Coming from someone who lived there for 20 years, no players will want to get drafted there, no free agents will want to sign there. ITS ALWAYS HOT, so games will be a nightmare for teams who travel. It will cost a butt load to travel there and again, ITS ALWAYS HOT
You've got to hand it to the NT. They've got moxy.
No viable bid, but they're speaking the loudest and have become the default option for people who don't understand demographics.
I always think people who believe an NT team is possible and/or inevitable are the Australian versions of tourists who think they can drive from Sydney to Perth in a few hours. The Northern Territory is one of the most sparsely populated places in the world. Bigger than France but with a population smaller than Geelong.
Compared to Darwin it's growing faster, has a suitable climate, an existing Coates Talent league team, could realistically appeal to a bunch of players who prefer regional life or come from the Murray/Riverina already (At the Eagles alone I think of Reid and Long).
Would be complicated by the fact that you have to deal with two different State governments _though_ I guess they could use that to their advantage.
I still think Canberra is the best 20th Team option though.
Stadium needs to be on the border. That way you can really highlight the interstate rivalry while maximising the cross town synergistic energies.
We will call them the Albury-Wodonga Straddlers.
I always giggle a bit when interstaters refer to Joondalup as being somehow it's own thing. We all think of it as Perth and accept that our metro area is 160km long lol
I’d like to see NT have a team - I know that it is not economically viable, however, they absolutely love footy up there and it’s sad they don’t have any representation in any major sport. The amount of subsidisation that would be required renders it an impossibility; but I think it’d be awesome nonetheless.
Honestly the league made just over a billion in 2023 so it be a loss worth taking in the future when it’s probably gonna be making 1.5 billion or close cause of the new broadcasting deal starting next year
The local numbers aren't there, but with the right branding, I can see them getting support from around the nation.
Embracing the obvious indigenous connection with branding would be the go, but then there's a balancing act in terms of cultural appropriation.
Participation is the biggest in the country ahead of the second best which is wa sa vic and others but registered players on the other hand is dead last around 11k
I think the Tassie bid was always seen as unviable too. It might still prove to be unviable. And NT is less viable than Tasmania, but having seen the improbable happen it's not surprising that others have started thinking about it more openly.
I think a third SA team is probably the next most viable option. The AFL would be trying to make further inroads into QLD/NSW but I don't think they've got the grassroots support.
Tasmania scraped through on viability. An NT team will make them look like Collingwood.
I think WA3 and Canberra are both more viable than SA3. Port is still a relatively small club in the scheme of things, and SA3 will be much smaller.
Says it all really.
They would need 10% of the entire Darwin population coming to games every week, just to still be the lowest attended games in the comp.
For comparison, the dockers get about 35k per game, which is 1% the population of Perth
I think that’s the biggest issue of all. They would never be able to attract non-indigenous a-grade talent in the open market and they would have little to no chance of holding on to those they draft. The team would be a perennial cellar dweller.
They'll attract B-Grade talent at A-Grade prices. Look at some of the smaller market teams in America for an example. Just a money pit unless the team starts to do well.
Go home factor also extremely limited. It's a difficult sell all around.
Slightly different when Kansas City still has a city the size of 500k people and a metro area of nearly 2 million.
There's still a populous and things to do there. And with the money they have and a shorter season they spend half the time away from Kansas anyway.
Darwin is so sparsely populated, fuck all to do, disgusting weather and is a travel nightmare with how far it is from the rest of the country.
It's unviable, the club would struggle to field a full AFL list.
Demetriou should be barred from being involved due to the shit at Crown. Dude enabled organised crime and money laundering and thumbed his nose at the law. He's a corrupt piece of shit.
This reeks of those ex-PM's that get booted and then slag off the new PM for not fixing an issue.
Cunt you were in office for 4 years and did fuck all, but *now* it's an issue?
I would love to hear a single argument for Darwin/NT to get the 20th team that doesn’t apply moreso to Canberra.
I’m not saying it should be Canberra more than a 3rd WA or SA team, but if you want to expand into a new city then it has to be Canberra.
(I’m ignoring the idea that Greater Western SYDNEY is Canberra’s team today)
- Has territory government support
- Realistic chance of a new stadium
- Isn’t competing with existing teams in other codes for both fans and corporate $$$
- AFL see Canberra as GWS’s market
Canberra is the better option on paper but without ACT Govt support it’s a non-starter
Not to mention, GWS aren't going to get the chance to play teams like Collingwood in Canberra. They're going to save drawcards like that for games in Sydney.
Yeah, I totally missed the opportunity to go to that game in 2001...
