Agreed especially when they're offering $20 for general admission

Only  5k ??
Oh   that's   right ,  something  something   covid ,  something    something   < insert   excuse >

heck ,   I  heard   the   Reds   just   got   5k   in  freaken   Roma  Qld  ,  just   for   a  pre-season   run-around   against   the   Tahs

That shouldn't be hard for clubs whose nationalities hate each other.
So then your objection will be what exactly? Why have they got too much money for airfares?

I suppose clubs can raise the playing fees by 100%.

Every club should be hitting 5k at least geez 

Attendances from the weekend
Friday 11th February
Wanderers vs City - 4515
Saturday 12th February
Sydney vs Western United -  4228
Victory vs Jets - 7181
Sunday 13th February
Central Coast vs Perth - 3936
Brisbane vs Macarthur - 4961

What, if anything, about the APL leads you to  believe that they would EVER say yes to a possible reduction in the value of their licenses?  Do you think the APL is interested in the health of football in Australia? Why would they be? Who do you think is standing in the way of DTS and a national pyramid right now?  

Wasn't   30%   of  the   league   sold  off   for  $130m ?

Why   can't    FA    fund   $1.5m    for   travel ??

Each club will be required to pay a participation fee of $200k to central funds which in turn will pay for travel so in effect the clubs will be funding travel.

Well yeah apart from Perth Red Star, Adelaide City and South Hobart, which means about Up to 9 club are east coast which will probably be QLD Lions, Gold Coast United, Edgeworth Eagles, SU58, Sydney Olympic, Wollongong Wolves, Canberra Deakin/FC, Melbourne Knights, South Melbourne (if they want to push 11 east coast teams Blacktown City and Broadmeadow Magic)

The FA covers the cost. Same as they did with the AL. Travel is a non issue. Especially considering we can almost guarantee the bulk of the inaugural clubs will be from the eastern states. 

How easy it seems  to throw around a $ figure, in this case, $1,500,000 dollars. I assume you'll be the first to put your hand up to cover that cost.

Travel costs aren't actually as much as people presume. In FY2019, the FFA spent $3.8M on travel for the A-League, W-League and Y-League combined. Travel expenses for a NSD could be comfortably less than $1.5M. It would be all domestic travel for starters, no NZ flights. Clever scheduling of games could also bring the travel expenses down. For example, a Melbourne based club could play 2 away games in NSW before returning to Melbourne rather than back and fourth twice. Or a WA club could play in SA then onto VIC rather than back and fourth twice. Like they did with the AL, the FA will be fitting the bill for travel expenses as they will be the ones owning and operating the league.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but in the short term, I reckon a Sydney/Melbourne comp is the best bet, with teams from Canberra and the Gong as well.

I mean, we've already seen that no one could even afford to help the NIX keep the gates open, playing the biggest club in Australia no less, so that sort of tells us where the bulk of the NPL clubs will be at when the time comes.

Can someone on here ,please, explain how a NSD can work, financially? Not hope, wish ,think or what if.  Very few NPL clubs can get , consistently, half decent crowds to games unless they are derbies or one nationality hates the other. SA, WA and any other state that is not a million miles away will have to get their flights paid for. Good luck. At best it might be an Eastern seaboard comp. Ho hum.

I want this to, since not only will it give impetus to lower-league clubs, it will also make the A-League healthier and more interesting. The key will be to make the level of play in the NSD so strong that eventually the APL won't be able to say no. And the introduction of pro-rel is still, according to the unbundling agreement, in the hands of the FA, so at a certain point they can just lay down the law if they have the guts to. Not saying it will come straight away but after a few years of a stable, viable NSD it will be inevitable.

Thanks but no thanks. I thought that way for many years but after begging to be let in three times now the APL can go and get f#cked. When ALL the plastic franchises are forced to play to get to the first division via promotion then perhaps there is some merit in what you say but until then I just want the Championship to be the best competition it can be, no APL youth teams, no restrictions on promotion to or relegation from, no favouritism..... In saying that the first season will be a shitstorm of clubs being included or being left out and I can imagine the nightmare of who to include will be interesting, but past after this hurdle I DEMAND fair pro/rel. Let the Aleague stand alone as the shiny entertainment package for Silver Lake, not interested unless it becomes a true league.

You should hope the A-League survives too to give South Melbourne something to get promoted to when they inevitably win the NSD.

Good luck with it all, hope it is still up and running in 2 -4  years for you, let alone expanded by 4 franchises..  

