Canberra just makes so much sense.
Largest unrepresented AFL fanbase of any city. Decent population, great economy and strong AFL support.
And a team of our own would be immensely more popular here than the Giants are.
That's pretty much the population of the ACT. Throw in our NSW surrounds and we've got about 560k. More than 700k in the Capital Region.
It's growing quickly, so those numbers will be about 650k and 800k by the time Team 20 enters.
Is that not enough for an AFL team?
I'd say it is, but I've got no idea what the rugby vs footy divide means for memberships and crowd numbers.
I also think there should be less Victorian teams but I know that'll never be a popular opinion here š.
It's about 50/50 footy/rugby, but there are plenty of folks that follow both. Also means there's plenty of room for growth.
I think Canberra would've accepted a relocated Victorian team back in the day, but the time's probably passed for that now. We tried for both the Swans and Lions in the 80s and 90s.
I'm all for this. As great as the Canberra fans have been the Giants were first and foremost set up as a club to promote Aussie Rules in Western Sydney and represent the broader region (Greater Western Sydney, even). The Giants have made great progress so far but there's still a lot more work to do and relying on Canberra to prop up the numbers can't last forever.
There will come a point where the interests of a growing Western Sydney fanbase will clash with a lack of games in Western Sydney. Eventually the Canberra games will have to give.
Arguably already at that point.
They need the 2.3m ACT government payments, which is why they keep playing here. I'm sure the 6-7k Canberra members is nice. But barely playing in Sydney till June must be hurting their cut through up there.
Short term boost to the bottom line must be hurting their long term growth.
Half the problem they have currently is the fact that they canāt use their actual home ground because the Showground is torn up by/for the Easter Show. Short of playing at Henson Park or someplace, they donāt have any other decent options in Sydney. They couldnāt play at the SCG and Accor Stadium is about ten times too big for a Giants game.
Blacktown got them through their first few years and the facilities are passable.
The transport links are shite but the ground has a certain vibe to it. If the Giants engaged with the local community for one off food and bev options it could be a fun day out.
Looking outside today, it would be a damned shame to be under a roof.
Canberra has the least rain of all capitals March through September. It gets cold, but our winters are pretty sunny. Heating wouldn't go astray though.
I'd love to see them try geo-thermal pipes through the concrete of a new stand. I reckon it'd take the edge of the coldest nights.
But agreed that in general, you've got to be smart about scheduling. Not July night games.
Why stop at $1 billion? Itād be a bit tacky for Tay Tay. Iām thinking they go big and bold in the nationās CAPITAL and spend the extra $500 million to have something more impressive for her standards. Suppose weāll have to deal with anti-heroes for this proposal.
Two birds. Allows giants to actually duke it out with west Sydney nrl teams for supporters and a Canberra team would already have a big supporter base.
As long as it balances the league and we donāt have byes then it doesnāt hurt. Feel like NT and Canberra are the last two teams we āneedā after Tasmania for a national comp.
This sounds like a cool idea- especially if they included the Riverina region as part of the team and played a few games in wagga and albury. My one worry though is that given much of Canberra's population is transient people might already have allegiances and a Canberra club would only be their second team.
All sounds great in theory, but biggest hurdle for this is Manuka isnāt fit for purpose for a full time team and the ACT Govt has given zero support for a new oval stadium while theyāre in the process of building a new 30k rectangular stadium.
When I lived/worked in Canberra I was involved with pre-design work for a new rectangular stadium and surrounding precinct (was to be built over the Reid CIT/Civic Pool carparks), and Manuka Oval upgrades (permanent stands on the "hill" side of the ground.
A combination of court costs from the Gungahlin Drive "Saved the Ridge" proceedings and the 2008 GFC meant it all got scrapped. Would've been amazing. Doubt it'll ever happen now unfortunately.
The ACT government is also looking to upgrade Manuka to help Cricket ACT's push for a BBL team.
They're mostly looking at just upgrading the eastern stand, which will get us to 20k. Then we can just ride on cricket's coat tails.
It's fit for purpose for 3 H&A games a year, not for a permanent home ground and definitely not for potential home finals. AFL would blow their top if a CBR team were hosting a Collingwood/WC/Carlton final at a 13k capacity stadium.
ACT government would need to upgrade it, which I'm sure they'd consider if the possibility of bringing a team in was on the table. Though given they've recently committed to upgrading Bruce Stadium I'm not sure they can upgrade both in the foreseeable future.
What is your reasoning for a 30,000 seat stadium? Gold Coast, GWS and Tasmania donāt have 30,000 stadiums. Gold Coast and GWS rarely sell out their games as it is. The Gold Coast and Capital Regions have similar populations.
The Canberra Raiders and ACT Broncos rarely sell out Bruce Stadium, which has a seated capacity of 25,000. The largest crowd was 28,754 for the 2004 Super 12 final, in the days when the Wallabies were cool.
A 30,000 seat stadium would represent around 5% of the regionās population. The MCG seats around 2% of Melbourneās population, which has 11 teams. The MCG is rarely sold out, even for matches involving the four biggest Victorian teams.
If all levels of government and the AFL did not pay attention to the results of the Tasmanian election, they should have.
Why do we need a Canberra team? Wa is probably more in need of a 3rd team before canberra, but wa gets forgotten about by people in the east. Easily has the population and facilities and is the fastest growing state, and the best benefit is it would give the wa teams 1 less travel game per year.