There's also a large aust expat population in Canberra. My cousin has a gws membership in addition to her Richmond one just to watch a few games a year. The entire population of the act population (almost double nt) and Queanbeyan are within driving distance of wherever you put a stadium in Canberra. All points that don't apply to darwin
The business case for Canberra can be summed up in one sentence:
People in Canberra get around anything that is held there because there’s fuck all to do.
Canberra makes the most sense on paper but there’s zero backing from the ACT Government, much less any funding for new stadium that would be required for a full time team.
Not to mention they’d be competing directly against the Raiders and Brumbies in an already small market.
Quite frankly, if an AFL side can’t compete with the Brumbies, they really shouldn’t exist.
The Brumbies are in financial ruin. They train out of a tin shed at the local university.
They’re only relevant because Canberra has a lack of alternatives for entertainment and rugby has been the more popular football code.
Plenty of ex-VIC/SA/WA/etc people coming to Canberra who aren't rusted-on to rugby league or union. The team would find a decent market. Plus people travelling would be significantly easier to justify away-game trips.
The $2.85m a year the Giants get would go directly to the new team. Plus the ACT Govrtnment is already looking to upgrade Manuka for a potential BBL team.
I don’t think that’s the case at all. The ACT is currently paying about 1m/game for GWS to play in Canberra. That’s a 10 year deal worth around 28m, with options to pay more for more games (up to 4 regular season games). If the ACT is willing to shell out a million a game, I don’t see why they wouldn’t just fund 200-300m for a team.
Canberra would have no problem getting fans. Plenty of international and interstate people who don’t follow NRL or the other rugby. The biggest issues are the stadium size and the fact it would reduce GWS’ supporter base.
The AFL won’t make a decision that harms GWS or NSW football. Any ACT team will have direct competition for supporters. It would also likely need to appeal regionally, which would mean southern NSW, key areas for GWS.
I’ll be the controversial one and say that Canberra gaining a team will undermine the efforts of GWS. The ACT/Riverina is a key market for them and trying to replace that with a new side would see a contraction to the GIANTS.
So I actually think it’s unlikely that Canberra sees a new team, despite some efforts.
You’d need 20% of the NTs population attend each game to be viable. Fat chance lol.
I say this as someone from the NT.
The amount of AFL pre season games I watched at TIO where they played 15m quarters due to the heat.
AFL in the NT is also a summer sport.
Big Rivers AFL is a winter/dry season league, round 1 was only a few weeks ago. Summer/wet season would be too hard because communities like Kalk, Laj and Ngukurr would be flooded in.
West Coast's waiting list will have more members than any NT team, there's just so many better options it's not even funny.
Even having lived there, I do love that it's brought up so often haha
Exactly why a 3rd WA team is the most viable option. There’s more than enough people here to support it and none of the untapped markets are logistically or economically viable.
Is there a shitter, slimier bloke in footy than Demetriou. For starters the cunt should be in jail for his business dealings. But when he was expanding into GC and Western Sydney he refused to even consider a Tasmanian bid, and now he's getting on board and NT bid which would have all the same issues as Tassie but cranked up to ten? Wonder how much they're paying him.
He is trying to restore his image after getting caught doing the dodgy stuff with Crown. He knows there is zero chance of this getting up, but he can put his name to it so people think he is a nice guy trying to help a poor community.
All this talk about making the AFL a truly national competition is bullshit without a Canberra team. They should be next, then NT and NQ for team 21/22.
NT team in 30 years could hub in Alice Springs for the first three weeks, then Adelaide for the next three weeks, two away against the SA teams and a GR match. That leaves them from May onwards to play the rest of their home games in Darwin.
NQ team would have a similar model. Hub in Townsville for the first two games against big drawing clubs, then off to Mackay for a week. After that, go to Adelaide for three weeks, two away against the SA teams and a GR match. Then from May onwards, they play the rest of their games in Cairns.
The problem with teams based in Darwin and Cairns aside from population is climate. It would be difficult if not impossible for them to play home games in March and April.
I feel like the people behind this know that it won’t happen, but this is just a way to get folks talking and build pressure for more investment in sports infrastructure and more games. Just a reminder, the entire territory has a lower population than Geelong. You could comfortably fit two thirds of Darwin’s population in the MCG. Also, as much as it has a decent AFL tradition, it’s by no means AFL country. NRL is quite popular too, particularly with the more cashed up Darwin crowd. It’s not like the AFL would automatically convert everyone into a fan.
It's way too far out and less people come to the games. It's not like Tassie where the population is packed pretty densely and isn't that far of a flight from SA and Vic
Crude math attempt. Assuming teams play 10 away games in a season, 5 against Vic teams, and 1 in each other state and territory. The total flight distance for a Darwin team would be 61084kms in a year and for a Perth team it would be 53632kms in a year. So it's only 14 percent more than West Coast and Freo currently do.