Yeah, pretty much. Macarthur and WU will bring down the average a bit, but the A-League is currently at nearly 7k, and that's with a delayed start to the season, Wellington playing in Australia, Perth permanently on the road, stacks of games being postponed and pushed into midweek (and nobody really knowing if a scheduled game will actually take place or not), and a significant part of the population still too scared to mingle with crowds..

If Covid restrictions are over in time for the 22-23 season to proceed normally with an October-May season, Wellington back in NZ, Glory playing in Perth and no midweek matches, plus Sydney back in Moore Park and (maybe) the Wanderers having sorted their shit out and bringing their fanbase back the way Victory have done this season, I think a 10k average is a pretty realistic goal, particularly if the Silver Lake cash is invested wisely. Of course it could all be screwed up by Covid again. 

Definitely against SE Asian expansion and it's a dead letter anyway, but expansion to Canberra, Gold Coast, Auckland and the Gong looks realistic over the next 2-4 years. 

So you expect 10k average crowds again when crowds start "normalizing" in Australia after covid?  I guess you are hoping new expansion clubs like the Geelong and Hobart franchises will bring the massive crowds in the future?  Maybe they can revive the whole  Bali, Singapore, Hong Kong, Uzbekistan franchises in the Aleague Sage was pushing a few years ago would certainly be broadcast to a really massive market, population wise.

I agree a malaise had set in before Covid. The mid-2010s were probably the highpoint for the A-League. Then came the civil war in the administration, a self-destructive assault on the core fanbase from the FFA, loss of interest from the broadcaster and an ill-conceived expansion process. "Fish where the fish are" was always a dumb idea: expansion spots 11-16 should have gone to regional areas (Canberra, Wollongong, Gold Coast, Auckland, Geelong, Hobart), and Sydney/Melbourne clubs could have been promoted from an NSD.

But even then the A-League was consistently getting 10k+ average crowds prior to Covid, i.e. roughly triple the average NSL attendance. Dropping from 10k to ca. 6-7k can be mainly attributed to the pandemic. Other leagues (BBL, NRL, etc.) have had similar issues. Actually the worldwide situation is not so dire: once fans are let back in they seem to come back in pretty consistent numbers. I think Australians are particularly paranoid about Covid, so that even attending a match in a half-empty outdoors stadium where maintaining social distance is perfectly easy is perceived as a risky proposition.

Yes I admit pandemic has thrown a spanner in the works for crowds worldwide but the malaise had started prior to this and even now  (FFA cup final is perfect example) people are still hungry for live sport... So what you are saying is that an increase, on average, of 2,500-3000 fans in the stadium is a pass mark.? 17 years, wall to wall TV coverage, corporate sponsorship, full time professional players, pro salaries, academies, social media saturation, "de-effnikisazion", geo-strategic franchise expansion,  population increase by a couple of million in each state and crowds are 2,500 more than NSL!!!!!!!! C'mon man.

Attendances were finally updated on the Keepup and FFA Cup websites:
Attendances from the past weekend
Friday 4th February
Adelaide Women vs Newcastle Women - 2032 [Played before men's match]
Wellington Women vs Victory Women - 61
Adelaide vs Sydney - 7245
Saturday 5th February
Western Sydney vs Western United -  5987
Canberra Women vs Perth Women - 1125
Victory vs Central Coast (FFA Cup Final) - 15343 [Televised match]
Sunday 6th February
Wellington vs Macarthur - 2328
City Women vs Western Sydney Women -  840

Good result for the FFA Cup final as expected.

A-League averaging 6500 right now, even with Wellington playing all of its matches away from home. The NSL in its final years averaged around 3-4000 per game, so it's still substantially more under pandemic conditions when matches are being postponed left right and centre.

The return of Melbourne Victory crowds (both in terms of raw numbers and atmosphere) is the real good news story of the season, and I say this as someone who viscerally hates the team. It shows its possible to win back the lost fans if you put a good team on the park. Wanderers and Sydney should take notice for next season (Sydney at least will have the new stadium and hopefully a major squad overhaul, not sure what the fix is for the Wanderers).

Some decent numbers there. Great to see the growth of the game. 

Hyperbole? Isn't that the name of the company that reports on final attendance at Aleague events?

And slightly behind the abysmal final years of the NSL.... Thank God Lowy got rid of all the greasy wogs 17nyears ago, it was definitely worth it for the sport to grow.......... bqckwards

I wasn't implying that it was an excuse, but it adds too much to what's there already so I will remove it.
You can cool it with the hyperbole now.

(Hot conditions, terrible rain and wind). I wonder what you say to yourself when you watch O/S sport played in snow and there's a full house. I would be embarassed highlighting those conditions as an excuse.