Hey just watching the news and the AFL is imploding . It’s weird ! The sport is apparently unwatchable at the moment , as well as none of thier players seem to understand what isolation means .
Their talking heads are having a field day
Loving hearing the AFL journo's crying in their saucer of milk, heard one on the radio today say "Peter V'Landys is very lucky he doesn't have to manage a truly national comp". ?Sad sacks. Wouldn't a truly national comp include Tasmania and the Northern Territory as well? ACT?
Their heads are that far up their own bums in AFL-land, it's fun to watch their brand squirm TBH.
A 'truly national comp' wouldn't have half of its teams based in one city, which is not even our largest city. It wouldn't have 3 quarters of its teams south of the Murray, it would have a team in the nation's capital, it would have at least one team north of Brisbane, it would have more than 2 teams in our most populous state, etc etc etc
PS more people live just in REGIONAL NSW than in the whole of South Australia. More people live just in REGIONAL Queensland than the whole of South Australia. Having 2 teams in Adelaide doesn't make you more 'national' than having teams in Newcastle, Canberra and North Queensland.
The NRL mightn't have teams in SA or WA, but I'd argue it's more reflective of where Australians actually live than the AFL is.
I did a review once, about population distribution wrt clubs. Of the Top 10 most populous "urban areas" in Australia, 7 of them are rugby league dominated: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Goldie-Tweed, Newcastle-Maitland, Canberra-Queanbeyan, Sunny Coast, Wollongong.
So AFL can go ahead and have 2 teams in Adelaide, but they've only got 1 in the next 5, and that's a token side as it is (Gold Coast Suns).
I don't know what mechanism by which AFL considers themselves a more national sport, I can only suppose they count # States with pro teams. In that respect they have pro sides in 5 of 7 States/Territories, whereas rugby league has 4/7.
But then rugby league has a team in NZ and representation in every Pacific nation including PNG, which AFL does not have.
So by population and urban areas AFL is not dominant, by top and total TV audiences it is not dominant, by region it is not dominant. It basically has 1 extra State, of small population.
I read an interesting article the other day by the Swans chairman who was warning the AFL about PVL and rugby league's post-COVID success. This guy said basically that AFL heads in Melbourne tended to focus too much on crowds as a measurement of popularity, but were missing the factors by which NRL was strengthening and had basically trampled over Yawnion.