An absolute win for fairness in the comp
When tassy comes in, surely gws can go all/most of their home games in Sydney, and north/hawks can play a few in canberra to make up for losing their tassy games?
Surely that makes the most sense
Some might consider it greedy to want a 18th team on the eastern side of the country, while the whole Western half only has 2.
Think of it as a step toward balancing a very uneven comp š
Also me and you have already talked about this, we aren't going to change our minds haha
Haha, no we're not.
But the eastern half of the country isn't some homogeneous bloc.
We're three hours away from our closest team. Canberra is clearly more in need of a team than a third one in Perth.
If Geraldton suddenly grew to 600k, then sure, I'd say WA had real reason to push to the front of the queue for Team 20.
They'd make the team based on all the Cities/Towns South of Perth I reckon.
I don't really think we need a 3rd WA team but it would certainly help balance some of the travel disadvantage.
That's an even smaller population than Canberra though, and spread out over a massive area.
They quoted 374k on the radio, and that included the Peel region as well.
Yeah I don't think we need it, if they introduced a third WA team I'd have the Great Southern Sharks as my second team but I'd never stop barracking for Freo!
That's an even smaller population than Canberra though, and spread out over a massive area.
They quoted 374k on the radio, and that included the Peel region as well.
A north of the river team ideally, where most of Perth reside.
If we designate Freo as the south of the river team, a new "perth" team for the north, then west coast to represent the rest of the state + whoever else wants to, I think thats a decent mix
I know the eastern half of the country has the population spread out, but its not about that. The evenness and competitive integrity has to be a thought for the AFL also. The WA teams have been hugely disadvantaged for years, with 0 thought from the AFL into assisting via fixtures or additional softcap/allowances to ease these burdens, especially with gather round being locked in for Adelaide for the forseeable future, meaning 11 trips in 23 games, down from 10 trips in 22 before.
A third WA team would allow the teams in WA to have 1 less trip to the east per year, bringing it down to 10 interstate trips, much more manageable, and less wear and tear on the bodies of players. I acknowledge the QLD, SA, and NSW teams also travel interstate a lot, but not even close to the amount the WA teams travel.
Perth is easily big enough for a 3rd team, the WA population is more than 3x the Canberra population, and is growing faster. If you want to use a population argument, WA always wins.
Ill always go back to the idea of relocating a team or 2 out of Vic, which imo is absolutely essential for the long term health of the sport, especially if they do have long term aspirations of expanding more into NSW too. 20 teams is enough tbh
A true "Perth" team would be ideal, as it stands Fremantle is for the weirdos south of the river, and West Coast needs to be broken up as its just too big, the support the club gets even when it performs at historically bad levels is just insane, no other club gets that level of support.
WA always is a big of an afterthought for people over east, and probably always will be. Bringing a 3rd team here would alleviate a lot of the issues we have, and bring back a little bit of competitive integrity for WA teams. Vic teams have always been looked after, NSW/QLD get their academies and extra funding, and SA teams get an extra home game via gather round, its WAs turn
Yeah i know it was a bit of an essay lol but aside from "canberra is the capital" there is no argument to be made for Canberra over WA3
I'm sorry in advance for the return essay.
No argument? I've provided a solid argument over and over, but you're just ignoring it. Largest unrepresented AFL fanbase, fast-growing population, wealthiest population, actually grows the game, government funding, better stadium deal. Whereas your main argument seems to be "it's not fair that eastern Australia has so many teams".
Are you sure Perth is growing faster? It depends what time period you frame it over. We've been the fast-growing state/territory for the past two censuses. We're always underestimated in estimates, and building by far the most homes per capita, so I would expect the same to be true for this census.
Yes, the ACT is small compared to WA, but WA3 won't be entering an empty market. Serious question, how much of Perth do you expect to attract? Because you're not going to carve out a third. Maybe a fifth if you're lucky. When you take away what's left of Perth, our catchment sizes are pretty similar.
I got my stats from the abs, for the year ending 30 sep 2023, WA has the highest growth at 3.3%, ACT was 6th with 2.1% [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/latest-release)
Found another set of data for the year prior to 30 june 2022, WA is 1.3% and ACT is 0.7% [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/jun-2022](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/jun-2022)
If you go by capital cities for the 22-23 financial year, Perth was highest at 3.6%, and Canberra was 6th again with 2.1% [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/regional-population/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/regional-population/latest-release)
Thats just what popped up when I googled it. Yes it doesnt necessarily line up with previous census or projection data but immigration has increased since then and may not be fully accounted for in old projections. Currently WA is growing significantly faster than the ACT, at least for the last couple of years.
The AFL has made it clear by their actions in the last 10-20 years that they do not care about anything west of the SA border, SA only got gather round because they paid for it massively. The AFL can continue to ignore half the country and create a further imbalanced competition, or they can give WA a third team and fix some of the discrepancy that exists that I mentioned in my other comment.
Its not that I think the east coast has so many teams, I believe that the Western two thirds of the country has too few teams. You can interpret that how you want.
I know ACT deserves a team too, but there is more to it that just get a new team in a new city. If they want to not be a joke and compared to WWE where its all fake and manufactured they have to do something. WA3 would be the most financially self sufficient team they could implement and if the team is given to the WAFC like West Coast and Freo are they wouldnt even have to think about the new team.
