A-League expansion into 2 divisions
-16, current 10 plus Canberra, Wollongong(Illawarra), Geelong, Auckland, Northern Fury, Tasmania
-14, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, South Melbourne, Ballarat, 3rd Sydney, 2nd Brisbane, Ipswich, 2nd Perth, 2nd Adelaide, Darwin, 4th Sydney, 4th Melbourne, 3rd New Zealand, 3rd Perth.

But of course this is a long way AWAY, hopefully 14 top Tier teams by 2022, and the formation of the second division should started, hopefully 10 teams by 2018.

All this is done on Expected populations Australia and New Zealand are expected to have over 40 million people together by 2030 and with the Growth of football in the 2 countries getting better every year there will be a want in more places or more teams in existing places with Sydney and Melbourne to get 7-8 million each(almost double current numbers)

www.facebook.com/ExpandTheALeague
Lastly check out the facebook back always wanting feedback posted on it!Also will be needing another admin soon so message into the page if your interested, thanks!

Edited by ExpandTheA-League: 10/10/2013 11:54:32 PM

I check your page regularly, has some good links on it. Sadly i hate Facebook;)

Imonfourfourtwo are you aware this page is showing your design?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=125146107655907&set=a.112316005605584.1073741831.110845732419278&type=1&theater

So your model ends up with 6 Victorian teams and 7 NSW teams based on population growth which might sound fine except for the fact that this gives Victorian players 5 times the opportunity of NSW players to snag a professional contract in their home state. Looking at Melbourne and Sydney you have the same number of teams despite Melbourne have 38k players and Sydney having 165k players. Time for a rethink of your model including equity for the players methinks.

Edited by gyfox: 14/10/2013 07:42:31 AM

One day without A-League and we're already back on the expansion thread! :lol:

Good thing that it's a professional league with squads that only require 18 Australian players and having bigger crowds and access to sponsor money and other income is the most important thing to consider then.

I know I'm a bit late, but you're welcome!

Paladisious for admin!

Average attendance at games in Melbourne last season was 15.7k ie 2k higher than in Brisbane so bigger crowds is not a major factor. Victoria's GSP is only 15% greater than Qld and is less per capita and with 14 Victorian professional football clubs as against 6 in Qld sponsorship money ought to be more easily available in Qld. Add to this the fact that Qld has 20k more registered players (ie 35% more) than Victoria that need an equitable development pathway and Qld is a far higher priority for expansion than Victoria especially with the impetus to the game that derbies in another city would bring.

Can I ask why this is? Is it just to get a "more national" competition or is there some other line of thinking? The most successful expansion to date has been in NSW and there are areas where there has been support in the past as well as having the largest population distribution of any state.
QLD have had two expansion teams and both failed for one reason or another.

Soooo, more people play but less people watch... What does that tell you about engagement levels within the game up there? ;)

Also to add to my South Coast expansion agenda, does anybody know the average attendance for A-league preseason/community games? My guess would be < 5,000 as I can't recall many that have surpassed this figure. Wollongong has only held 2, both of which exceeded 6,000. Wollongong has also hosted a Matilda's game (which got into 4 figures) and Young Socceroos game (which got over 2,000) in the last year.


But this all means nothing if we don't have a viable bid. I would much rather another area get a team if their bid is more deserving. Would the best strategy be for the FFA to create a team and sell it when stable following the on & off field success of the Wanderers? I'm not saying this is my preferred method, just curious to see what people think.

ffa should announce that their plans for the next 4 sides will come from wollongong, brisbane, canberra and victoria. and the first 2 of them will be introduced for the 2015/16 season.

and interestingly, this sort of expansion might lead to promotion of 3 npl sides (wollongong wolves, ipswich pride, geelong galaxy [who will be rebranding themselves next season] or south melbourne + new canberra franchise)

How about
A-league - current 10 + Canberra, South Coast, NQ, Ipswich/Sunshine Coast
2nd div - 1.npl winner(nsw), 2.npl winner (qld), 3.npl winner(Vic), 4. npl winner(SA), 5. npl winner(tas), 6. Npl winner(WA) 7.Npl winner (nnsw) 8.auckland 9.npl nsw 2nd place, 10. npl Vic 2nd place
3rd div - npl state conferences

Promotion
To a-league - promotion is via on field success and meeting certain criteria (stadium, financial, crowds, etc)
From a-league - none unless bankruptcy

From 3rd div to 2nd div - bottom two play off against the winner of their respective npl conference winner..