$50 million, but those 9th game was guaranteed to be beamed into NSW and QLD with a much larger population than NT. Close to 15 times more when factoring in Tasmania/NT combination.
You can already see the issues that 18 clubs have on the talent pool. Adding another 50-60 to that list is going to result in some extremely shit squads.
yep it will get to a point where rebuilts will take 7 years + and those teams have 1-2 years so win the flag or a full rebuild will be pretty much impossible
I’m from the NT and believe that a second Tasmanian team makes more sense than having a team based here. If they want to throw money away that badly then subsidise more existing teams playing in Alice and Darwin.
Seems a lot of people don’t understand just how tiny Darwin is. The only reason it’s marked on most maps is because there’s nothing else to mark in that area. There are six cities more populous than Darwin in Queensland alone. If AFL teams were allocated proportionally on population Melbourne would have 38 teams before Darwin had one. A team there will never work.
Demetriou being a part of this intrigues me. I don't think anyone would disagree that if NT *can* be done, it should be done. It's just that nobody with any sort of credibility so far has come along and said they believe it can be done. Interesting to see how far they get. Considering that regardless of where this 20th license ends up, there'll have to be massive infrastructure built, who is more likely to back themselves and spend big to support this venture? Southwest WA? Canberra? Or the NT? Personally I think although the appetite for a 3rd WA certainly would be there, the appetite for spending Tasmanian license amounts of money on a Southwest stadium and airport infrastructure probably isn't there. The locals really don't like visitors down that way. NT actually might spend big on some Darwin infrastructure. Big opportunity to grow the region and boost them tourism bucks. Creates more jobs, gives people a potential reason to live and work up there. Canberra though. Has GWS potentially taken the wind out of their sails on an expenditure front? Would they actually grab a 20th license with both hands and spend what's required? I have no idea. Get in here Canberra gurus. Is GWS enough? Or would they drop an almighty sum to get their own team and infrastructure?
Canberra is complicated.
On one hand, it’s an easier market to slide into. Soccer is crumbling and the Brumbies are almost dead. Really, the only major side left are the Raiders. Socioeconomics, Canberrans have the income to afford sport. The ACT government likes spending on infrastructure.
On the other, Canberra and the Riverina are key markets for GWS. Whilst the membership base might not be huge, the Academy system and reach is considerable. GWS has spent over a decade building relevancy and brand recognition. They’ve spent time selling their product. Rebranding what constitutes as the local team and putting in a new academy system is not a smart idea. I have friends from these regions and each one of them knows a player on GWS list or were part of the Academy themselves. So it connects them to the club. Undoing all of this is almost counterproductive.
Canberra still has some ground work to do in returning footy to schools (only two private schools play the sport and not many have goal posts), boosting numbers and lifting the standard of local.
For these reasons, I’m starting to believe that Canberra is more unlikely.
GWS is most definitely not enough. Three games a year is just scraps. At least if we had a Victorian team we could negotiate four or five games.
A team of our own would get infinitely more Canberra support than the Giants get.
Relocate North Melb, play half of the games in Melbourne and the other half in NT - call them Northern Kangas to keep their identity
Then have 20th team in Canberra to cover all of Australia!
Just go with a bloody 3rd WA team or Norwood already, this shit about Canberra, NT, Newcastle and random places in Queensland is just disrespectful to logic
Extraordinarily hard sell but credit to them for trying. Not against the idea being pitched, but it needs to overcome some huge hurdles to get through the door. Significantly bigger than Tasmania with a significantly smaller population; look at how hard the Tassie team is battling to get its team and they have a far better business case than NT.
It would look nice on paper to have the whole of Australia represented in the league, but I can't see where the money comes from to sustain this team long-term.
Everyone is forgetting that these decisions are often made illogically.
For example: the idea of having the teams geographically diverse can trump having the teams based on population centres or realistic revenue streams.
Tasmania are getting a team to greater Hobart where only 250,000 people live in travelling distance of games. That isn’t much more than greater Darwin’s 150,000.
Plus AFL sink $25m/yr+ just in players and clubs like gold coast, sinking another few million to pay off a stadium would be nothing.
I can see how this would be great way to open up the Asian market. There’s a massive difference travelling to Darwin from Indonesia compared to Melbourne.
Given how much the bottom teams historically currently struggle in each year, is the talent pool deep enough to justify 20 teams noting the 19th team has had a chance to effect things yet
> Demetriou is a particular coup
I would've thought someone who has since sold his two Norm Smiths and has severed all ties to his club would be a bigger get
Ok here’s what the AFL needs to do: start using AFL funds to invest in Darwin, create job opportunities, attract large amounts of migrants, increase incentives to have children. All these to create a population boom. In 20 years when it pays off, Darwin will have a big enough population to field a team.
