AFL reaches in-principle agreement with Tasmania for 19th team

[bornadog]

I wonder if the NT would be the 20th team. The AFL would have to prop it up for quite a while one would think.

Could be called North Australia and take in NT and Northern Qld. Split home games between Cairns, Alice and Darwin

[Stevo]

WA couldn't.

Corporate support from one morally bankrupt mining company or another (Freo have Woodside, West Coast have Mineral Resources) will be there but there isn't the on-the-ground support for another team. Optus holds what? 65k? 70K?? The 3rd team would need to play 'somewhere else' 'cos crowds would be in the 10-15 range.

SA would probs be the reverse - able to generate crowds but battling for the $ from corporates...

Do we need a 20th team? I read somewhere that scheduling is still OK with 19.

[Bulldog Joe]

Do we need a 20th team? I read somewhere that scheduling is still OK with 19.

Gives the 9 games per week plus a bye across the season in an 18 game season.

Probably works very well with the chance for some creative finals to get the season to 26 weeks in total.

[bulldogtragic]

Big question if this goes ahead. Do we have weekly byes? Do we introduce a 20th team? Do we eliminate an existing team?

Happy for Tasmanians to get their own team and hopefully it props up the development of local footy and bring talent back into the pathways and the league itself

NT Government is lobbying hard for a team and putting up a promise of big cash. If GCS aren’t relocated into a Northern Australia team, then this would be #20 in time.

[chef]

Are we diluting the competition too much?

[GVGjr]

Are we diluting the competition too much?

It's a conundrum, Tassie deserve a team but the AFL preferred position of relocating North isn't going to be accepted.
We will be moving very quickly towards a 20th team assuming Tasmania eventuates and I don't think we've done enough to strengthen the competitions under the AFL to support it.

[F'scary]

this move by the AFL has a wiff of the Liz Truss's about it. I can see a Melbourne Club relocating/merging/morphing in the economic fallout.

[bulldogtragic]

Are we diluting the competition too much?

Yep. Assuming the list start bigger like other expansion clubs, say 50 at least for two new clubs. That’s 100 players taken from say the existing lists. Assuming we lost 4-5 good to ok players, and replaced them with DFA’s and state league players, and having our picks pushed way out for many drafts as the new clubs front load picks, then our list for top and mid talent drops off, and the depth is maybe 15-20% in probably Footscray players on our AFEL list. Or holding onto experienced players unlike to play (Wallis, Schache etc).

Diluting the talent pool also makes for a lesser product overall too.

What might be different is if the Tassie fans sell out home games, something GCS & GWS have never done, then maybe top draft picks won’t constantly walk out getting dick of playing in front of 5,000 ‘fans’. This might slow the churn of top kids feeding into Victorian clubs usually Geelong, Richmond, Hawthorn & Collingwood.

Then issues of how clubs who play home games make up the lost cash (will the AFEL simply give them cash to transition to a new income stream?), and then if there’s new ‘zoning’ rights to stimulate local players going into them. That would mean the NGA map would need to be completely re-done. If not abandoned.

The plan with GWS was to give them way too many concessions to get them a flag, which didn’t work. So would they give even more concessions to new club/s to establish them?

I like Tassie, and even the NT getting their own teams as a matter of principle. What happens after that is a really delicate thing. Sure the TV rights is worth more, and the clubs and players should do well financially. But the fine print and the broader consequences are what I’d really like to understand.

In short, yes.

[hujsh]

Gives the 9 games per week plus a bye across the season in an 18 game season.

Probably works very well with the chance for some creative finals to get the season to 26 weeks in total.

Would you be happy with the Bulldogs getting a scheduled a bye round 1? Because someone will have to bite that bullet.

[mjp]

This is great for Tassy and great for the long-term.

It's going to suck short term.

As for the bye's, I would be happy with having a bye in Round 1 if we could play Collingwood as a Bulldogs home game the Thursday or Friday night of Round 2. I would not be happy with a bye round 1 if we were scheduled to play the Giants or Suns AWAY on Sunday of Round 2. It's all swings and roundabouts right??

[bornadog]

Since the last teams to come in to the AFL, Australia's population has grown by about 3 million. This means the pool must be getting bigger, so you would think the AFL should be able to attract more players. However, the conumdrum is whether Aussie rules is growing amongst male atheltes or are other sports attracting them, such as Soccer, Basketball.

AFL really needs to spend more on grass roots footy.

