The comp runs in the off season of the us/europe. If it goes longer then there’s a string possibility that the best players will pay elsewhere instead.
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I’m glad that expansion is finally happening, but I have reservations about the West Melbourne bid in particular:
- I don’t know Melbourne that well, but to my understanding the opportunities for growth and engaging football fans seemed a lot more significant in the Southeast (see the Team 11 bid) than in Western Melbourne.
- More significantly, though, WM being successful seems to depend on a huge amount of infrastructure investment. They need to both build their boutique stadium and ensure that the state government includes a station nearby on the new train line being built.
If they can pull it off, an A-League club owning its own boutique stadium in a fast-growing population area would be just about perfect - but I’ll believe it when I see it.
It’ll be mightily disappointing if in five years time WM is drawing Central Coast Mariners style crowds and still playing in an AFL stadium in Geelong.
Its great to see the South West Sydney bid get up. The growth corridor down there is really going to be of benefit to them over the next decade or two. If the airport happens, its going to be even better for them.
Will it really take that many fans from the Wanderers? I have my doubts. I would’ve thought Parramatta, Penrith and Blacktown would be big enough cities to have plenty of Wanderers fans, and surely closer than Campbelltown and much of the growth corridor everyone talks about.
I guess Team 11 and Western Melbourne have their pros and cons so I’m not sure if they’ve made the right choice, although I somewhat expected Team 11 to be chosen. Maybe relying on Government money to build their stadium is what worked against them in the end.
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Boris: The man for all of Sydney
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I’m assuming that looking back in 5-10 years’ time, West Melbs will be defunct and the stadium will have been railroaded by the AFL into an oval for exclusive use as an AFL training ground.
No, they’ll keep it as a rectangle for everyone’s new favourite sport: AFLX.
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The X is for extreme…
If the old NSL clubs have survived the last 14 years of banishment to the amateur state-league wilderness, with no clear path back into the top tier, then A-League clubs could survive dropping down to a fully-professional second-division, where their fans can still watch their teams play live every week on TV and hope to get promoted straight back up the following year.
It’ll effect them but probably not as much as people think. THEY on the other hand, will use it as an excellent scapegoat for their dropping numbers.
Yeah, nah. The average sports fan in this country (not the rusted on football people, the ones the HAL was supposed to bring in to the game) are used to watching the best of the best every week. NRL, VFL, even the Big Bash.
We’re already struggling with being seen as a backwater league by those who follow Euro football instead. Mark my words, any HAL club that goes down will be fucked.
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Fox already doesn’t want too many A-League games and doesn’t like how much production costs. What makes anyone think they’ll stump up more cash (or any free to air) to broadcast the second division?
Fox already doesn’t want too many A-League games and doesn’t like how much production costs. What makes anyone think they’ll stump up more cash (or any free to air) to broadcast the second division?
The problem isn’t more games - in fact the TV deal includes bonuses for expansion, precisely to generate more games - the problem is running deeper into the NRL/AFL season. See how a concurrent second division plays into that?
The “average sports fan in this country” currently doesn’t - and won’t in any relevant time horizon - give the slightest shit about the A-League, and I don’t think it’s particularly productive to pander to the delusion that they do/could/would.
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A second division is absolute pie in the sky stuff at the moment. Let’s sort the A-League out first.
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One of my mates started rage texting late last night after he found out, asking if SFC made this decision instead of FFA. I just replied with the Illuminati eye. 
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Did you ask him where the fuck he/they were in protecting their turf BEFORE the decision was made, like we very obviously did? Did they assume SE was a formality?
They weren’t as vocal, but there was definitely opposition from some WSW fans. Have a look at the Macarthur FB page, a few people were complaining months ago, and it’s been reported that WSW were privately expressing concerns to FFA. It’s just that MSWS so overt and obnoxious as Southern Expansion was.
I really don’t see how they have a leg to stand on. Campbelltown would’ve been such a significantly better match-day experience than Spotless, but they voted for the latter because for most of their fans Campbelltown was too far away. Similarly, the crowds that showed out when they played ACL fixtures down there were poor. There’s just no way that they can reasonably claim that to be “their” turf in any meaningful way.
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Macarthur will have such a little impact on their support… they as a club haven’t even bothered to have a media campaign against it using things (unusual to their support I know) like facts. Why don’t they release a figure of how many members come from Macarthur, I’d say because it is a pittance compared to Fairfield, Parramatta or Blacktown.
My guess is that the forum posting supporter base having a whinge have all had their head in the sand so much they have just assumed that the area is a WSW area without ever stopping to think that WSW have done about as much engagement with the Macarthur region as they accused Sydney FC of doing to the ‘west’ all those years ago…
Fact is, the Macarthur region has about as much in common with Blacktown or Parramatta as it does with Bondi or Coogee.
See this is an eye opener for me. I don’t really get the West, which just shows the bubble I’m in.
From Campbelltown Stadium to Moore Park – 51kms (1hr 15mins)
From Campbelltown Stadium to Parramatta Stadium – 46kms (1hr 7mins)
From Campbelltown Stadium to Win Stadium – 56kms (57 mins)
(times are as of today at 3pm)
The west of Sydney is a huge place in km’s (and traffic times)… I cannot obviously speak for everyone from the region but growing up, we never went to Blacktown or Parramatta – Always much, much more likely to go to the City, Newtown or Wollongong do to things. That’s why when Sydney FC came along, it never felt that much of a hassle to get to Moore Park to go to games, 50kms down an express way on 110 kms was quite easy. Sitting in traffic going to Parramatta Stadium is a much bigger pain in the backside if you ask me.
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