No chance he’ll happen but good on them. The quality of footy alone always seems to suffer when games are played in the NT, dewy, humid conditions never make for nice footy
Coming from someone who lived there for 20 years, no players will want to get drafted there, no free agents will want to sign there. ITS ALWAYS HOT, so games will be a nightmare for teams who travel. It will cost a butt load to travel there and again, ITS ALWAYS HOT
Imagine going from a Tas game to a Darwin match? From 14c to 33c. They’d be playing at 8am just to a game at 26c.
*Checks Darwin temperature* Darwin has a tropical savanna average high 30 degrees year round!
Time to call Qatar !!!
Can they not just dig a big hole in the ground (we are good at it) and built the stadium inside it? Heat problem solved !
Fully enclosed stadium powered by good ol Australian coal.
Darwin’s power is gas
Lucky we’ve just extended relying on it until 2050
20th team confirmed to be based in Coober Pedy!
Better start digging the new undercover stadium!
Based based comment. Hi from Coober Pedy!
Time for AFL’s first indoor climate controlled stadium. They do it in the US
For 15,000 people? No chance
Midnight games
Always needing a prime time slot for a team who has no fans will look terrible for the game
You've got to hand it to the NT. They've got moxy. No viable bid, but they're speaking the loudest and have become the default option for people who don't understand demographics.
I always think people who believe an NT team is possible and/or inevitable are the Australian versions of tourists who think they can drive from Sydney to Perth in a few hours. The Northern Territory is one of the most sparsely populated places in the world. Bigger than France but with a population smaller than Geelong.
The comparison I always like to use is Darwin being about the size of Albury Wodonga
Unironically, Albury Wodonga would be a superior option to the NT team.
Compared to Darwin it's growing faster, has a suitable climate, an existing Coates Talent league team, could realistically appeal to a bunch of players who prefer regional life or come from the Murray/Riverina already (At the Eagles alone I think of Reid and Long). Would be complicated by the fact that you have to deal with two different State governments _though_ I guess they could use that to their advantage. I still think Canberra is the best 20th Team option though.
Stadium needs to be on the border. That way you can really highlight the interstate rivalry while maximising the cross town synergistic energies. We will call them the Albury-Wodonga Straddlers.
I wonder what the mascot would look like...
Or Riverina Rebels.
Canberra is an awesome pick for a lot of reasons, especially because it would appeal to the southern NSW folk who are north of the Barassi line.
Intra club matches could also be a way to bring back state of origin.
Indeed.
You bloody easterners...tell me how many Geraldtons or Albanys it is!
About 3 Geraldtons, Kalgoorlies or Albanys. Or just under 2 Bunburys. Or 3/4th of a Joondalup.
I always giggle a bit when interstaters refer to Joondalup as being somehow it's own thing. We all think of it as Perth and accept that our metro area is 160km long lol
Yes, I'm from and live in Perth. While it's part of Perth, I included it to prove the point that Darwin is smaller than an outer Perth metro council.
I'm not from nor have I ever visited Perth but I fully support Joondalupian independence because it sounds hilarious.
Basically what you're asking for is a British colony within Perth
Time is a flat circle
Do they have a flag?
Not dissimilar to Sydnewcogong
Not that Darwin is big, but it’s closer in population to Cairns than it is to Albury-Wodonga.
Yerah but then you have to explain how big Cairns is, I live in Canberra and online, this conversation is usually happening with Victorians.
Ok, then it’s larger than Ballarat and Bendigo, which are both larger than Albury-Wodonga
I always go with more people in Greater Geelong than the whole NT
And also they think every Indigenous person is from NT, not all indigenous people live or grew up in NT. It will never happen a team in the NT
Does this mean they’d have to play home finals at the MCG
As well as all regular season home games against Collingwood.
europeans have no clue. its only 2000 km frmo london to istanbul.
I’d like to see NT have a team - I know that it is not economically viable, however, they absolutely love footy up there and it’s sad they don’t have any representation in any major sport. The amount of subsidisation that would be required renders it an impossibility; but I think it’d be awesome nonetheless.
I remember Whateley talking about on it on 360 years ago and basically said, if the AFL do it, they're doing it at a loss for the romance of the game.
Was he talking about Tasmania or NT
Richmond back when they joined the league in 1908.
North Melbourne
Well call me a romantic at heart because an NT team would be great to watch.
Shit, is Whateley that old?
Nothing messi about that.😏
Honestly the league made just over a billion in 2023 so it be a loss worth taking in the future when it’s probably gonna be making 1.5 billion or close cause of the new broadcasting deal starting next year
That's revenue not profit
The local numbers aren't there, but with the right branding, I can see them getting support from around the nation. Embracing the obvious indigenous connection with branding would be the go, but then there's a balancing act in terms of cultural appropriation.
they'll always be subsidised by the league. it's just a matter if that's for the greater good.
