You were being an ass because it's already been discussed in a topic i created and you're still posting in it. I suggested the state leagues needed a greater purpose to generate a-league interest [a development edge] and a direct link with juniors, the mechanisms to achieve that i copied from other sports.

Your contribution to that topic was to suggest that no links were needed as apparently everything was fine because the league was 'self supporting' and no one supports second tier sport, incorrectly citing non-ethnic unconnected clubs as examples. For the mechanisms that were suggested you gave reasons such as 'football is different' as to why they wouldn't work for us.

Your sincerity on that topic was summed up when you gave arthur's 'plan', a word for word plagiarised version of the NSL report, a big tick of approval acting as if it was his own work. You're incapable of having an unbiased evidence based discussion on this topic.

No. You suggest a way to restructure the leagues - you haven't suggested anything that will make it more popular. You can look at any second tier competition, in any sport, anywhere around the country, and you will see the same result. Nobody wants to watch second tier.

You don't have to be einstein to realise that 2nd tier gets lesser support. That doesn’t meant that there can be factors to increase or decrease levels of secondary support, at the moment the second tier appears to be particular disconnected and the result is unnecessary bitterness.

We go round and round, but I ask again... If we have 10 sides, each representing and drawing from a geographical section of the city/state, why would you expect any more supporters to turn up to watch?

Lesser teams was based on getting the best model to improve the development edge of the league to get the a-league interested and having a senior mens comp covering the majority of the state. Aussie rules a more popular sport was the example used which adopted this method and it appears to have been successful i.e. it had nothing to do with gaining an immediate increase in crowds like you've attempted to suggest.

I've focussed on crowd numbers because that was the original point you raised as an indicator of interest.

Participation levels are already high.

Well it was never suggested there would be a sudden increase based on that.

Then what's the issue?

Exactly what i said. Lesser teams was based on getting the best model to improve the development edge of the league to get the a-league interested and i think interest will benefit from having a senior mens comp covering the majority of the state.

It wasn't suggested that merging would automatically get people coming out overnight like you said. Your opinion is that no one will support second tier and that's why we'll never agree.

The system as it stands provides options for anyone who wants to play - and the best do find their way to the top very quickly.

The issue of increased attendance, as I said before, has been a focus because your initial post on the issue (in the other thread) was about crowd numbers. It's easy to see where confusion might creep in.

I have to stand by the notion that second tier support will always be low because it appears to be the case in the majority of leagues and the majority of codes around the country - and indeed, in the majority of the world. Once you get away from the elite, crowds drop, once you divorce from the elite, they virtually disappear.

Could work, though do many people not attend state league matches due to prices? What prices are we looking at? I have no team in my local area so I don't really have that draw.