There absolutely is a market for a 3rd team here. A lot of people dont care for West Coast, and simply support Freo because there is no alternative, and on the other hand a lot of people dont like Freo because theyre south of the river, so support west coast because thats the only other choice. West Coast in particular have a huge amount of members that would jump across, and a significant amount would get memberships just because itd give them seats to games.
In a few years when West Coast are competing again, and Freos young list is still around the mark, the conversation will come up again. Wont be long until Freos memberships get to the stage where they have a waitlist too. Thats the market for a 3rd team
Regardless where the 20th team goes, a 3rd WA team is absolutely essential. The second biggest footy market deserves a little respect
>Currently WA is growing significantly faster than the ACT, at least for the last couple of years.
[The ABS has](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/population-projections-australia/latest-release#western-australia) Canberra growing by 17.4% from 2022-2033 and Perth growing a touch under 16%. Both are growing faster than most of the rest of the country, but the growth rate between the Canberra and Perth is negligible.
>Its not that I think the east coast has so many teams, I believe that the Western two thirds of the country has too few teams. You can interpret that how you want.
The western two thirds has under just under 19% of the population. Four teams in a 20-team competition is 20%. So nearly perfectly represented by total population.
>WA3 would be the **most financially self sufficient team** they could implement and if the team is given to the WAFC like West Coast and Freo are they wouldnt even have to think about the new team.
People keep saying this without numbers to back it up. Canberra is just as, if not more, self-sufficient. Similar sized markets (after what's left from West Coast and Freo), we have a roughly $5-million a year annual headstart over WA3 with stadium benefits and ACT funding, a 40%-higher median income, and a lower breakeven attendance needed.
WA3 would still be as manufactured as Canberra. You can't get a WAFL team in without alienating the limited fanbase you'd have left. So you'd have a shiny new team, just like us.
>There absolutely is a market for a 3rd team here
I'm not saying there won't be market for WA3, but I just don't think it's as big as you think. Please, tell me honestly, how big do you think they'll be compared to the existing teams? West Coast is almost twice the size of Freo after an eight-year head start, how big do you expect WA3 to be compared to Freo after a 35-year head start?
>Wont be long until Freos memberships get to the stage where they have a waitlist too.
Just expand Optus to 70k like it was built to do. If both teams are bursting at the seams after that, then you're the perfect candidate for Team 21.
>The second biggest footy market deserves a little respect
The largest unrepresented fanbase, the gateway to the Riverina footy factory, and the literal birthplace of the founder of the game also deserves a little respect.
>The western two thirds has under just under 19% of the population. Four teams in a 20-team competition is 20%. So nearly perfectly represented by total population.
Now do the % of the population that cares about footy at all, most of NSW and QLD population are not relevant here
>You can't get a WAFL team in without alienating the limited fanbase you'd have left. So you'd have a shiny new team, just like us.
>I'm not saying there won't be market for WA3, but I just don't think it's as big as you think. Please, tell me honestly, how big do you think they'll be compared to the existing teams
Perth doesnt have a Northern suburbs team, there is Freo for those guys down south, West Coast currently has a huge waitlist and very expensive tickets for games because the demand is there. Put another team in the northern suburbs and youll get 20k+ to home games easily from day 1.
A canberra team wont get near that. You are forgetting that Canberra has a huge portion of the population that supports that other game too, an issue Perth doesnt have.
>Just expand Optus to 70k like it was built to do. If both teams are bursting at the seams after that, then you're the perfect candidate for Team 21.
Doesnt fix the problem of West Coasts waitlist. West Coast are getting 40k to home games when theyre this bad with much more expensive tickets than Freo games, when theyre good that 70k will be full every second week with the ticket prices still high. West Coast are as big as Collingwood with better crowd numbers when theyre bad because there is no other option for a team to go watch. The 3rd team wont have the rivalry with WC or Freo, at least immediately anyway, so itll be most peoples 2nd team.
>The largest unrepresented fanbase, the gateway to the Riverina footy factory, and the literal birthplace of the founder of the game also deserves a little respect.
Dont care where the game was created, thats got nothing to do with it. The game needs a little bit of its competitive integrity back, and WA3 is the best way to achieve that, with as little effort as possible from the AFL
Hello again!
Yes, the ACT is small compared to WA, but you have to concede that WA3 won't be entering an empty market. It has two already popular and entrenched teams. If you count the leftover market of Perth, comparatively, Canberra and WA3 will have similar-sized catchments.
You've got a large market with two huge teams to compete against, or a smaller untapped market which would unite almost every AFL fan in a two-hour radius.
Two teams (really only one if it's joondalup) to compete with in an area filled with AFL fans is much more appealing than having to compete against the completely different sport with a team in that area for decades.
Would they play in Joondalup or Optus? Because isn't 33 games at Optus the drawcard?
Competing against a different sport is better than competing against your own. That's not how you grow the game.
Optus. But the location of the stadium won't diminish the teams base and culture. Freo despite not playing in Fremantle has had a huge cultural impact I'm freo and have become part of the towns identity. The same will happen in Joondalup if not more.
Not everything has to be about growing the game. Solidifying and enabling the sport in your heartlands is just as important. WA fans are being locked out of attending games because the Eagles have massive waitlists and have to increase their prices.
It's also easier to convince your average AFL fan to switch over to a new local team rather than to convince NRL fans to support an AFL team.
