I thought it would've died after pips got banned

Football stadiums are multi-purpose and they always have been. Football, RL, RU and other big participation sports like touch football all use them. Even smaller sports like gridiron or gaelic football use them.

Maybe the mods can move it to Extra Time?

We need to be moving away from multi purpose stadiums and building football specific stadiums. just look at the state of Suncorp, Allianz and ANZ? Even AAMI Park had deterioration issues in early 2016 with so much traffic. I for one won't shed a tear of the Melbourne Rebels are booted out of Super Rugby. Concerts also need to be pissed off.

I know its easier said than done of course because government handouts always come with conditions (and the conditions usually includes some type of ground sharing). That's why I strongly advocate that all expansion teams from here on in should only be admitted if they have plans to build a football specific stadium.  

Nobody seems to ask the question why a sport with a 2 billion rights deal seems so poor that it can't afford its own stadiums.

Fucking rent seekers

actually they do own Etihad. 

Read the article, they want 300 million from the government for Etihad aswell

well the reality is that AFL deserve the most funding because the bring in the most dollars for the economy. the problem is where does it end? governments around Australia spent $3 billion dollars on AFL infrastructure between 2003 and 2015. Then add the new Perth stadium and Geelong upgrade and you have to question whether the amount of government spending is justified (and fair).

The AFL has its own revenue. It's a business. Woolworths brings in more money for the economy but you don't see the government paying to build a store for them.

The AFL are greedy rent seekers that don't deserve shit from the tax payer

Nor do they need to rip off pensioners with poker machines but that is another dimension of their greed 

totally agree
rent seekers .

AFL’s international growth the X-factor in Australian sport

• The Australian
• 12:00AM August 16, 2017
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• PATRICK SMITH

  

  Senior sports commentator

  Melbourne

  @Smithersss

  

That is based on several banks of evidence but there is none more compelling than the ARU’s handling of the fate of the Western Force and Melbourne Rebels.

To have so many players, administrators, families and supporters trembling to know if they would be the club that lost their head was obviously cruel but also an indication of a deep vein of ­incompetence.

ARU former boss Bill Pulver resigned on the announcement that there was no longer room or money to humour Western Force in Super Rugby. It was either the Force or the Melbourne Rebels. The Force have taken the first step to have the ARU decision overturned by taking action in the NSW Supreme Court.

Pulver said at the time of the Force’s Super Rugby termination that he had the spreadsheet that could come up with no other ­answer independent of how they churned the numbers.

Where was this all-seeing spreadsheet when the Force joined the competition a decade ago and the Rebels seven years ago? Because that is more specifically the problem for ARU. Why add the Rebels in 2011 if it has proved that a side introduced in 2007 had bloated the competition to its limit? Or was the decision to give the Force a licence ahead of Melbourne a poor decision in the first place? Whatever, rugby union is in a pickle but the Bledisloe Cup is coming. The perfect ­distraction.

Not that every other national code is without its problems. The FFA cannot expand but only ­because it lacks both the confidence and the money. The A-League base is not wide enough or strong enough to add extra clubs. Rugby league is still to settle on a leadership model and has a ­hungry player group scratching at the door. Football, too, needs to settle its basement.

Cricket squabbled over its ­millions before settling on a deal that will enrich the players but not necessarily the game. The deal ­between the cricket board and the players’ union has drawn a ­warning from former BHP Billiton boss Don Argus, who headed the influential review of the sport nationally in 2011.

Argus has told The Australian any sustainable pay model would be based on earnings rather than revenue and the deal done by the players and the cricket board had exposed the game as a going ­concern.

“If you were in business and you committed an expense to a revenue base you haven’t got, you could be in trouble with the ­regulators,’’ he said.

Which brings us to the AFL. It always does when we discuss the financial strength of sport in ­Australia.

Since the Rebels were established and joined Super Rugby the AFL has put new franchises into western Sydney and the Gold Coast.

Gold Coast have struggled to make much impact. Their best end-of-season position has been 12th in 2014. The next Gold Coast coach will be the third, following Guy McKenna, replaced at the end of 2014 and Rodney Eade, sacked last week.

GWS joined the competition in 2012 with Kevin Sheedy and Leon Cameron in agreed coaching roles. Four-time premiership coach Sheedy would manage the establishment of the team and coach the first two years, allowing Cameron to take over after that. Last season GWS lost their ­preliminary final by six points to eventual premier the Western Bulldogs and now sit second on the ladder.

