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Why would the AFL start up a team if no one wants one?

They will never fold.

Remember the Swannies pulled crowds of 3,000 for 15 years before they caught on. Now it's something like 30,000 average after 30 years in Sydney.

I guess the AFL are ready to tough it out until the clubs is self-sustaining. Probably will take a decade.

So how much compo does Vlad Dimwit want from the RAS/NSW Govt when they are inconvenienced from the Royal Easter Show?

i just heard that north melbourne are planning on playing a trial game in ballarat and hopefully some home and away games there as well as the afl are apparently going to upgrade a ground there. my question is why are they asking the nsw government and nsw taxpayers to fork out money to redevelop a ground when there is a perfect ground for them within 200 metres of said ground but are then going to pay to upgrade another gorund so maybe some teams can play there every once in a while

what the hell? The Swans averaged 16,000 in their first season. They hit 25,000 average in the Capper days, and at their very bottom they averaged 9,000 for a few years.

Surely not?

No, yob's right.

http://stats.rleague.com/afl/crowds/swans.html

If you want to talk crowds for NRL and AFL, save this page. An excellent reference.

And ozfootball.net to round out the only 3 codes worth talking about.

Lowest ever crowd for the Sydney Swans was 5272 in 1990

Back when everybody was trying to get an AFL team for Tasmania, the AFL came out and in defence of the decision of Western Sydney and Demitriou said that they were looking at something like a 60-100 year long term plan...Dunno if that's realistic or not but that's their mentality.

Nothing wrong with thinking long term. But if their long term strategy is to invest in a region of 2-3 million people and underinvest in 3 states of 4 million then it raises questions.

It took them about 100 years to establish the first team in Sydney so their time frame might be right on.

In reality the success of the 2nd team in both Qld and NSW will not be measured by crowds or results for a very long time. What it will be measured in is the increase in the value of the Broadcast Rights because they now will have a live game every weekend in the two states that between them make up 55% of the Australian advertising market.

Last time I checked 58% of the AFL's income came from Broadcast Rights which was the highest percentage of any football code worldwide.

Quite seriously, what other major revenue streams are there for sporting leagues? I assume all match day revenue is earned by the clubs everywhere.