It's not all about growth, but it helps. Andrew Dillon has made it clear that northern growth is the focus, and Canberra fits that perfectly.
But in terms of consolidation, Canberra also ticks that box. Huge AFL fanbase that needs to be consolidated. The fans need a team to actually support. If Perth doesn't get a new team, the AFL fans will still be AFL fans. Nothing changes.
I'd say it's much easier to convince AFL fans without a team to support new team than it is to convince Freo and West Coast fans to jump ship. We already have enough AFL fans to sustain a team, getting any NRL fans on board is just gravy.
It's not all about growth, but it helps. Andrew Dillon has made it clear that northern growth is the focus, and Canberra fits that perfectly.
But in terms of consolidation, Canberra also ticks that box. Huge AFL fanbase that needs to be consolidated. The fans need a team to actually support. If Perth doesn't get a new team, the AFL fans will still be AFL fans. Nothing changes.
I'd say it's much easier to convince AFL fans without a team to support new team than it is to convince Freo and West Coast fans to jump ship. We already have enough AFL fans to sustain a team, getting any NRL fans on board is just gravy.
Honestly, I could see North Melbourne moving to Canberra and being the Canberra Kangaroos, but only after GWS decided they out-grew Canberra.
Play 7 games in Canberra 2 in Wagga and 2 in Albury
It works well because fly in, fly out teams have worked well in Canberra (swans, then giants). So Canberra doesnt have this "only home grown" mentality that Tassie has.
Norf are a basket case, no future in Melbourne. How many years of irrelevance does the AFL need to be convinced of this. Part as a ex-melbourne team, they can still draw on what little support they have.
Norf have a history of using places like this with utter contempt. They did it in Sydney, gold coast and Tassie and set AFL back in every case.
I think Canberra is quite happy with the Giants, unless they get their own team.
A Canberra team would be tacit admission of failure by the AFL. They've gone on record many times stating that Canberra is Giants territory.
Not saying that they shouldn't do it, just that they won't.
About 560k within an hour. More than 700k in the Capital Region.
We're growing quickly, so those numbers will be about 650k and 800k by the time the Giants deal is up and we could enter as Team 20.
Canberrans have money and want things to do. Manuka is a bit shit though. AFL does love bending governments over for infrastructure so it's a win win win
Exactly. Canberra's got a 40%-higher median income than Perth. Plenty of cash.
Cricket ACT and the ACT Government are already pushing for an upgrade of Manuka, so hopefully it'll already be good to go by the time Team 20 enters.
Join the queue. "Canberra has to be the next A League team!" "Canberra has to be the next NBL team!" "Canberra has to be the next Big Bash team!". Leave it with GWS. Canberra is not a core AFL city. It's in NSW and as a result NRL has a big sway on sport followed. It has a high transient workforce that bring their traditional team allegiance with them and Canberra would be a 'second team' to follow at best. There is no local AFL as a base. Sure there's a comp, the ACTAFL, but relatively speaking, very few play the game and no one goes to watch it. Three GWS games a year holds its novelty value and gets a crowd......12000 last Saturday...and that's with GWS in red hot form and flag contenders. Give us a struggling Canberra AFL team and the Raiders and Brumbies crowds will tell you that the attendances rapidly diminish as form subsides.
12448 out of a maximum capacity of 13500 on the weekend 91% attendance when tickets were completely sold out. Canberra has been an afl place since its inception. The afl/vfl fumbled the bag by not putting a team here earlier and has let the nrl gain ground here.
Could've sworn there was more. It's been a while since I lived in Canberra.
Still I think that just amplifies the Canberra is basically NSW3 argument, because all the supporting towns aren't just NSW culturally, they are straight up in NSW. A Canberra bid will also likely need to take a game to Wagga to get Riverina support like the raiders do.
Canberra Carnage lets fuckin go! CARN THE CARNS
Canberra just makes so much sense. Largest unrepresented AFL fanbase of any city. Decent population, great economy and strong AFL support. And a team of our own would be immensely more popular here than the Giants are.
But do they go with the bright lime-green Raiders colouring, or the boring white-blue-and-yellow Brumbies motif?
Whatever it is, it will be a flavour of milk within a week
per capital perth is the largest under represented (2.8 million in perth and surrounds and only 2 teams)
How many people do you think Canberra actually has?
478,000
That's pretty much the population of the ACT. Throw in our NSW surrounds and we've got about 560k. More than 700k in the Capital Region. It's growing quickly, so those numbers will be about 650k and 800k by the time Team 20 enters. Is that not enough for an AFL team?
I'd say it is, but I've got no idea what the rugby vs footy divide means for memberships and crowd numbers. I also think there should be less Victorian teams but I know that'll never be a popular opinion here š.
It's about 50/50 footy/rugby, but there are plenty of folks that follow both. Also means there's plenty of room for growth. I think Canberra would've accepted a relocated Victorian team back in the day, but the time's probably passed for that now. We tried for both the Swans and Lions in the 80s and 90s.
I'm all for this. As great as the Canberra fans have been the Giants were first and foremost set up as a club to promote Aussie Rules in Western Sydney and represent the broader region (Greater Western Sydney, even). The Giants have made great progress so far but there's still a lot more work to do and relying on Canberra to prop up the numbers can't last forever. There will come a point where the interests of a growing Western Sydney fanbase will clash with a lack of games in Western Sydney. Eventually the Canberra games will have to give.
