New stadium to built in Townsville by 2020
http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/townsville-businesses-on-list-for-city-stadium-project/news-story/8345e70ed083eb1e302e522d69feb372

Looks perfect for an aleague team.

Townsville in. 

Free the ip.

North Queensland Cowboys for A-League.

I read an article a few months back which statistically said people from the Shire were less likely to leave the area than any other place in Sydney/NSW. I work in the area and can definitely feel that people are very loyal to the area. I think that loyalty would be transferred to a football team. 

A few blokes I was at the FFA cup match with this week were suggesting that Viking park could be a potential home for a canberra a-league team in the first season or two.

It was agreed that it would need significant upgrades, with more proper seating, facilities and parking. And that maybe it is a touch small with a capacity of 7-8k. 

The rationale was similar to the victory scenario, where they played at a smaller venue, let the interest grow and filled up the stadium week in week out, before moving to a bigger venue with an established support base.

We all agreed that the FFA wouldn't let it happen though, which is a shame because it would probably be the difference between turning a profit on matchday and making a significant loss at canberra stadium.

Mind you, everyone here is pretty hopeful that the touted covered rectangular stadium in the city plan comes through, which would be a masterstroke for canberra sporting teams.

Asian expansion is back http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/a-league/jon-smith-the-deal-details-of-southeast-asia-expansion-rejected-by-football-federation-australia/news-story/2ff71c959a750c0c50b2bb7f825ea108

Yep I think if anyone from Bankstown were likely to go for a South Sydney team it would be from that area you describe, Padstow/East Hills/Picnic Point/Menai. By and large though Bankstown is either Sydney or Wanderers. 


Shire people exist in a bubble. I think a fair few Sydney FC members come from this area so it would be interesting to see those particular members loyalty to Sydney FC vs the tribalism of the Shire. It would also be interesting to see how many Cronulla Sharks fans jumped on a South Sydney team based on the Sharks association with this new team. 


I've read that the plan isn't to build it until 2025? It sounds like the new location would really turbo charge attendances across all sports in comparison to the current location. 

I would like to ask - Do you think the lack of roof on Bruce Stadium would be more of an issue for the winter sports rather than football in summer? Standing in the rain at any time of year is obviously not ideal, but Canberra at night in the middle of winter would be a drag compared to a nice summer afternoon/evening in the summer. Could football get better attendances than league/union purely on spectators not having to freeze their arse off in the Canberra winter? 

a fancy stadium in townsville is not going to change the fact that half the games will be played in monsoonal conditions that time of year (unless it has a roof of course).

as much as id love to see a team in south-west sydney out of campbelltown then moving on to liverpool/badgerys creek in the future, i just cant see it happening. there is not enough people south or west of liverpool to sustain a team. southern sydney has a better chance since they have the shire and st george.

Macarthur would be a long term strategy, and as previously mentioned, Macarthur and Liverpool together have just under half a million people which is a very good starting point. To put it in perspective Sutherland, Kograh and Hurstville only has 306 000 combined and not much more room to grow the population.

I firmly believe if you wanted to go to Sydney next this would make the most sense, especially because it will have the least amount of impact on any current a league team. Very few fans come from Campbelltown to see the WSW

i would love to see some data about how much ppl from out there go to wsw games. especially this season, the journey from campbelltown to olympic park is towards 45 minutes-1hr. a similar time frame as fairfield to central. 

Was there not some report awhile ago that showed were WSW and SFC fans were from?

I think a read that while the vast Majority of ASW fans where from the Parramatta region. SFC, had a good concentration from the shire./sutherland area (something like 20%) but also had a kuch wider catchment area with dans as far as Blacktown.

As for Campbelltown, being a local resident i would say that the people have adopted more of WSW as their team, but not to the high degree some think (its WSW land). I probably see as many Sky blue shirts as well as the read and black  (not including my sky blue top :-) ).

So a new team has the potential to attract alot of new, uncommitted football fans. 

As well as that, it is the fastest growing region i think in the country and definitely the fastest growin number of young families, so the potential would be phenomenal when you considered all the new people moving out here.

In a side whinge i have no idea how yu are gonna fit everyone down narrellen road. Becomes a bloody parking lot. I know they are widening it but not sure if it is gonna be enough for the number of house they plan to build.

Does anyone have a copy of that report?

Awesome insight.  I grew up in the area too and always felt like the locals would support whatever team until Campbelltown got its own.

At least there's a train line directly across the road from the stadium

Yeah. You cant get better public transport that that.

A few years ago the council, who own the stadium, public stated they would case other codes to play their games there because the West Tigers were not commiting to more games. 

