
It lamented that the new clubs’ crowds weren’t as big as those of clubs in the code’s heartland that have been around for more than a century.
But of course the traditional heartland clubs didn’t become what they are overnight.
They were created, not by the tens of thousands of members they have today, but by a small group of visionaries. Small in number, but with a dream and a plan. They didn’t live to see their clubs become the powerhouses they are today.
As an example, the Western Bulldogs were created in 1877. They cracked the 15,000 member mark for the first time in 1997 – 120 years later.
None of the foundation members lived to see that milestone. They’d long departed this life. But their legacy lives on.
Records are scarce, but no doubt there were tough times in the early years. But if the Bulldogs had thrown in the towel in 1882 and dissolved themselves, much would have been lost from the game.
(AAP Image/Julian Smith)
For the new clubs, the small group of visionaries are still alive. They’re coming from a long way behind, well over a century. But slowly catching up.
GWS Giants brought up 15,000 members for the first time last year. It took them five years to do what it took the Western Bulldogs 120 years to achieve.
Collingwood was created in 1892. What were their home crowds in 1897 and how do they compare with the crowds of GWS Giants today?
If the VFL had said that because Collingwood didn’t have 70,000 members and weren’t averaging 60,000 to their home games in 1897 that therefore they shouldn’t exist, the club and the game would never have become what they are today.
Expansion can’t be written off after a few years. And the AFL know that.
When the Giants club was launched, Andrew Demetriou explicitly stated that this was a commitment not just for two years or five years – but for 20 years, 50 years, as long as it takes. I know because I was there.
Nothing the AFL has said or done since has deviated from that theme. Because the AFL is committed to staying the course.
They won’t be throwing in the towel. Why would they?
In the overall scheme of things, the Giants’ crowds aren’t all that bad. They’re close to NRL crowds in Sydney.
Last Saturday’s Giants versus Richmond game at Spotless Stadium outdrew the NRL game at ANZ that was on immediately after. And that’s not an isolated case.
(AAP Image/David Moir)
In this day and age, the primary income driver of professional sport is not gate receipts but TV rights. And the AFL have that covered.
Any support the AFL provide to the Giants is coming out of a $2.5 billion TV rights package. When you’re getting that sort of money, you can afford to spend less than one per cent of it to grow the game.
With TV rights critical for the success of professional sport, the numbers that are of the most importance is not so much the attendance figure on the scoreboard in the last quarter, but the TV ratings that are published the next day.
With the Giants’ support contingent on TV rights, the Giants need to pull their weight with ratings – particularly in the pay-TV component.
Last Saturday’s Giants versus Richmond game drew a Fox rating of 271k. It was the highest-rating program on all of Foxtel for the day.
More often than not, the Giants game is the highest-Fox-rating AFL game for the day.
The Giants are paying for themselves several times over. Far from a black hole, they’re playing their part in bringing the TV dollars in.
Expansion is a long-term commitment, over a generation of more. Sadly, other codes haven’t had the means or the patience to last the course.
The Western Reds, South Queensland Crushers and Adelaide Rams are no more. Likewise North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United. And a Super Rugby franchise will be gone next year.
And with those clubs gone, all the effort and expense that was put into establishing those clubs have gone. And the code’s presence in those places suffers.
Some clubs mismanaged, others swept away in a tide of change around the code. All not getting the support of the governing body; their short lives extinguished before they had the opportunity to fulfil their dreams.
When a league decides to expand, it needs to be a long-term commitment. An excellent piece by Stuart Thomas on The Roar earlier this week, entitled ‘It’s time for the FFA to dream, build a dam and forget the numbers‘ muses on the round-ball code’s expansion hopes.
The writer pleads with the FFA to have the vision to grow the game, to take the hit with low crowds in the early years for long-term gain – and to stay the course for a generation and longer.
In other words, to do what the AFL do with their expansion.
Obviously we’d love bigger crowds. But that takes time and money. It’s a long-term commitment.
When expanding to new horizons, the book has a simple message on the cover – ‘don’t panic’.
The AFL aren’t panicking. The Giants are here to stay.
Gezbee
Guest
In response to a reply I got. Correct me if I am wrong cricket does not have teams from Canberra (ACT) or Darwin (NT). You can not compare EPL to AFL the English football system has four main divisions and every single town and I mean every one has a football team or two defending on the size of the tiown or city and every one of these teams has the chance to break into the EPL technically due to the promotion / relegation system. What would be wrong for the AFL to have representative teams from all the states and territories. One team from Tasmania should not polarise the north and south but on the contrary unite it as the team could base its games and feeder teams around both areas unique but still possible. Anyway just a suggestion personally I would love to see it .
Leonard
Guest
"AFL then wins the prize for being the only truly national sport in the country": two questions about this claim aare 1. ever heard of cricket? 2. if being "truly national" means having clubs in every major + median population centre, can anyone name some countries where that's the case? Aren't there plenty of large cities in the US which don't have an NFL / NBA / MLB / NHL team? Aren't EPL teams in two clusters, one in the NW and the other in greater London? So, wouldn't the AFL presence in the five biggest States be enough to be reckoned "national"? Recent developments in Tasmanian football show why trying to put one AFL club there would likely put off the half which misses out.
Gezbee
Guest
I have said before and say it again. Relocate North Melbourne to Canberra. 2 new teams from TAS and NT. AFL then wins the prize for being the only truly national sport in the country. Canberra Roos; Tassie Devils and NT Thunder. It practically writes itself. Even better would be to let the AFL womens comp get there first as a prime example of how it could work in their comp.
