:oops: :cry:

Agree that Skilled Stadium is a club killer. Hence the recent talk of acquiring land and building a small 8-10k venue at Carrara. If that can come to fruition, so can a Gold Coast team.

Only problem of course is the funding. And the state govt sure as shit won't help fund the construction of a stadium that competes with Skilled.

Teams in close proximity but not in the same city will work wonders for the A-league IMO. Central coast, west Sydney, east Sydney, Newcastle. It will work better when you include teams like Wollongong/South Coast and Geelong.

We need to try Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast and bring back in northern fury.

Then promo relegation.

+100



No the team would not be counted as South West Sydney, were did you get that idea from?

People in the South West Sydney area already have a team in WSW, why would they follow a team that represents the shire, Wollongong and somehow represent south west sydney all at the same time.

GWS Giants have tried to represent everyman and his dog and look how that is turning out...

Edited by multibet: 28/12/2013 01:23:40 PM

Edited by multibet: 28/12/2013 01:24:20 PM

Wollongong, Geelong, Sunshine Coast, Northern Fury, Gold Coast, East Sydney etc. expanding to 16 teams in small cities would water down the standard of the league as well end FTA TV rights as you could not pay Channel 7, 9, 10, SBS to broadcast a lesser standard product than we have now (e.g. Sunshine Coast v Geelong) let alone them pay for rights, people were complaining last night at the Heart v Nix game being the friday FTA match. Crowds would fall dramatically with a lesser product and too many small teams (we already have Newcastle, CCM, Wellington) TV audience would shrink as well.

The future of the league is about having a high quality product (comp) in big markets so that future TV rights could generate over $100million per year in revenue which is used to grow the game in all areas (salaries, marquees etc.).

Wollongong, Canberra, 3rd Sydney and Geelong would be my bet for expansion. Gold Coast, Townsville and Tasmania battle it out for the last of the 16 while we build up the NPL

With AFC and OFC improving relations the next obvious expansion location is Auckland, for much the same reasons Western Sydney was pursued, Population and TV rights value.

gold coast is the vietnam of professional sports associations expanding to the region

Nothing grows there

In America they dont put sports teams in Las Vegas because of the gambling, Gold Coast is similar to vegas in that regard

Maybe we dont need another team

Edited by condemned666: 28/12/2013 02:57:59 PM

I mentioned nothing about South West Sydney, only the South.

I can't imagine that the location of a professional football team would have much of an effect on the on-field product.

The only viable option is Wollongong. Was a very successful NSL club with solid crowd (around 6k in the old stadium). Both northern QLD teams have proven flops both financially and on the table, it's time to go back to a club that will have an impact, much like Wanders have.

Edited by iridium1010: 28/12/2013 04:30:37 PM

You beat me to it. I was just about to say my recollection was that the Gong had the worst crowds in the NSL.

In today's market they would struggle to get anything near CCM type of crowds, let alone make an impact.

I think Wollongong would work, but I wouldn't expect a "big" club out of it.

I also see benefit in them because you would have SFC, WS, NUJ, CC all within travelling distance.

I would hope eventually SEQ to have a similar set up.

Wollongong and Western Brisbane/Ipswich(if they get a stadium) are currently my top 2 expansion spots, but as always it depends on who bids when the FFA opens up to expansion, it needs to go to the most viable bid.

Edited by iridium1010: 28/12/2013 04:45:31 PM

There's already 3 clubs in NSW. FFA can't afford to leave the third biggest state with only one team when Qld has the largest participation rate in the land, has mens, womens and youth team that have been successful second to none and we keep churning out Socceroos ad nauseum.

Tassie doesn't have the population to create any meaningful interest, WA and SA are run by ALF who give no support to sockah and Victoria are just retards having the lowest participation rate in the country and controlled by an ALF state and media.

No one is more worthy than Qld.

That's why I included a QLD team in my edited post above.

Fair enough on those crowd figures (not like I google crowd stats but I was attending games in 2000/01 when they were challenging for the title), but that was while they were playing out of Brandon Park Park not WIN stadium which is much more central and easier to get to. Brandon Park was a shit hole to be honest.

Let's example past failures CGU, and NF.

GCU:

2009–10   5,297   
2010–11   3,419   
2011–12   3,438

NF:

2009–10   6,358
2010–11   4,245

Hardly better, considering the hype and money pumped into the A-League on there years between inception and 2009.

The fact is Wollongong has a strong local league, would probably represent the rest of the Shoalhaven area (92,000+ people and one of the fastest growing areas in NSW) and MAY have some appeal for southern Sydney people disaffected by the dreadful play style of SFC.

And ask yourself how many supposed loyal SFC supporters have or will jump over to the WSW bandwagon.

The south coast region has a really strong football/ethnic euro culture, much more so than any 2nd QLD team.

OK well done.

If it's Queensland I'd like to see a club somewhere well North of Brisbane in a catchment area that young inspiring footballers can look up to and engage with before they become Socceroos. It's a must have for football to capitalize on its best potential in the land. A properly run club will easily get your 10K average, even if it's back in Townsville.

:lol: Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I don't have the statistics on me, but those figures above look like the average crowds of most NSL clubs (one or two clubs aside).

Well you would hardly call them "solid crowds of 6K" :d

No, but I never claimed they were. I was just pointing out that Wollongong didn't have "the worst crowds in the NSL."

But close to the worst and fair enough, but others did say solid crowds of 6K which is even more over the top and I responded to them.

New teams will only happen in areas with a population of 1 mill + so more derbies. A 2nd team in Brisbane is a done deal, if you look at what has been done with qld NPL you will see where the new team will be.

How can you say crowds around the average were close to the worst? That's an extremely leading way to put it.

Ipswich? If so I worry about that as it is a stronger rugby league area than football and the NRL have plans for a team there too. Congested market?

Did they come 8th?

People criticising Wollongong's NSL crowds are forgetting that they're better than most NSL teams... average crowds took a huge jump from the NSL to the A-League. Within a few years with solid growth I can easily see a Wollongong team averaging 10k+.

For me I think the next two logical places for expansion are Wollongong (as the Wolves) and Townsville, as long as the Fury manage to fulfill their current plans for community engagement, membership etc.

13th team has to be Ipswich, probably about ten years down the track (for the next expansion phase). From there I think any one of Canberra, Auckland and Geelong are options.

Also fair enough but one has to wonder how and when the next biggest market (Gold Coast) will come in and at what expense ie poor crowds.

It has to be the next most lucrative market for TV rights and FFA sponsorship but at what expense and will it happen irrespective of the others mentioned?

Also, no new franchise with a sugar daddy to finance it like clive

Only the FFA were suckers to buy into Clive and his empty blue seats

Would love to see fury back but not the fury that was on life support in there last season a competitive one.