The clubs are heavily supported by the AFL but according to the league boss Gillon McLachlan the extra match every week initiated by the expansion delivers the AFL up to $50m a season when you add up the broadcast money, advertising, sponsorship and other income generated by nine games a week.

Local expansion seems settled and limited to 18 teams for some time into the future but the AFL continues to flirt with international exposure. For obvious reasons.

The codes it competes with locally all have a strong international presence. They all have regular World Cups, none more vaunted than that of soccer. Play for an AFL club or for Australia in league, union, football or cricket? This is the AFL’s wonky knee.

This year the AFL sanctioned a match between Port Adelaide and the Gold Coast in Shanghai. Another one is scheduled for next year. Previously and every now and then it has taken the game to England, New Zealand and South Africa.

In November the AFL All-Australian side will play Ireland in two Tests of “international” football, a hybrid mix of the indigenous game and Gaelic football. You can never suspend belief. It is a forced and unnatural mix.

In Melbourne this week the Australian Football International Cup — untainted AFL rules — will finish. It has involved 18 men’s teams including sides representing Canada, France, China, India and Fiji. The women’s competition has eight teams.

AFL football is a cumbersome game to transport. It requires a large oval and 44 players. At its most complete, it is not a spontaneous game.

Because of that the AFL has shaped a form of the game called AFLX, which is played on soccer pitches and features 10 players a side with seven on the field. The rules include last touch out of bounds, no marks for backward kicks and set positions defined by 40m arcs.

The AFL is considering an Australian side playing against a team made up of Irish players who now play in the league as a curtain raiser to international Tests. Any shortfall of Irish players could be topped up from the international squad.

This is the AFL’s best vehicle yet to take the game abroad. It is also the best format to challenge the summer dominance of cricket’s Twenty20.

And there would be nothing sweeter for the AFL than to take its game to the world on the back of soccer fields. That’s an own goal of particular piquancy.
AFL’s international growth the X-factor in Australian sport

FFS

Good Ol' football imperialism - colonise the foreign lands and spread the gospel of AFL

So AFLX is essentially netball with a Sherrin?

Yet they struggle to fill up some games at Etihad. How about investing here first.

Classic AFL article, spend the first half talking about how massive and dominant AFL is in Australia, spend the second half dreaming about how it is going to become an international game.

God love 'em.

Ah good old Patrick Smith
another well paid AFL journo  supporting his masters ...

Are Victorians really so stupid that they believe any other country in the world will brace their boring little game? It will never even matter north of the Murray river, where most Australians live.

As a Victorian, yes there are a large portion of people which are that stupid. They live in an AFL centric bubble and believe the rubbish spouted by an AFL dominated media.

I think if the AFL wants to market the game to countries outside of Australia they need to change the brand / name. AFLX (the A stands for Australian) or Aussie Rules ... not really inclusive terms. Then they have the problem that outside of Australia the term football is already taken by soccer (or NFL). Not sure footy will take off either in these countries.

How many sports unique to a single country take off around the world?? Especially one with such limitations as Australia demographically and geographically??

Rugby still struggles outside of their strong holds in Europe and has been there for many years, with big salaries. They've tried for years to break into the US market, recently made head way in Japan (esp. with the Super Rugby team) ... I just think the lack of international competition will be the main limit on other countries taking up AFL though (rugby has had an international, be it limited, competition for many years before trying to establish new markets).

They would probably be best targeting the Pacific Islands ... although rugby has a big presence there, and probably not enough ROI for the AFL in that area.

How is AFL going in China? (lol)

I am Victorian.
AFL is absolute rubbish. I can not stand it. So many dumb rules. The rest of the world will never get into it. I can not believe it still survives. 
It belong in the sports I would like to see disappear forever category such as Rugby, netball, cricket, walking, dwarf tossing etc.
(Actually maybe keep that last one).

For those not in Victoria let me explain. Aussie Rules is a religion here. 90% of locals follow it and they all have been brainwashed to absolutely believe it is the best sport in the world. 90% of people would follow an Afl team and identify the sport as forming part of their cultural identity in being Australian. The majority also believe its elite level players could pick and choose to play any other sport and be superstars at that other sport. Every single day, this type of thinking is promoted and reinforced in print, radio and tv news and other programs. Football is seen as a threat from foreign lands that actually threatens people's very own cultural identity. That's what we're up against.

sad but true unfortunately. but most AFL Bogans I have come across on social media ridicule this AFLX concept as much as us. 