Mickyo
Guest
I notice that GWS has gone over 20,000 members the other day and they've have supplied a breakdown. Canberra has around 4,000 members, and 14,000 in NSW. In Sydney Blacktown has over 900 members, the Hills Shire over 870 and Parramatta 550 followed by Canada bay and Penrith
Republican
Guest
.......mmmm, I believe that if the AFL took gates seriously in respect of a criteria to grow the game nationally, then we would have teams in Canberra and Tassie rather than GC and WS by now..........
Leonard
Guest
About "……….have you heard of air travel? Hobart is a 40 min plane flight from Melbourne" - but it's not during those nice airborne 40 minutes that the hassles of passenger flying happen.
Republican
Guest
........they the AFL should firstly grow the code such that it is truly national, before contemplating any off shore commercial folly. Personally I believe the codes strength is in its domestic DNA, so my hope is that it remains domestic otherwise it may well compromise its cultural capital to this end.......
Republican
Guest
.........fact is there were significant numbers of ACT players being recruited to the VFL pre AFL. The code has remained resilient in the nations capital despite the AFL's neglect and both the Swannies presence and to a lesser extent the plastic GWS, sees it remain a significant force in a saturated market, competing with Union and League for grass roots interest. The problem is the footy community here know full well that GWS together with the AFL, will drop Canberra like a hot spud when or if they capture the imagination of the WS sporting public.........
Republican
Guest
........ what code and in what country over 100 years?
Republican
Guest
..........have you heard of air travel? Hobart is a 40 min plane flight from Melbourne.
Republican
Guest
.......but it does have the effect of disenfranchising heartlands. The AFL are losing patronage in their traditional areas through an ongoing commercial expedience and tokenistic presence. Commercially speaking the AFL are resigned to compromising small markets i.e. Tassie and the ACT to mention two, preferring to punt on the big potential tele markets i.e. W.S. In the meantime if these expansions prove fraught commercially over the coming decades, they may rue the day they neglected established Tassie and the ACT markets, as they stand to lose these to competing codes, in the process.
Floreat Pica
Guest
While I'd love to see a Tassie team as soon as possible, moving the gcs would be a terrible way to do it for both states. Even with the appalling football being played by the nominak teams uo here in qld, their good work in the communities up the coast is making strong progress with juniors which flows through to interest in the game in many different ways. Two teams means competition for local clinics and hearts and minds. GCS is building good foundations in Nth Q which will pay off for the enite league.
Pedro
Guest
The GC has had alot of talented footballers come out of the region. I've said a million times over on here. Queenslanders will support any QLD team as long as they are winning.
mds1970
Roar Guru
The one thing that does wonders for improving the home grown talent is the much-vaunted Academy system; which allows clubs to use their own resources to build a talent pool from players who wouldn't otherwise be draftable. And it does encourage junior players to make AFL their sport of choice, because it creates a credible pathway for NSW/Qld talent to make it to the AFL. Callum Mills has openly admitted that if there was no Swans Academy he'd have stayed in rugby union, and there are others who wouldn't have selected AFL as their sport.
mds1970
Roar Guru
The harrassment of Adam Goodes stepped up after he called out that young girl for the racist insult. Makes it fairly clear what it was all about. Great player, was treated badly by too many supporters in the final stages of his career.
Hunter
Guest
Good crowd for the Swans considering their poor form this year. Also note that the total audience (TV+crowd) of the two games in Sydney last night: Swans v Hawks - 127k (48k on 7, 43k on fox, 36k at the game) Souths v Eels - 313k (240k on 9, 59k on fox, 14k at the game) Whats happened to NRL fox viewers in Sydney??? And impressive the percentage of AFL fans that make it to games.
Leonard
Guest
Or, maybe, "genuine and [semi-] widespread support" from the half of the Island where it's put. In many posts to stories about 'AFL in Tasmania' this is a quite usual comment: "If they (it's always 'they') put the team (it's always 'team', almost never the 'club') up / down there, well, I'm / we're bloody well not going". Plus there are far too many dodgy population comparisons with the Gold Coast and with Geelong quite ignoring the very physical geographical fact of 400Nm of Bass Strait, and the equally obvious absence of road / rail links between Tasmania and the mainland.
Gyfox
Guest
Taking you seriously, CS it is probably because AFL crowds have a better cross-section of the Australian community (unlike NRL) & more likely to have your racist bogan element as a % of the crowd - albeit small. AFL crows are also much bigger than NRL & thus have more people generally, including bigots,racists, sexists, homophobes, islamphobes..........& whatever else you care to mention.
Gyfox
Guest
clipper - I think the Swans crowds (& thus membership) have increased because the SCG has been improved & expanded recently. It was coincidental that this was at the time that GWS were created. Last night's crowd was 36,000, compared with 14,000 at the Olympic Stadium last night for the game between 2 big Sydney NRL teams. This verifies what MDS is saying above.
Hunter
Guest
I find the timeline of expansion fascinating. In only 35 years the competition has been transformed. Since 1982 the longest time between new teams has been 14 years. Reasonable to suggest that the AFL will look different at some stage in the near future. It would be great for the game and the national competition to see Tasmania admitted, surely it will happen sometime in the next decade. I have nothing against the Kangaroos but I fear for their long term future. Would be sad to see them go the way of Souths and Fitzroy but a prolonged time at the bottom of the ladder will have them feeling the pinch. No doubt the AFL at some point will again offer them $100million to move cities. 1982 - Sydney 1987 - West Coast & Brisbane 1991 - Adelaide 1995 - Fremantle (1996 - Fitzroy's last season) 1997 - Port Adelaide 2011 - Gold Coast 2012 - GWS