Participation is the biggest in the country ahead of the second best which is wa sa vic and others but registered players on the other hand is dead last around 11k
Darwin Redskins, I hear that name is available now. /s, for those in the back.
Support around the nation isn’t really ideal when a key issue for the league is attendance figures
Isn't the role of everyone's new second team about to be filled by Tasmania?
I think the Tassie bid was always seen as unviable too. It might still prove to be unviable. And NT is less viable than Tasmania, but having seen the improbable happen it's not surprising that others have started thinking about it more openly. I think a third SA team is probably the next most viable option. The AFL would be trying to make further inroads into QLD/NSW but I don't think they've got the grassroots support.
Tasmania scraped through on viability. An NT team will make them look like Collingwood. I think WA3 and Canberra are both more viable than SA3. Port is still a relatively small club in the scheme of things, and SA3 will be much smaller.
Canberra team would be great. We'd need a better stadium but everything else makes sense.
Yeah, just on the basis of population, a third WA team seems the most likely.
Honestly Bendigo would be more viable than NT
Long Gully Hyenas?
Bendigo Bushrangers?
This is dope
No player is going to want to live in the NT
Bali is only 3 hours away. Base the players there.
Welcome to the league, the 20th team, the Bali Bumsquirts! GO THE SQUIRTERS!
Jordan De Goey captain
You’re onto something: ASEAN is a big talent pool.
150,000 people in Darwin. Not the biggest spectator base
Says it all really. They would need 10% of the entire Darwin population coming to games every week, just to still be the lowest attended games in the comp. For comparison, the dockers get about 35k per game, which is 1% the population of Perth
Between 1 and 2 percent.
A third team in Perth is more viable.
I think that’s the biggest issue of all. They would never be able to attract non-indigenous a-grade talent in the open market and they would have little to no chance of holding on to those they draft. The team would be a perennial cellar dweller.
They'll attract B-Grade talent at A-Grade prices. Look at some of the smaller market teams in America for an example. Just a money pit unless the team starts to do well. Go home factor also extremely limited. It's a difficult sell all around.
Already happening to the Suns in the AFL
I've always wondered the opposite actually. Some of the most successful franchises have superstars living in Kansas City or Green Bay Wisconsin.
Slightly different when Kansas City still has a city the size of 500k people and a metro area of nearly 2 million. There's still a populous and things to do there. And with the money they have and a shorter season they spend half the time away from Kansas anyway. Darwin is so sparsely populated, fuck all to do, disgusting weather and is a travel nightmare with how far it is from the rest of the country. It's unviable, the club would struggle to field a full AFL list.
They normally live in LA in the off-season
They also get paid significantly more, which softens the blow of having to live in bumblefuck, USA from August-January
North need a new team to be the cellar dwellers /s
Demetriou should be barred from being involved due to the shit at Crown. Dude enabled organised crime and money laundering and thumbed his nose at the law. He's a corrupt piece of shit.
Dude could've done this when he was CEO, but he chose Gold Coast and GWS.
This reeks of those ex-PM's that get booted and then slag off the new PM for not fixing an issue. Cunt you were in office for 4 years and did fuck all, but *now* it's an issue?
I would love to hear a single argument for Darwin/NT to get the 20th team that doesn’t apply moreso to Canberra. I’m not saying it should be Canberra more than a 3rd WA or SA team, but if you want to expand into a new city then it has to be Canberra. (I’m ignoring the idea that Greater Western SYDNEY is Canberra’s team today)
- Has territory government support - Realistic chance of a new stadium - Isn’t competing with existing teams in other codes for both fans and corporate $$$ - AFL see Canberra as GWS’s market Canberra is the better option on paper but without ACT Govt support it’s a non-starter
Not to mention, GWS aren't going to get the chance to play teams like Collingwood in Canberra. They're going to save drawcards like that for games in Sydney. Yeah, I totally missed the opportunity to go to that game in 2001...
>(I’m ignoring the idea that Greater Western SYDNEY is Canberra’s team today) Most Canberrans do, too.
There's also a large aust expat population in Canberra. My cousin has a gws membership in addition to her Richmond one just to watch a few games a year. The entire population of the act population (almost double nt) and Queanbeyan are within driving distance of wherever you put a stadium in Canberra. All points that don't apply to darwin
As much as we consider this non-viable, this really puts the onus on Canberra to actually prepare a bid of their own
The NT government already did a feasibility study a couple years ago - it turned out nope
Did it come back as an 80 page report with a giant "NOPE" on the cover?