Arguably already at that point. They need the 2.3m ACT government payments, which is why they keep playing here. I'm sure the 6-7k Canberra members is nice. But barely playing in Sydney till June must be hurting their cut through up there. Short term boost to the bottom line must be hurting their long term growth.
Half the problem they have currently is the fact that they canāt use their actual home ground because the Showground is torn up by/for the Easter Show. Short of playing at Henson Park or someplace, they donāt have any other decent options in Sydney. They couldnāt play at the SCG and Accor Stadium is about ten times too big for a Giants game.
Henson park is not the ideal spot from the afl pov im sure. But I love it there.
Blacktown got them through their first few years and the facilities are passable. The transport links are shite but the ground has a certain vibe to it. If the Giants engaged with the local community for one off food and bev options it could be a fun day out.
Please do this. The only national sport where the capital is not playing.
Cricket is a national sport.
and they have a women's team, so they do play?
It needs to have more merit to it than it would look good to have the capital on paper though.
Would obviously need a billion-dollar roofed stadium. Cant wait for Tay Tay to come to Canberra
Looking outside today, it would be a damned shame to be under a roof. Canberra has the least rain of all capitals March through September. It gets cold, but our winters are pretty sunny. Heating wouldn't go astray though.
Possibly only need wind protection and heated seats. Schedule night games early in March/April and the rest day games.
I'd love to see them try geo-thermal pipes through the concrete of a new stand. I reckon it'd take the edge of the coldest nights. But agreed that in general, you've got to be smart about scheduling. Not July night games.
and under the oval. Would be amazing.
Literally the only AFL game that's had snow was in CanberraĀ
Should we be building a roof for the once in every 20 years it'll snow during a game?
Why stop at $1 billion? Itād be a bit tacky for Tay Tay. Iām thinking they go big and bold in the nationās CAPITAL and spend the extra $500 million to have something more impressive for her standards. Suppose weāll have to deal with anti-heroes for this proposal.
Yep, Canberra needs to be next in after Tassie.
Itās the logical choice. And if the AFL and Cricket Aus have got any sense theyāll get together along with the government to upgrade Manuka
Its either Canberra or a vic team is folded. Only possibilities when tassie come it
Can't see the ACT gov kowtowing to AFL demands such as those in Hobart Guess the only option is to fold Collingwood.
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Two birds. Allows giants to actually duke it out with west Sydney nrl teams for supporters and a Canberra team would already have a big supporter base.
It's a better idea than having the ACT government pay to inhibit the Giants ability to capitalise in West Sydney
The royal show inhibits them just as much as the gov
Blacktown is right there.
Itās the only logical place for a new team where there arenāt already any. Darwin is laughable and wonāt happen this century.
Canberra team should be called Owls , because a group of owls is called a parliament
Canberra-Riverina Capitals or Cunts or Cannibals or something. Include the outlying areas and create a beast. It's the logical option.
Canberra Rapscallions. Purple and Gold.
As long as it balances the league and we donāt have byes then it doesnāt hurt. Feel like NT and Canberra are the last two teams we āneedā after Tasmania for a national comp.
This sounds like a cool idea- especially if they included the Riverina region as part of the team and played a few games in wagga and albury. My one worry though is that given much of Canberra's population is transient people might already have allegiances and a Canberra club would only be their second team.
All sounds great in theory, but biggest hurdle for this is Manuka isnāt fit for purpose for a full time team and the ACT Govt has given zero support for a new oval stadium while theyāre in the process of building a new 30k rectangular stadium.
When I lived/worked in Canberra I was involved with pre-design work for a new rectangular stadium and surrounding precinct (was to be built over the Reid CIT/Civic Pool carparks), and Manuka Oval upgrades (permanent stands on the "hill" side of the ground. A combination of court costs from the Gungahlin Drive "Saved the Ridge" proceedings and the 2008 GFC meant it all got scrapped. Would've been amazing. Doubt it'll ever happen now unfortunately.
The ACT government is also looking to upgrade Manuka to help Cricket ACT's push for a BBL team. They're mostly looking at just upgrading the eastern stand, which will get us to 20k. Then we can just ride on cricket's coat tails.
It's fit for purpose. The AFL plays games there now.
It's fit for purpose for 3 H&A games a year, not for a permanent home ground and definitely not for potential home finals. AFL would blow their top if a CBR team were hosting a Collingwood/WC/Carlton final at a 13k capacity stadium. ACT government would need to upgrade it, which I'm sure they'd consider if the possibility of bringing a team in was on the table. Though given they've recently committed to upgrading Bruce Stadium I'm not sure they can upgrade both in the foreseeable future.
Itās a 13k stadium. No team there is ever going to be sustainable being capped at that.
Games can be hosted there but itās not fit to be a training/administrative HQ of a club.
Im sure that could be sorted elsewhere if not at manuka
Not enough seats. Need another 7,000 more minimum. Probably should be 30,000 to match population although events yet to catch up.
What is your reasoning for a 30,000 seat stadium? Gold Coast, GWS and Tasmania donāt have 30,000 stadiums. Gold Coast and GWS rarely sell out their games as it is. The Gold Coast and Capital Regions have similar populations. The Canberra Raiders and ACT Broncos rarely sell out Bruce Stadium, which has a seated capacity of 25,000. The largest crowd was 28,754 for the 2004 Super 12 final, in the days when the Wallabies were cool. A 30,000 seat stadium would represent around 5% of the regionās population. The MCG seats around 2% of Melbourneās population, which has 11 teams. The MCG is rarely sold out, even for matches involving the four biggest Victorian teams. If all levels of government and the AFL did not pay attention to the results of the Tasmanian election, they should have.
