I why don't we have teams in Tasmania, NT and Camberra?

Question

I think its time to take the game to everyone in Australia and make this a truely national game, move those struggling Melbourne teams to the rest of Australia and develope the national AFL brand. Let not centralise this great game it should be moved to Tasmania and NT as soon as possible.

Answer 1

Canberra and Hobart have populations of only about 300,000.  That means to get a good crowd (20,000), one in 15 people in the town have to turn out.  Canberra manages this for the Brumbies for 5 home games a year but as much as I'd love a team here it would have to appeal to surrounding towns like Wagga and Goulburn and perhaps even the outskirts of Sydney like Bowral and Camden (two hours away) to be successful for 11 home games.

If you base a team in Hobart, you need "northeners" (Launceston, Devonport, Burnie etc) to come to the game and vice versa.  There's a lot of parochialism in Tassie about north/south thing.  (This was the biggest fight ... where to base it, not how to do it!)

On that basis of attracting support from surrounding districts a team may be more viable in Canberra than Tassie.  There is certainly a passionate base in both places.

NT - too hot much of the year and has an even smaller and much more dispersed population (198,000 of which 100,000 are in Darwin).  I'd be amazed if the NT could support the $5 million a year minimum to keep a team going.

Answer 2

and where are you from.........

if you yew the turnout when games are played in those areas it is less then if the kangaroos and buldogs played in melbourne at the same time as collingwood and carlton.

the venues are not good enough, the crouds are not big enough, it's just not viable