https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapten_I_Wayan_Dipta_Stadium
Also I only picked that club as way of and that this a more of a regional cooperation exchange with the  APL and PT Liga Indonesia Baru and possibly others in the AFF and OFC on a seasonal basis hence the inclusion of Auckland City, LionsXII, Magenta 

14. Wollongong Yes
15. Gold Coast - Failed once, potentially could work - maybe
16. Brisbane strikers - Where do they play? Who would follow them? Why different to Roar, find a way to differetiate, Roar and Strikers as 2 Brisbane teams and yes maybe
17. Adelaide City - Melbounre City all over again, same as brisbane where do they play and why should non current AUFC fans follow them? - Hard No
18. Auckland - Potential yes but Australian cities priority for Australian league. more economic benefit and more football players/people benefit 
19. LionsIIX, if this is the singapore based one - HARD NO
20. Bali - HARD NO
21. Sunshine coast - Two small - two div at best
22. Townsville - Rugby league central up there, failed once, doub it will work again - No
23. WA 2 basically - Potentially but same issue as Brisbane, Adelaide, no reason for new fans to jump on board, City/Vic all over again
24. Tasmania - Big yes, new area, decent market size, no current major sporting teams get them in!

And you left out Canberra which is a massive yes. 

Best four options to get to 16 teams are Canberra, Tassie, Wollongong and Gold Coast or potentially 2nd Brisbane depending on structure/location

Population of Townsvile 178k 

Population of Newcastle 322k 

Population of NSW central coast 333k 

Population of Tassie 541k 

3 franchisees areas smaller then Tassie population..... NFQ did fold but you get my point. 

I dare say a Tassie based side would pull better crowds then the Nix - it would also be Australian thus improving football HERE not NZ Football which imho is a giant waste of money and time - i honestly dont even know why we still have a NZ based side. - it isnt like NZ public support the Nix or care about the only pro football team they have. 

Are Tassie even part of Australia?

Didn’t they have meet certain KPI’s, one of them being a stadium with potential forfeit of license if not compliant?

They’re overseas somewhere.

Seriously though, one can see why most fans here are just that, fans and not in the business of sport.

Canberra and the GC seem obvious next locations from the APL's POV. If WU was in any other market they would be prime candidate for a license revocation but we need the Melbourne market to grow and another failure there would be a bad for the game.

I get the feeling that if it comes down to a large region it'll be a competition between Tasmania and North Queensland.
When you look at the pros and cons of each it seems obvious which has more benefit.

TBH I think it would be an improvement to lose WU.  They drag the whole comp down.

With Tasmania you have to look at the populations of Hobart and Launceston - that's the key.  Hobart is around 200k.  Thing is, the two cities are more than 2 hours apart and hate each other.  They will not support a team placed in the other city.

Population of Wellington 212,700..... Come on man you're telling me a TAS team couldnt do better then the Nix? please 

The travel distance for Aussie AL teams from mainland to Tassie much better too - especially Melbourne teams. The flight for Perth to Wellington is ridiculous at nearly 9 hours!

Population doesn't actually tell you much. Perth has a population of approx 2m yet they average 10k attendance and average below 10k for members. Demographics and density of a population are what matters. If a good percentage of a population are interested in Football and that group are also in close proximity to one another than there are greater chances they will support a club. 

Greater Wellington population 527,800.
Greater Hobart population 218,000.

Checkmate, I believe.

I grew up in Hobart, played first tier football there.  People on the  mainland don't understand how deep the AFL culture runs in the state, nor the extent to which there is simply no money.  Hell will freeze over before there is an A League team in either Hobart or Launceston.

Tassie and Canberra should have the opportunity to be next, to call it a national competition. Whether they can get a decent enough bid together to accept that offer would be the critical test.

Whoever comes next just needs to play attractive football first, then win as a close second. Nothing brings in fans like entertaining football backed up by victories. Heart were quoted above as an example of failure, but when they play good football and win under the City banner surely that does more to generate ongoing support than simply being different to Victory and WU.

If you play it, they will come.

Tassie Mappers.

Lol 😆 
more serious attempt could be Tassie/Hobart/Launceston/Rosehaven Devils

I'm all for a Tassie team. But the 541k is the state population

Gold Coast/Tweed Heads 709K
Greater Newcastle 498k - less 60k of 200k from Lake Macquarie LGA considered to be Central Coast 438K   
Canberra/Queanbeyan 464k
Sunshine Coast 348K
NSW Central Coast 337k - plus 60k of 200k from Lake Macquarie LGA considered to be Central Coast 397K
Woll 309K
Hobart 219K
Townsvile 183K
Launceston 89K

Gold Coast, Canberra and Wollongong have stadiums to use from day 1. Sunshine Coast has a stand for just over 1,000. Tasmania seems to have State Govt support, interim solutions for a stadium and some plans for a new stadium. 