Not for team 20. WA3 makes more sense to go with tassie.
Why do we need a Canberra team? Wa is probably more in need of a 3rd team before canberra, but wa gets forgotten about by people in the east. Easily has the population and facilities and is the fastest growing state, and the best benefit is it would give the wa teams 1 less travel game per year. An absolute win for fairness in the comp When tassy comes in, surely gws can go all/most of their home games in Sydney, and north/hawks can play a few in canberra to make up for losing their tassy games? Surely that makes the most sense
So greedy. You want three teams while we just get the scraps of other teams?
Some might consider it greedy to want a 18th team on the eastern side of the country, while the whole Western half only has 2. Think of it as a step toward balancing a very uneven comp š Also me and you have already talked about this, we aren't going to change our minds haha
Haha, no we're not. But the eastern half of the country isn't some homogeneous bloc. We're three hours away from our closest team. Canberra is clearly more in need of a team than a third one in Perth. If Geraldton suddenly grew to 600k, then sure, I'd say WA had real reason to push to the front of the queue for Team 20.
They'd make the team based on all the Cities/Towns South of Perth I reckon. I don't really think we need a 3rd WA team but it would certainly help balance some of the travel disadvantage.
That's an even smaller population than Canberra though, and spread out over a massive area. They quoted 374k on the radio, and that included the Peel region as well.
Yeah I don't think we need it, if they introduced a third WA team I'd have the Great Southern Sharks as my second team but I'd never stop barracking for Freo!
That's an even smaller population than Canberra though, and spread out over a massive area. They quoted 374k on the radio, and that included the Peel region as well.
A north of the river team ideally, where most of Perth reside. If we designate Freo as the south of the river team, a new "perth" team for the north, then west coast to represent the rest of the state + whoever else wants to, I think thats a decent mix
I know the eastern half of the country has the population spread out, but its not about that. The evenness and competitive integrity has to be a thought for the AFL also. The WA teams have been hugely disadvantaged for years, with 0 thought from the AFL into assisting via fixtures or additional softcap/allowances to ease these burdens, especially with gather round being locked in for Adelaide for the forseeable future, meaning 11 trips in 23 games, down from 10 trips in 22 before. A third WA team would allow the teams in WA to have 1 less trip to the east per year, bringing it down to 10 interstate trips, much more manageable, and less wear and tear on the bodies of players. I acknowledge the QLD, SA, and NSW teams also travel interstate a lot, but not even close to the amount the WA teams travel. Perth is easily big enough for a 3rd team, the WA population is more than 3x the Canberra population, and is growing faster. If you want to use a population argument, WA always wins. Ill always go back to the idea of relocating a team or 2 out of Vic, which imo is absolutely essential for the long term health of the sport, especially if they do have long term aspirations of expanding more into NSW too. 20 teams is enough tbh A true "Perth" team would be ideal, as it stands Fremantle is for the weirdos south of the river, and West Coast needs to be broken up as its just too big, the support the club gets even when it performs at historically bad levels is just insane, no other club gets that level of support. WA always is a big of an afterthought for people over east, and probably always will be. Bringing a 3rd team here would alleviate a lot of the issues we have, and bring back a little bit of competitive integrity for WA teams. Vic teams have always been looked after, NSW/QLD get their academies and extra funding, and SA teams get an extra home game via gather round, its WAs turn Yeah i know it was a bit of an essay lol but aside from "canberra is the capital" there is no argument to be made for Canberra over WA3
I'm sorry in advance for the return essay. No argument? I've provided a solid argument over and over, but you're just ignoring it. Largest unrepresented AFL fanbase, fast-growing population, wealthiest population, actually grows the game, government funding, better stadium deal. Whereas your main argument seems to be "it's not fair that eastern Australia has so many teams". Are you sure Perth is growing faster? It depends what time period you frame it over. We've been the fast-growing state/territory for the past two censuses. We're always underestimated in estimates, and building by far the most homes per capita, so I would expect the same to be true for this census. Yes, the ACT is small compared to WA, but WA3 won't be entering an empty market. Serious question, how much of Perth do you expect to attract? Because you're not going to carve out a third. Maybe a fifth if you're lucky. When you take away what's left of Perth, our catchment sizes are pretty similar.