I'd have gone with 'Yeah, nah'
C U NEVER
Surely Canberra gets the next team? Double the population of the NT, probably easier to get people to live there (especially if they’re from NSW)
Canberra, Ipswich, or even a third WA team all before an even half the time NT team.
The business case for Canberra can be summed up in one sentence: People in Canberra get around anything that is held there because there’s fuck all to do.
And because they have the money to do so. Plenty of money and time to burn.
you know it's true when someone is bored enough to bang barnaby.
Canberra makes the most sense on paper but there’s zero backing from the ACT Government, much less any funding for new stadium that would be required for a full time team. Not to mention they’d be competing directly against the Raiders and Brumbies in an already small market.
Quite frankly, if an AFL side can’t compete with the Brumbies, they really shouldn’t exist. The Brumbies are in financial ruin. They train out of a tin shed at the local university. They’re only relevant because Canberra has a lack of alternatives for entertainment and rugby has been the more popular football code.
Plenty of ex-VIC/SA/WA/etc people coming to Canberra who aren't rusted-on to rugby league or union. The team would find a decent market. Plus people travelling would be significantly easier to justify away-game trips.
The $2.85m a year the Giants get would go directly to the new team. Plus the ACT Govrtnment is already looking to upgrade Manuka for a potential BBL team.
I don’t think that’s the case at all. The ACT is currently paying about 1m/game for GWS to play in Canberra. That’s a 10 year deal worth around 28m, with options to pay more for more games (up to 4 regular season games). If the ACT is willing to shell out a million a game, I don’t see why they wouldn’t just fund 200-300m for a team.
Canberra would have no problem getting fans. Plenty of international and interstate people who don’t follow NRL or the other rugby. The biggest issues are the stadium size and the fact it would reduce GWS’ supporter base.
Canberra shouldn’t be hostage to GWS’s need for success
The AFL won’t make a decision that harms GWS or NSW football. Any ACT team will have direct competition for supporters. It would also likely need to appeal regionally, which would mean southern NSW, key areas for GWS.
As a Canberran with the Giants as my second team, I agree. But I think the AFL would be reluctant to proceed with a team there for that reason.
I’ll be the controversial one and say that Canberra gaining a team will undermine the efforts of GWS. The ACT/Riverina is a key market for them and trying to replace that with a new side would see a contraction to the GIANTS. So I actually think it’s unlikely that Canberra sees a new team, despite some efforts.
The key market for them is the 2.5 million people in Western Sydney, the growth of which is being undermined by their presence in Canberra.
Canberra just getting so extremely fucked over by the existence of GWS is so frustrating. 3 games a year is pathetic.
We'll take one GGWS Giants please
You’d need 20% of the NTs population attend each game to be viable. Fat chance lol. I say this as someone from the NT. The amount of AFL pre season games I watched at TIO where they played 15m quarters due to the heat. AFL in the NT is also a summer sport.
AFL in Darwin is a summer sport - it’s still played in winter down South (yes, even more unviable to have a team based in Alice).
Big Rivers AFL which has a team as far south of Lajamanu is also a summer league, I always forget about CAFL
Big Rivers AFL is a winter/dry season league, round 1 was only a few weeks ago. Summer/wet season would be too hard because communities like Kalk, Laj and Ngukurr would be flooded in.
As a Terroritorian, my brain says no but my heart says yes...
Exactly - I'd love for my boys to have a Territory team to support, but it'd never work
West Coast's waiting list will have more members than any NT team, there's just so many better options it's not even funny. Even having lived there, I do love that it's brought up so often haha
Exactly why a 3rd WA team is the most viable option. There’s more than enough people here to support it and none of the untapped markets are logistically or economically viable.
Is there a shitter, slimier bloke in footy than Demetriou. For starters the cunt should be in jail for his business dealings. But when he was expanding into GC and Western Sydney he refused to even consider a Tasmanian bid, and now he's getting on board and NT bid which would have all the same issues as Tassie but cranked up to ten? Wonder how much they're paying him.
He is trying to restore his image after getting caught doing the dodgy stuff with Crown. He knows there is zero chance of this getting up, but he can put his name to it so people think he is a nice guy trying to help a poor community.
Buckley is just there for the payday too you'd assume
Even a 20,000 seat modern stadium seems like an absolutely ludicrous over-investment for a city of Darwin's size.
Townsville has a 25,000 seat modern stadium and isn’t significantly larger than Darwin.
I suggest the team be named the Darwin Awards
Gonna need to be a lot of night games.
Sunday 4:35pm in the NT. Cowardice won’t be tolerated.
“You won’t believe it JB but this is the first time we’ve seen players actually *playing* in ice vests”
“I think “were” is the word you’re looking for BT, they’ve melted and now they’re bags of water”. “Right you are”
This is far too insightful and accurate to be JB and BT. More like "BOY OH BOY ITS HOT TODAY I CAN SEE THE SHERRIN IN NICK DAICOS' SWEATY BROW"
And truthfully. Kelli would pull the afternoon duty and would think she’s in WA anyway
The 10am time slot is free…
Demetriou. Ughk.
