Tasmanian kangaroos

[barry]

Eddie is such a doofus.

Tassie has made it clear: their own team, or it ain't happening - and the financial support the Dorks and anyone else already playing in Tassie gets is permanently withdrawn.

I suspect the AFL will find a way to get it done and persuade the sceptical Presidents (including Pridham by the sounds of it). But there seems to be a fair way to go in making it stack up yet.

I think tassie team is dead based on current financial climate. They numbers just dont add up. Its only a romantic illusion thats driving it.

[KTigers]

I’m not trying to start a discussion about the quality of players from past generations v today but my point was that we have more players and teams now than say forty years ago and definitely from sixty years ago and while the style of play might have changed ( and as a result some peoples enjoyment watching it) it would be hard to argue that the quality of the game has diminished over time.

Tassie deserves and needs a team in my view and certainly couldn’t be less financially viable than some existing teams .

Yes, the game is fine. It's different to the past, but so are all sports. Footy in the 1980s was probably different to footy in the
1940s. Everyone seemed to pull through.
Sure, a third Perth team might be "more viable financially" than a team in Tasmania. But the reality is no one knows that for sure.
Everyone is just guessing, they always are. And even if it is, so what. Tasmania is an actual football state. I'm sure there are
lots of kids playing soccer and basketball and with their phones as there are everywhere. But they get decent crowds all things
considered, and in my opinion would really embrace their own team. God knows, there is nothing else much to do down
there. MONA and Barnbougle are not for everyone. I'd play 6 homes games in Hobart, and 5 in Launceston and see how it goes.

[Ludwig]

I like the idea of a Tasmanian team, but not by making it the 19th. I think 18 is more than enough and would prefer going back to 16. With 12 times the population of Australia, the US has team totals in the 30s for major sports, less than double the AFL. Their are too many teams in Australian sport for both a player dilution and financial viability aspect. Some clubs are always in financial trouble and the player and support staff compensation are constantly under pressure. Game attendance has been poor this year.

The league should cut 3 Victorian clubs, sending 1 to Tassie and putting the others into a special draft. This won't happen due to the TV contract, but a cut of 1 club should be the go, and we can see how things develop with attendance numbers.

There's no need to implement Plan Eddie, because there will still be plenty of games played in Melbourne for the North fans to attend. The AFL can tinker a bit with the fixture to assure 7 or 8 games in Melbourne, which is enough, given the level of fan support.

[KTigers]

The AFL is just not going to cut teams. They just don't have the heart to do it. To their credit I suppose. Professional sport in the US is just
a totally different beast to here. The teams have always been privately owned by extremely wealthy people who have financial resources
way beyond what is here. There are individual players in baseball and basketball that are paid more than the entire playing list of three
AFL teams combined. Almost everything about professional sport in the US is different to here, so I just don't think you can compare the
two. For starters it cost three or four times to buy a reasonable seat at an NFL game to what it costs to buy the equivalent seat at an
AFL game. It's not something we should wishing for.
Of course common sense says 16 or so teams is enough, but who is going to tell North or St Kilda that they are out. It's just not going
to happen. Right now the finances of footy haven't fallen off a cliff. It's possible in ten years time they might have and then there may
be a serious re-think. I guess we'll see.

[Ludwig]

The US is a good comparison, because they know how to build a successful professional sports competition. Australia is squeezed between tradition and the pressures of modernity and as long as we are a capitalist country, we will continue to be squeezed. The AFL has to strike the right balance between tradition and modernity. The US have put ice hockey teams in places like Tampa, Florida, where the only ice they've seen comes out of the fridge. And it's been successful.

Having 10 of the 18 clubs in Victoria is an imbalance than needs to be rectified over long-term. Australia doesn't have the population to support a pure expansion, like they can in the US, so the model which created the Sydney Swans is more the way things should go for the AFL. It's a long-term process, but one that has to be done.

Tassie can support a team with a 20,000 seat stadium. They don't have to build a big one. They just need to fill the ones they've got. Maybe they can expand the seating capacity of Hobart. The money would be better spent on the illiteracy problem in TAS.

5 games a week in Victoria is just too much, even for a footy crazed town. To cut it down by a game every other week is not a big cut and should help raise the poor attendance numbers.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

I just really hope there isn't 19 clubs. I wish we only had 16, there isn't enough top end talent for 18 teams and I selfishly enjoy a higher probability of winning with less teams.

I think both arguements are specious.

Properly run development programmes in the non-traditional AFL states, increase the amount of top end talent available.
Both the Rams program at the end of the last century and and the Swans academy prove that to be the case, the AFL's interfearance just proved theyy could stuff it up.

The less teams = more premierships arguement?
The Swans have won more flags in the expanded competition, than they did in the last 50 years of the old 12 team competition.