To me Canberra and Wollongong are the next 2. Gold Coast (history of failure), Sunshine Coast (stadium needs upgrade) and Hobart (temp venue to start with then a new stadium) then fight it out for the next two. Given that 2 of the 3 are from Qld and Tasmania has no team then one of QLD teams would probably miss out and Hobart will sneak in as 16th team.    

The five LGA's that make up the greater Launceston region have a combined population of 130k.

Do they even exist these days?

Basically Tassie is suited to a 2nd division.

Also i would be staying away from GC and NQ. GC in particular was not a great endeavour last time for us, and even rugby league and afl teams struggle there

Once again, if there was a proper system of P&R, you would not need to worry about cherry picking dots on a map to plonk a franchise.

I am all for a regional based P&R system in our national comp.

Get the right number of teams from each region in first to make it a true national comp then open it up to "the best from each region" to replace the worst team(s) in the league that season.

May not be a true P&R system given Victoria could have the next 3 best teams in the country (hypothetically) but as long as the Vic teams do not end up in the problem group we won't see any of those 3 teams in the aleague.

I wouldn't really give a rats about the league if Queensland did not have a team in it - tough enough call without a Brisbane based one. Would not accept it as a national comp without all states/territories being included (NT not counted at this stage for whatever reason (temp/humidity/monsoon/crocs) they are already excluded.)

#fishwherethefishare

Having lived there for a short while myself this is an as accurate explanation as you can get. Lovely place, but it will NEVER be able to maintain an ALeague team in our lifetime, unfortunately.

I left Canberra out as they are in at 13 which is why I started at 14. 14-18 are already known brands to football community and already have their own fanbases you would be growing the league by doing this as well as creating more money matches in the big city markets

Imagine being the first professional sports team in Tasmania. Telling me the locals wouldn't get on board? 

I'd love an A League team to be in Tasmania & there is enough grassroots football down there of a serious nature that this has some serious legs.    Getting crowds of between 5-7,000 per game would be sufficient. 

This is interesting mate,  so as long as their is a team from Brisbane in the  Aleague you will follow them? Am I understanding this right? Doesn't matter if its The Lions or Strikers or Gladiators  or fuzzy wombats, as long as it is in Brisbane........  not meaning to be judgy but f@ck me this is such a foreign idea to me.... 

Hell no!  What I am saying is that no Qld team and I have no interest in it being called a national comp. Any other Brisbane team and I would be fighting to be interested in results but would still consider it a national comp. I am not saying I would simply switch to being <BrisbaneTeam>InMeBlood.

To be national the comp has to include teams from all 'relevant' regions - so a pure P&R would not work for me.

Edit: I was a Wombat in the ACTAFL 2nd Division. Don't you mock wombats!

Oh ok, I get you...  what if, like in 90% of the countries in the world, there was a mechanism in place where a club form every single town, region, state in Australia could compete fairly to be promoted to the Aleague? At the moment, the FFA cup semi finals has never had a NT, ACT or TAS club compete ( as far as I know, might be wrong on this) but they do have the chance to make it that far so I would still consider it a nationwide comp?...
No disrespect to wombats by the way, I hit one of them fat f#ckers in an old HJ Prem I had 20 years ago and spun off the road... He put a dint in my steel bumper the size of a plate and I could still hear that bastard grunting around in the  bushes......

For me it is not the chance to be in the league - it is having representation in the league. Not everyone has to be competitive top 4 to make the comp worth watching.

If you go all the way P&R and find that only teams from NSW, Victoria, and maybe one in South Australia, make up the league, it is not national enough for my tastes. Sure, it is a reflection of who deserves to be in the top x number of teams - but that is not a competition I want to follow.

Give us the perennial underdog regions - with rotating teams based on regional P&R - and every season those fans will dream of success. To me that is the essence of sport that I like to follow.

The FFA cup model serves its purpose brilliantly, but that is not how I would like to see the national league formulated.

Edit: I am rather proud of the late night, foggy mountain road when I avoided the charge of a wombat in my hatchback (yeah, yeah - wombats drive hatchbacks). That would not have ended well for my car otherwise.