The long-awaited confirmation of Tasmania as the nineteenth AFL club means another club must be formed to create an even twenty-team competition, without the need for a bye.
Tassie is still a few years from starting up and there’s the stadium to be built. So theoretically Andrew Dillon, the new AFL supremo, could announce another expansion team before then.
What are the options?
Victoria is is already saturated with ten teams so it would likely be another interstate team. I feel that there is a strong business case for a stand-alone team in Canberra. The ACT perhaps does not have the same rich footy heritage as Tassie – Baldock, Hart, Stewart and Crosswell versus Jesaulenko and Hird. But it has a population of 395,790 people according to the 2016 census. Comparisons include Hobart (206,790), Darwin (132,045) and Geelong (253,269).
The argument against a Canberra outfit is that it is already the GWS Giants home away from home so a new team would simply reduce the supporter base of this club which is already struggling to gain a foothold in rugby league country. Canberrans support their NRL team (the Raiders) and the ARL franchise (the ACT Brumbies) with soccer also gaining popularity in the nation’s capital.
The viability of a Canberra team need not, however, be at the expense of the Giants foray into regional NSW. The team in orange would draw bumper crowds if they played in regional NSW cities like Wagga Wagga and Albury. Both have good facilities to host AFL games with Robertson Oval in Wagga Wagga and the Lavington Sports Ground in Albury.
Its hard to say if Canberrans would get behind their own team. In the past they have always been asked to adopt various clubs as their own: remember the North Melbourne experiment. Loyalty can be notoriously fickle in Canberra but when it comes to football I feel the public would be supportive. Also, there are plenty of non-native Canberrans who would be seeking their footy fix when their own team came to town.
So, what would a Canberra team be called? The Comets and the Raiders are taken. How about the Canberra ‘Fat Cats’. No, not politically correct.
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Like it.
The AFL has been organic.
Not that it matters, but what if the AFL were starting from scratch?
How many Vic teams?
I’d definitely have
1 SE Qld team
NT
Canberra/Riverina
Tassie
2 x Adelaide
2 x Perth
1 x Sydney
and, of course, one Barossa Valley team.
Canberra really was a footy town until the Raiders started in 1982, the same year the Swans moved.
Imagine instead, if they’d shifted my beloved Blues to Canberra, and not South to Sydney.
All we would have had to do was rename the town Carlton and we’d have been away; no change to the jumpers and Jezza as captain-coach, later to be Chief Minister, if not our first President..
The mixture of Carlton coterie cash and fat-cat cunning would have ensured the communist control-and-command salary cap and draft would never have happened and we’d have won another 16 flags by now.
I’m all for it Dan.
Canberra has pushed for a licence to have a team for a while. Way back in 1981 they made overtures to the then VFL re getting a licence to base a team there: the VFL said maybe in a decade. In 1982 the Canberra Raiders rugby team kicked off. In the years since the rugby codes, also soccer, have replaced the home grown game in terms of influence, and support in the ACT. Canberra, the ACT, is on the wrong side of the Barassi Line, but it’s been treated badly.
It wasn’t just in 1981 overtures were made for a licence to have a team there. Throughout the next decade a number of approaches were made, but to no avail. As the years went by we saw the death/destruction of Melbourne based clubs like Fitzroy, and South Melbourne, only for their images to be recuperated onto teams many miles away. Then we saw sides like Gold Coast, and the Giants, set up in non – football areas, ostensibly to promote the game.
In the years from 2012- 2021 there was around $203 M spent on the Giants . Money still gets splurged on Gold Coast, and the Giants. It’s estimated in the last decade the Giants have received around $100 M more from the AFL than Collingwood. It is said the Giants, and Gold Coast, will receive $25 M from the AFL this year, and to what end?
Would it not have been better to have a Canberra based side in the ACT which can help make genuine inroads into the Barassi line rather than pretend the two current AFL franchises are going to bring about the required change,support?
Dan,there’s no need for a twenty team competition. Time to finish the Giants, Gold Coast folly, have a Canberra, and Tasmanian side then you’d have a genuinely good league highlighting the national game to all. I’m not holding my breath.
Glen!
Further to the other comments the money that has been spent on the two newest teams is appalling and the decision was purely based on population and focus groups. It was irresponsible by the AFL. I’d love to see the Giants move permanently to Canberra and change their name to the Pork Barrellers.
Andrew,I like the idea of Carlton relocating to Canberra. They could still be the CFC. Also former Prime Ministers Menzies and Fraser were notable and passionate Blues supporters. Obviously Scomo and Albo support the Sharkies and Rabbitos respectively.
If the Rabbitos win the Premiership would Albo invite the team to dinner at the Lodge as Fraser did for the 1982 Carlton team and partners. (some cutlery apparently went missing that night)
Canberra was a compromise in its formation so a Canberra team would be another compromise between all the other valid options e.g. WA , NT, Norwood?
Perhaps the Giants could play all their away games in Canberra?
Riverina Rocket, if they were the Canberra Giants, dispensing with the GWS razzamatazz, problem solved.
Glen!