[lemmon]

From the perspective of a new Tasmanian - I moved down here 12 months ago and live in a small rural community - I am incredibly excited about what this will do for the state.

There's a level of tribalism that I had no idea about before I moved down. If you're from Tassie, there are 'Tasmanians' and than there are 'Mainlanders' and they're very different things.

I think a lot of that comes from life being a bit more of a struggle for people that are born and bred Tasmanian. There's less work down here, education levels are some of the worst in the country, young people leave as soon as they can, health care is poor, there's not much public transport and locals have been largely priced out of the property market in the last 5 years...even the weather is harsher and wilder. It's a beautiful place and the people are warm and generous, but there's definitely a feeling that they've been given less and had to do more.

There's a huge desire for something that belongs to the state and a new club is absolutely the right way to go. The Jack Jumpers are massive down here and the NBL has nailed it by getting in first and giving the state a team that belongs to it. In saying that, this is a pure footy state in the same way that Victoria is, and this team will be successful and be something for people down here to rally around and be proud of. I think it'll unite the state in the same way the Cats unite Geelong.

I think one key thing will be making sure it's a team that belongs to Tassie and not to Hobart, and that means playing games in Launceston. There's a big north/south divide down here that exists because most of the state's wealth and facilities are Hobart-centric, so you do risk alienating the rest of the state if games are only played in Hobart.

Really excited about this, glad it's happening and I hope the Northern Territory are next. Footy is a game for the people and this is a terrific move towards recognising that.

[jeemak]

I've said it previously about Tassie, there's something about the place that could trigger if they were just shown some respect and treated somewhere close to equally in Australia's sporting and social construct. An AFL team would help do this.

I'd happily make a five day trip out of it, head to the game on the weekend, off to Barnbougle/ Lost Farm for a few days with wineries along the way.

And a season with one forced bye and one for rest, alongside a single game against each opponent would be perfect for everyone. As for the talent pool, if there was a higher focus on drafting skill rather than athletics then the gap wouldn't look as bad.

[Bulldog Joe]

From the perspective of a new Tasmanian - I moved down here 12 months ago and live in a small rural community - I am incredibly excited about what this will do for the state.

There's a level of tribalism that I had no idea about before I moved down. If you're from Tassie, there are 'Tasmanians' and than there are 'Mainlanders' and they're very different things.

I think a lot of that comes from life being a bit more of a struggle for people that are born and bred Tasmanian. There's less work down here, education levels are some of the worst in the country, young people leave as soon as they can, health care is poor, there's not much public transport and locals have been largely priced out of the property market in the last 5 years...even the weather is harsher and wilder. It's a beautiful place and the people are warm and generous, but there's definitely a feeling that they've been given less and had to do more.

There's a huge desire for something that belongs to the state and a new club is absolutely the right way to go. The Jack Jumpers are massive down here and the NBL has nailed it by getting in first and giving the state a team that belongs to it. In saying that, this is a pure footy state in the same way that Victoria is, and this team will be successful and be something for people down here to rally around and be proud of. I think it'll unite the state in the same way the Cats unite Geelong.

I think one key thing will be making sure it's a team that belongs to Tassie and not to Hobart, and that means playing games in Launceston. There's a big north/south divide down here that exists because most of the state's wealth and facilities are Hobart-centric, so you do risk alienating the rest of the state if games are only played in Hobart.

Really excited about this, glad it's happening and I hope the Northern Territory are next. Footy is a game for the people and this is a terrific move towards recognising that.

As a native Tasmanian I really have to disagree with this point.

While there is a Hobart centric bureaucracy that leads to a Hobart based facility mindset, the wealth of the state is much more decentralised.

Launceston and the North feel more connection financially to Melbourne than Hobart, while the Southern residents project an unalienable right for everything to be Hobart based.

Solving the tribal nature is difficult as it emanates from the first settlement at Port Dalrymple (North) in 1804 as Australia's 3rd European Settlement.

[lemmon]

As a native Tasmanian I really have to disagree with this point.

While there is a Hobart centric bureaucracy that leads to a Hobart based facility mindset, the wealth of the state is much more decentralised.

Launceston and the North feel more connection financially to Melbourne than Hobart, while the Southern residents project an unalienable right for everything to be Hobart based.

Solving the tribal nature is difficult as it emanates from the first settlement at Port Dalrymple (North) in 1804 as Australia's 3rd European Settlement.

Thanks for your insight. It's really interesting to hear the historical context. I'll DM you to learn further, if you don't mind.