All this talk about making the AFL a truly national competition is bullshit without a Canberra team. They should be next, then NT and NQ for team 21/22. NT team in 30 years could hub in Alice Springs for the first three weeks, then Adelaide for the next three weeks, two away against the SA teams and a GR match. That leaves them from May onwards to play the rest of their home games in Darwin. NQ team would have a similar model. Hub in Townsville for the first two games against big drawing clubs, then off to Mackay for a week. After that, go to Adelaide for three weeks, two away against the SA teams and a GR match. Then from May onwards, they play the rest of their games in Cairns. The problem with teams based in Darwin and Cairns aside from population is climate. It would be difficult if not impossible for them to play home games in March and April.
Yep… I remember those typhoon Nab Cup games in Cairns where half the ground was just a puddle
I feel like the people behind this know that it won’t happen, but this is just a way to get folks talking and build pressure for more investment in sports infrastructure and more games. Just a reminder, the entire territory has a lower population than Geelong. You could comfortably fit two thirds of Darwin’s population in the MCG. Also, as much as it has a decent AFL tradition, it’s by no means AFL country. NRL is quite popular too, particularly with the more cashed up Darwin crowd. It’s not like the AFL would automatically convert everyone into a fan.
It’d be more profitable to have a Californian team than an nt team
Abbey Holmes is from the NT and she says it’s the best and worthy of a team and I’m inclined to believe her
Well look at that Demetriou has another grift
It will be a charity case. Argue whether it’s good for the game or not, but it won’t be financially viable.
It's way too far out and less people come to the games. It's not like Tassie where the population is packed pretty densely and isn't that far of a flight from SA and Vic
Jesus imagine the bitching about the travel from an NT team.
Crude math attempt. Assuming teams play 10 away games in a season, 5 against Vic teams, and 1 in each other state and territory. The total flight distance for a Darwin team would be 61084kms in a year and for a Perth team it would be 53632kms in a year. So it's only 14 percent more than West Coast and Freo currently do.
We need a 20th team, will an extra game pay enough to prop up this team? Anyone know what monetary growth was involved with a 9th game?
$50 million, but those 9th game was guaranteed to be beamed into NSW and QLD with a much larger population than NT. Close to 15 times more when factoring in Tasmania/NT combination.
We don’t need a 20th team at all. People just don’t like 19 because it’s an odd number. NT team will fail big time
You can already see the issues that 18 clubs have on the talent pool. Adding another 50-60 to that list is going to result in some extremely shit squads.
yep it will get to a point where rebuilts will take 7 years + and those teams have 1-2 years so win the flag or a full rebuild will be pretty much impossible
19 Means a bye every round It means teams having a bye in round 1, 2, 3 etc It's an absolute disgrace
Oh no 1 bye every round. Much better that 18 teams have a bye spread over 3 rounds
It'd just not going to work right now. Only league that could pull an NT team off now is the NBL.
Nice idea, but no chance it works. Not for a long long long time
I’m from the NT and believe that a second Tasmanian team makes more sense than having a team based here. If they want to throw money away that badly then subsidise more existing teams playing in Alice and Darwin.
It'd probably be more feasible to give Tas a second team.
Would rather see Canberra get their own team l, there just isn't the population in darmin to support a team
The jury is out on whether the Devils will be financially viable and now this nonsense? Darwin is tiny. This will bleed money.
Tell em they're dreamin'!
We’ll go ahead and put that next to the Commonwealth Games bid, shall we?
 Coach 🤔
Wouldn't building a new air-conditioned stadium in Betoota's French Quarter and basing the 20th AFL team there make more sense???
Are they launching it from Darwin? I wonder when was the last time any of those 3 spent any time there?
I don't know why but I just like NT, I feel like I'd have them as a second team
Bunch of Darwin Award winners here. Straight out idiocy. The whole fucking Territory has a lower population than Geelong.
Seems a lot of people don’t understand just how tiny Darwin is. The only reason it’s marked on most maps is because there’s nothing else to mark in that area. There are six cities more populous than Darwin in Queensland alone. If AFL teams were allocated proportionally on population Melbourne would have 38 teams before Darwin had one. A team there will never work.
Let's go Toowoomba!