Easy and affordable. And can be started as soon as possible.
That's a ten team second division you

Would you support United 58 or Rovers in that case?

It's gotta be the Wolves for Woollongong, you can't just throw that out. Perhaps the FFA would enter into some partnership, owning shares for a while or something to get it up and running, but it has to be the Wolves, surely.

I am a big wanderers fan. And support united also. Go to both home games and all npl united games. And also travel away with wanderers

And as for rovers ? I just cant be bothered changing the banner

Don't worry that's definitely my opinion as well. The Wollongong Wolves have such history and are part of the sporting landscape of the region, but I'm not sure if the South Coast Football people are going to seek expansion with the Wolves or as a different team.

I've just been added as an admin to this page, pm sent.

A while ago Adelaide United published a report on last season and in it they indicated their costs to run the club totalled $7m. In an article a bit later a spokesman indicated that this was $0.5m below the average to run an A-League club. They made a $1.7m loss on this expenditure. I have been keeping my ears open for details of Wanderers income and this season they have $3m coming in from sponsors, $2.5m from the FFA, approx $3m from memberships and using last season's figures another $1.8m from merchandise. Added to this will be gate takings which could raise another $0.5m. Total is $10.8m and with that the prediction including ACL costs is to break even.

I thought these numbers might be helpful for people considering potential locations for expansion. A club needs to generate somewhere between $7m and $11m to cover expenditure.

What they should do is create the clubs now and put a NY-League team in for a few years before promoting half the squad to A-League, this will show the people in the local area that FFA may give them at first team soon and help grown support. 10 A-League teams with maybe 15 NYL teams setting up foundations. Add Canberra, add Tasmania, South Coast, with Geelong and Northern fury (with a team playing in NPL with adults and youth. 2-5 year with a youth team in then bring the first team add 2 teams at a time 2-3 years apart. This would result in more youth coming through to A-League.

Key points:
-Exposer of players and clubs
-Fan building
-Solid foundations
-More players developed to NY-League standards

http://leopoldmethod.com.au/in-search-of-blue-oceans-an-analysis-on-the-a-league-business-model-part-1/

http://leopoldmethod.com.au/in-search-of-blue-oceans-an-analysis-on-the-a-league-business-model-part-2/

I wasn't saying all those clubs at the same time(I was just stating some locations), for NYL i just think that they would be good to enter the NYL, 2-4 years before and build up a batch or 15-18 year olds maybe like CCM Academy in NSW NPL so for example if South coast were to be A-League bound for 2016 they should put the NYL team in now and keep the NPL Squad there exactly how CCM is either in NPL 1 or 2.
I do understand what you mean with " adding teams 50% more teams in regional areas that make up a total of 7% of the population is a really bad way to go about it" but if it's only the years just before it isn't crazy how I see it. Thats what I meant with the solid foundations. Lastly i mean it gives that little advertisement with partnerships with sponsors, staff and small numbers of fans.

The A-league does not need to expand in the near future, it needs to make sure it is a strong, robust and sustainable competition before it adds extra clubs. Ten clubs is enough for the moment.

Completely and fundamentally disagree, the competition got stale after 4 seasons of 8 clubs, now I can guarantee you the same will happen if we leave it for more than 3 more seasons. Would be a fucking stupid idea to lose our momentum cause we were scared and wanted to consolidate, and I guarantee that's what would happen. If you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards.

The FFA don't have the money available to fund expansion and won't have unless the next broadcast deal that is due in 4 years time delivers it.

Here are the amounts for you from last season:

Operating loss of $1.5million
Turnover $5.38million

Gate/Memberships $2.1million income
Sponsorship $1.3million income

ACL contributed $268k net income

Football department cost $4.5million (includes 100% of salary cap)

AUFC ownership group have tipped in about $2million plus cost of Coolen settlement since take over. Must be one of the leanest running clubs in the HAL.

A very lean A-League club can run off of $7million depending on the costs linked to match days. AUFC are getting shafted this year on that front so even though they should have a higher turnover they are going to have higher costs, I wouldn't be surprised if they run at a higher loss this season.

Thanks for the figures GA. Will the new sponsorships offset the increased match day costs? Do you have any idea of the costs of running the W-League and NYL teams there?