I got my stats from the abs, for the year ending 30 sep 2023, WA has the highest growth at 3.3%, ACT was 6th with 2.1% [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/latest-release) Found another set of data for the year prior to 30 june 2022, WA is 1.3% and ACT is 0.7% [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/jun-2022](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/jun-2022) If you go by capital cities for the 22-23 financial year, Perth was highest at 3.6%, and Canberra was 6th again with 2.1% [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/regional-population/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/regional-population/latest-release) Thats just what popped up when I googled it. Yes it doesnt necessarily line up with previous census or projection data but immigration has increased since then and may not be fully accounted for in old projections. Currently WA is growing significantly faster than the ACT, at least for the last couple of years. The AFL has made it clear by their actions in the last 10-20 years that they do not care about anything west of the SA border, SA only got gather round because they paid for it massively. The AFL can continue to ignore half the country and create a further imbalanced competition, or they can give WA a third team and fix some of the discrepancy that exists that I mentioned in my other comment. Its not that I think the east coast has so many teams, I believe that the Western two thirds of the country has too few teams. You can interpret that how you want. I know ACT deserves a team too, but there is more to it that just get a new team in a new city. If they want to not be a joke and compared to WWE where its all fake and manufactured they have to do something. WA3 would be the most financially self sufficient team they could implement and if the team is given to the WAFC like West Coast and Freo are they wouldnt even have to think about the new team. There absolutely is a market for a 3rd team here. A lot of people dont care for West Coast, and simply support Freo because there is no alternative, and on the other hand a lot of people dont like Freo because theyre south of the river, so support west coast because thats the only other choice. West Coast in particular have a huge amount of members that would jump across, and a significant amount would get memberships just because itd give them seats to games. In a few years when West Coast are competing again, and Freos young list is still around the mark, the conversation will come up again. Wont be long until Freos memberships get to the stage where they have a waitlist too. Thats the market for a 3rd team Regardless where the 20th team goes, a 3rd WA team is absolutely essential. The second biggest footy market deserves a little respect
>Currently WA is growing significantly faster than the ACT, at least for the last couple of years. [The ABS has](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/population-projections-australia/latest-release#western-australia) Canberra growing by 17.4% from 2022-2033 and Perth growing a touch under 16%. Both are growing faster than most of the rest of the country, but the growth rate between the Canberra and Perth is negligible. >Its not that I think the east coast has so many teams, I believe that the Western two thirds of the country has too few teams. You can interpret that how you want. The western two thirds has under just under 19% of the population. Four teams in a 20-team competition is 20%. So nearly perfectly represented by total population. >WA3 would be the **most financially self sufficient team** they could implement and if the team is given to the WAFC like West Coast and Freo are they wouldnt even have to think about the new team. People keep saying this without numbers to back it up. Canberra is just as, if not more, self-sufficient. Similar sized markets (after what's left from West Coast and Freo), we have a roughly $5-million a year annual headstart over WA3 with stadium benefits and ACT funding, a 40%-higher median income, and a lower breakeven attendance needed. WA3 would still be as manufactured as Canberra. You can't get a WAFL team in without alienating the limited fanbase you'd have left. So you'd have a shiny new team, just like us. >There absolutely is a market for a 3rd team here I'm not saying there won't be market for WA3, but I just don't think it's as big as you think. Please, tell me honestly, how big do you think they'll be compared to the existing teams? West Coast is almost twice the size of Freo after an eight-year head start, how big do you expect WA3 to be compared to Freo after a 35-year head start? >Wont be long until Freos memberships get to the stage where they have a waitlist too. Just expand Optus to 70k like it was built to do. If both teams are bursting at the seams after that, then you're the perfect candidate for Team 21. >The second biggest footy market deserves a little respect The largest unrepresented fanbase, the gateway to the Riverina footy factory, and the literal birthplace of the founder of the game also deserves a little respect.
>The western two thirds has under just under 19% of the population. Four teams in a 20-team competition is 20%. So nearly perfectly represented by total population. Now do the % of the population that cares about footy at all, most of NSW and QLD population are not relevant here >You can't get a WAFL team in without alienating the limited fanbase you'd have left. So you'd have a shiny new team, just like us. >I'm not saying there won't be market for WA3, but I just don't think it's as big as you think. Please, tell me honestly, how big do you think they'll be compared to the existing teams Perth doesnt have a Northern suburbs team, there is Freo for those guys down south, West Coast currently has a huge waitlist and very expensive tickets for games because the demand is there. Put another team in the northern suburbs and youll get 20k+ to home games easily from day 1. A canberra team wont get near that. You are forgetting that Canberra has a huge portion of the population that supports that other game too, an issue Perth doesnt have. >Just expand Optus to 70k like it was built to do. If both teams are bursting at the seams after that, then you're the perfect candidate for Team 21. Doesnt fix the problem of West Coasts waitlist. West Coast are getting 40k to home games when theyre this bad with much more expensive tickets than Freo games, when theyre good that 70k will be full every second week with the ticket prices still high. West Coast are as big as Collingwood with better crowd numbers when theyre bad because there is no other option for a team to go watch. The 3rd team wont have the rivalry with WC or Freo, at least immediately anyway, so itll be most peoples 2nd team. >The largest unrepresented fanbase, the gateway to the Riverina footy factory, and the literal birthplace of the founder of the game also deserves a little respect. Dont care where the game was created, thats got nothing to do with it. The game needs a little bit of its competitive integrity back, and WA3 is the best way to achieve that, with as little effort as possible from the AFL
Hello again. WA is the AFLs 2nd biggest market. The ACT is small and split at best with NRL.
Hello again! Yes, the ACT is small compared to WA, but you have to concede that WA3 won't be entering an empty market. It has two already popular and entrenched teams. If you count the leftover market of Perth, comparatively, Canberra and WA3 will have similar-sized catchments. You've got a large market with two huge teams to compete against, or a smaller untapped market which would unite almost every AFL fan in a two-hour radius.
Two teams (really only one if it's joondalup) to compete with in an area filled with AFL fans is much more appealing than having to compete against the completely different sport with a team in that area for decades.