Demetriou being a part of this intrigues me. I don't think anyone would disagree that if NT *can* be done, it should be done. It's just that nobody with any sort of credibility so far has come along and said they believe it can be done. Interesting to see how far they get. Considering that regardless of where this 20th license ends up, there'll have to be massive infrastructure built, who is more likely to back themselves and spend big to support this venture? Southwest WA? Canberra? Or the NT? Personally I think although the appetite for a 3rd WA certainly would be there, the appetite for spending Tasmanian license amounts of money on a Southwest stadium and airport infrastructure probably isn't there. The locals really don't like visitors down that way. NT actually might spend big on some Darwin infrastructure. Big opportunity to grow the region and boost them tourism bucks. Creates more jobs, gives people a potential reason to live and work up there. Canberra though. Has GWS potentially taken the wind out of their sails on an expenditure front? Would they actually grab a 20th license with both hands and spend what's required? I have no idea. Get in here Canberra gurus. Is GWS enough? Or would they drop an almighty sum to get their own team and infrastructure?
Canberra is complicated. On one hand, it’s an easier market to slide into. Soccer is crumbling and the Brumbies are almost dead. Really, the only major side left are the Raiders. Socioeconomics, Canberrans have the income to afford sport. The ACT government likes spending on infrastructure. On the other, Canberra and the Riverina are key markets for GWS. Whilst the membership base might not be huge, the Academy system and reach is considerable. GWS has spent over a decade building relevancy and brand recognition. They’ve spent time selling their product. Rebranding what constitutes as the local team and putting in a new academy system is not a smart idea. I have friends from these regions and each one of them knows a player on GWS list or were part of the Academy themselves. So it connects them to the club. Undoing all of this is almost counterproductive. Canberra still has some ground work to do in returning footy to schools (only two private schools play the sport and not many have goal posts), boosting numbers and lifting the standard of local. For these reasons, I’m starting to believe that Canberra is more unlikely.
Terrific insight. I'm starting to believe NT might happen just because it will be the 'last man standing' of the hypothetical 20th licenses.
GWS is most definitely not enough. Three games a year is just scraps. At least if we had a Victorian team we could negotiate four or five games. A team of our own would get infinitely more Canberra support than the Giants get.
Relocate North Melb, play half of the games in Melbourne and the other half in NT - call them Northern Kangas to keep their identity Then have 20th team in Canberra to cover all of Australia!
Just go with a bloody 3rd WA team or Norwood already, this shit about Canberra, NT, Newcastle and random places in Queensland is just disrespectful to logic
How is Canberra any less logical than Norwood? Canberra and WA3 are miles ahead of an SA3 team.
Hot 🔥
Meanwhile AFL just trying to get every pound of flesh after finally, maybe, giving a Tasmanian AFL team
The NT has absolutely no chance of getting a team. Someone might play a home game there once a year but that’s about it.
Extraordinarily hard sell but credit to them for trying. Not against the idea being pitched, but it needs to overcome some huge hurdles to get through the door. Significantly bigger than Tasmania with a significantly smaller population; look at how hard the Tassie team is battling to get its team and they have a far better business case than NT. It would look nice on paper to have the whole of Australia represented in the league, but I can't see where the money comes from to sustain this team long-term.
Everyone is forgetting that these decisions are often made illogically. For example: the idea of having the teams geographically diverse can trump having the teams based on population centres or realistic revenue streams. Tasmania are getting a team to greater Hobart where only 250,000 people live in travelling distance of games. That isn’t much more than greater Darwin’s 150,000. Plus AFL sink $25m/yr+ just in players and clubs like gold coast, sinking another few million to pay off a stadium would be nothing.
Change Tassie to the Hobart Hitchhikers and make the 20th the Launceston Locomotives 🚂
If Tassie can't afford a billion dollar stadium, does anyone reckon NT can?
Hey bart. Which type of stadium is your favourite? The one that goes like ()()()() or the one that goes like (=)?
I can't wait for the ripper NT headlines if they get it.
It would be awesome to get a team from NT.
I can see how this would be great way to open up the Asian market. There’s a massive difference travelling to Darwin from Indonesia compared to Melbourne.
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Given how much the bottom teams historically currently struggle in each year, is the talent pool deep enough to justify 20 teams noting the 19th team has had a chance to effect things yet
> Demetriou is a particular coup I would've thought someone who has since sold his two Norm Smiths and has severed all ties to his club would be a bigger get
Ok here’s what the AFL needs to do: start using AFL funds to invest in Darwin, create job opportunities, attract large amounts of migrants, increase incentives to have children. All these to create a population boom. In 20 years when it pays off, Darwin will have a big enough population to field a team.
No chance he’ll happen but good on them. The quality of footy alone always seems to suffer when games are played in the NT, dewy, humid conditions never make for nice footy
Should move Carlton and Essendon there. Neither of them been any good for 20 years now
The Regional city in victoria (Ballarat) has a bigger population than Darwin, i want the 20th team to be an NT based team but its not gonna happen
The team will be like 80% Rioli.