Good summary.
Dad's teach their boys and girls from a young age to get into it (some smart kids see through this but the majority do not) and it just becomes part of life.
People follow teams that they have absolutely no association with. For example, how many Collingwood supporters actually live in or near or would even want to visit Collingwood. Collingwood are not even based in Collingwood. Similarly for most Melbourne clubs. People choose a team because their dad like that team or their friends barrack for them or they like the colors etc. There is very little logic to it.
Having said that as the population increases with people from oversea footy is losing it strong hold. I work for a company that has a lot of smart people in it. Footy is hardly ever discussed. Infact real football would have more support.
Among the stupids though it will survive for some time.

 

With these sort of fluff stories the real story is in what they're trying to divert your attention away from. A 5 second browse of the newspaper yields a pretty good answer. Channel 7 making a billion dollars worth of writedowns today due to losses on sports broadcasting. Admits they overvalued sports rights and a correction is coming.

AFL in the box seat for this one.

We'll probably be thankful for Foxtel in a decade's time, as opposed to relying on FTA to support the game financially. Would love to see the FFA be more proactive with things like streaming but hey, they could't organise a root in a brothel, so there's that.

Broadcasters attracted to AFL’S answer to Twenty20

• The Australian
• 12:00AM August 16, 2017
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• PETER LALOR

  

  Senior sports writer

  @plalor

  

The modified rules competition, which is a chance to be trialled by the AFL early next season, is partly aimed at spreading the game into local territories where there are not enough football grounds and possibly aspires to taking Australian football to that elusive international audience.

AFLX is a 10-a-side (seven on the field at any one time) game, played on a rectangular pitch with four 10-minute quarters.

It is still in the development phase and the AFL is not sure whether it wants to exploit the concept as a participation product or something at the elite level.

The non-contact nine-a-side AFL9s has been a hit at the ­community level since its introduction five years ago and fills the participation space, but is limited because it is played on AFL fields.

The league originally planned to trial AFLX in the bye week ­before the grand final this year, but has abandoned that idea and is considering a tournament in the 2018 pre-season.

There are also suggestions it may be trialled before the International Rules games in Adelaide and Perth in November, with the prospect it could replace that ­concept, which has been beset with troubles.

GRAPHIC: Proposed AFLX rules

The AFL pre-season is a shifting zone with the league abandoning its trophy and moving it to a three-game-per-club competition in response to concerns about player loads and some team’s not taking the competition seriously.

If the AFLX is played next year it would cut the pre-season JLT Community Series down to two games per club.

Shorter, faster and transportable — AFLX can be played ­anywhere in the world — the idea will be watched anxiously by ­cricket and soccer who compete for oxygen with the AFL.

Fox Footy general manager Michael Neill admitted there was always demand for new content and AFLX has the potential to ­attract broadcasters.

“It’s difficult to know exactly what its full potential is until you know who is involved, what level of player and what the structure of the competition is. It is hard to say, but I can see it as a bit of a tune-up for players in the pre-season,” Neill said. “We will absolutely be looking at it if they bring it to us.”

Neill agreed that the abbreviated form of the game would be a threat to tournaments such as cricket’s twnety20 Big Bash League, but thought it would probably be scheduled for later in the summer.

The AFL has always been ­limited by the demands for a unique field shape, which has seen it go to great lengths over the years to enable exhibition games to be held in England, America, China and the like.

The growing popularity of women’s football and Australian rules in NSW and Queensland has put even more demands on the limited ground availability.

AFL chief executive Gillon ­McLachlan said last week the league was in consultation with clubs and other stakeholders about the future shape of AFLX.

“We would like to put an AFLX weekend in prior to the JLT Community Series, and I think that had support from the clubs and I am confident that will happen,” McLachlan said after a two-day meeting with club CEOs last week.

“We’ve got to finalise that and we have to work with broadcasters and sponsors on the final configuration of the JLT. If it is two or three games we would still be doing something with AFLX.’’
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/broadcasters-attracted-to-afls-answer-to-twenty20/news-story/6b9280e0082094900a2a08ec2096b6dc

AFLX sounds ridiculous- I can't imagine it ever catching on, either with traditional AFL fans, or non-AFL fans. Might be better with women playing it.

And this:  'aspires to taking Australian football to that elusive international audience.'
Maybe that international audience finds AFL elusive and incomprehensible, or simply curiosity value?
Related, there is quite a bit of healthy crossover in interest between AFL supporters and football amongst younger generations, especially understanding the international allure of football through more exposure (even understanding that some 'innovations' in AFL tactics were imported from football).