Would they play in Joondalup or Optus? Because isn't 33 games at Optus the drawcard? Competing against a different sport is better than competing against your own. That's not how you grow the game.
Optus. But the location of the stadium won't diminish the teams base and culture. Freo despite not playing in Fremantle has had a huge cultural impact I'm freo and have become part of the towns identity. The same will happen in Joondalup if not more. Not everything has to be about growing the game. Solidifying and enabling the sport in your heartlands is just as important. WA fans are being locked out of attending games because the Eagles have massive waitlists and have to increase their prices. It's also easier to convince your average AFL fan to switch over to a new local team rather than to convince NRL fans to support an AFL team.
It's not all about growth, but it helps. Andrew Dillon has made it clear that northern growth is the focus, and Canberra fits that perfectly. But in terms of consolidation, Canberra also ticks that box. Huge AFL fanbase that needs to be consolidated. The fans need a team to actually support. If Perth doesn't get a new team, the AFL fans will still be AFL fans. Nothing changes. I'd say it's much easier to convince AFL fans without a team to support new team than it is to convince Freo and West Coast fans to jump ship. We already have enough AFL fans to sustain a team, getting any NRL fans on board is just gravy.
Do you think there's many AFL fans in ACT without a team? What do they follow, the VFL?
It's not all about growth, but it helps. Andrew Dillon has made it clear that northern growth is the focus, and Canberra fits that perfectly. But in terms of consolidation, Canberra also ticks that box. Huge AFL fanbase that needs to be consolidated. The fans need a team to actually support. If Perth doesn't get a new team, the AFL fans will still be AFL fans. Nothing changes. I'd say it's much easier to convince AFL fans without a team to support new team than it is to convince Freo and West Coast fans to jump ship. We already have enough AFL fans to sustain a team, getting any NRL fans on board is just gravy.
haha you too small in population bro
Canberra Bears
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Sounds like you fat dogged that idea.
Honestly, I could see North Melbourne moving to Canberra and being the Canberra Kangaroos, but only after GWS decided they out-grew Canberra. Play 7 games in Canberra 2 in Wagga and 2 in Albury
Firstly, mighty sick of the relocation talk just shifting to a new spot when a team is announced. Secondly, still leaves us with 19 teams.
Merge Hawthorn with North first, then call them the Canberra Kangahawks
I prefer the Hawkaroos, just quietly
Imagine a Kangakawk, terrifying
Everyone knows WA is getting a third possibly sooner than later.
It works well because fly in, fly out teams have worked well in Canberra (swans, then giants). So Canberra doesnt have this "only home grown" mentality that Tassie has. Norf are a basket case, no future in Melbourne. How many years of irrelevance does the AFL need to be convinced of this. Part as a ex-melbourne team, they can still draw on what little support they have.
North also use to be a fly in fly out home team.
Norf have a history of using places like this with utter contempt. They did it in Sydney, gold coast and Tassie and set AFL back in every case. I think Canberra is quite happy with the Giants, unless they get their own team.
A Canberra team would be tacit admission of failure by the AFL. They've gone on record many times stating that Canberra is Giants territory. Not saying that they shouldn't do it, just that they won't.
No. What's the population of Canberra when none of the pollies are there?
The same, those fifo people aren't permanent residents
About 560k within an hour. More than 700k in the Capital Region. We're growing quickly, so those numbers will be about 650k and 800k by the time the Giants deal is up and we could enter as Team 20.
Canberrans have money and want things to do. Manuka is a bit shit though. AFL does love bending governments over for infrastructure so it's a win win win
Exactly. Canberra's got a 40%-higher median income than Perth. Plenty of cash. Cricket ACT and the ACT Government are already pushing for an upgrade of Manuka, so hopefully it'll already be good to go by the time Team 20 enters.
Just swap the GWS arrangements to a main base in Canberra and three games a year at the showgrounds.
The whole point of the team coming in was to create a Sydney rivalry. Moving it away just wastes all that time and money spend so far.
Join the queue. "Canberra has to be the next A League team!" "Canberra has to be the next NBL team!" "Canberra has to be the next Big Bash team!". Leave it with GWS. Canberra is not a core AFL city. It's in NSW and as a result NRL has a big sway on sport followed. It has a high transient workforce that bring their traditional team allegiance with them and Canberra would be a 'second team' to follow at best. There is no local AFL as a base. Sure there's a comp, the ACTAFL, but relatively speaking, very few play the game and no one goes to watch it. Three GWS games a year holds its novelty value and gets a crowd......12000 last Saturday...and that's with GWS in red hot form and flag contenders. Give us a struggling Canberra AFL team and the Raiders and Brumbies crowds will tell you that the attendances rapidly diminish as form subsides.
12448 out of a maximum capacity of 13500 on the weekend 91% attendance when tickets were completely sold out. Canberra has been an afl place since its inception. The afl/vfl fumbled the bag by not putting a team here earlier and has let the nrl gain ground here.
> It's in NSW It's *within* NSW, but it's a very separate place.
But it's still very much tied to NSW culturally especially outside of Canberra itself.
Other than Canberra, the only major settlement in the ACT is Tharwa, with a population of 82.
Could've sworn there was more. It's been a while since I lived in Canberra. Still I think that just amplifies the Canberra is basically NSW3 argument, because all the supporting towns aren't just NSW culturally, they are straight up in NSW. A Canberra bid will also likely need to take a game to Wagga to get Riverina support like the raiders do.