Yeah we've recently started targeting the forums, clearly not as easy as we thought it would be...
You should listen to their expansion podcast on Auckland though, clearly mention the basket-case that the NZ knights were in all aspects - "the worst sporting franchise in history". I know you will all take that as sufficient justification to not go back, but I take it as market that was missed with the first attempt, and it would be impossible to replicate the failure even if you tried.
Just to quash any conspiracies, my personal preferences for expansion are canberra, 2nd brisbane, wollongong, and then a sydney team (liverpool, campbelltown and canterbury bankstown have the best case, but the shire, warringah and blacktown-penrith have potential as well), then a melbourne team (don't know shit about melbourne) AND THEN an Auckland team. Only reason I mentioned it more then once is because people called me out on it. 
Basically I take the long-term view of expansion in that every major city should eventually have minimum two teams and the melbourne and sydney markets will be split between 4,5 or 6 teams in the future (Im talking like 2 divisions with 26-30 teams by 2030 so relax folks). Whatever order they come in after the first 3-4 doesn't really bother me, which is why I'm open to discussing Auckland.
And if you think I'm insane, then you probably haven't heard Mark Van Aken's case for immediate expansion into Singapore: http://outside90.com/category/daily-football-show/a-league-next/

theres a new cockerill article lobbying for more regional teams and to not expand into sydney and melbourne. 

disagree with the arguement there though, besides canberra which should be soon off the ranks. a team averaging 6k from regional town will not add to the a-league

Yes, he should have stated Logan and Ipswich as well as Gold Coast & Sunshine Coast. :)

I dont think he understands SEQ. 

Look at the City of Sydney, about 200k people. But Sydney is made up of more councils combined. 



City of Melbourne, about 125k, but Melbourne is more combined councils

City of Perth, about 20k , but Perth is made up of more councils




City of Adelaide, about 22k , but Adelaide is made up of more councils


Then we come to the City of Brisbane. Which has about 1.16 million and it not made up of little councils and has a clear border.


benith Brisbane is Logan City (300k). A city ad to the left is Ipswich, a city(160k). Logan in. 

A point I would also like to make with Gallops fish 500k thing, is that if you are allowed to combine adjacent councils why cant Logan include Brisbane and Gold Coast in their population count or Ipswich include Logan and Brisbane? 

What are the rules? do we take a stick, put it in the ground where the team will play than take 10000 paces and draw a big cirlcle then count all the heads?


Logan and Ipswich are always included in a (Greater) Brisbane population 2.1 million. so they should both be able to have a team in the A-League 2.1 million / 500 000  equals 4 teams. Their system is flawed and has no direction. 

Agreed. You can't just say a massive city like city is hunting ground, you really have to split it up based on major urban hubs, densely populated suburbs and demographic factors, and local councils are one of the easiest ways to gain a basic understanding of these borders. The following council areas are some of the biggest in Australia without an A-League franchise, and when considering bordering councils you can easily reach the 500k+ target gallup has set:

Local Government Area's (Population):
Canterbury-Bankstown – 350’000
Blacktown – 300’000
Northern Beaches – 265’000
Cumberland – 220’000
Sutherland – 210’000
Fairfield – 200’000
Wollongong – 200’000
Gold Coast – 500’000
Moreton Bay – 375’000
Sunshine Coast – 310’000
Logan – 280’000
Stirling – 230’000
Wanneroo – 190’000
Joondalup – 170’000
Casey – 300’000
Wyndham – 210’000
Brimbank – 200’000
Whittlesea – 200’000
Hume – 200’000
Geelong – 210’000

Victorias CCM.................great.

The fishing analogy doesnt always hold water.

Auckland was tried during the NSL days too. They had PLENTY of time to get it right.

I don't get what point you're trying to make. The geelong figure is standalone, only the people in that area would go to a geelong game. All the inner city councils will also draw from surrounding areas, and with the ease of transport in those areas you won't struggle to find well over 500k for most of the areas in melbourne and especially sydney.
Also geelong is nothing like the mariners. 200'000 people tops v 350'000 minimum and the difference in participation rates is more shameful than laughable. Add to that the increased competition of an AFL team, and the fact that mariners are about to buy their stadium, and it is you that has the shitty analogy

"don't know shit about melbourne"

Then you cant have an educated opinion on expansion. do your research on the sporting capital of Australia , that meek little city with the biggest most and successful football club (and the richest club) in the country... some here, myself included believe the next expansion team should come from melbourne. if you dont know shit about melbourne, then i cant see how you can formulate an educated opinion about the league as you are ignorant about the city that has propped this league up single handedly until wsw showed up. 

Jeez lotta nerve....

Im saying following a cookie cutter plan can lead to us creating victorias version of ccm.

Its daft to base your entire expansion philosophy soley on arbitrary population numbers... like i said the south coast mariners..can really see the broadcasters going mad for that fixture...all we need is them playing the nix and we can send legions of fans to sleep for 90mins.

oh jesus I'm not doing that, but obviously clubs need to have people living in the area, which is why i included councils with populations as low as 160'000 people previously. 

I did some quick calculations comparing crowd sizes in higher leagues with crowd sizes in lower leagues.
On average, a higher division has crowds 2.9 times larger than crowds in the lower league.

When we only consider the difference between the top division and second division this multiple is 3 times.
As we go down the football pyramid this multiple falls to 2.3.
It is a limited data set but indicates there is exponential growth as we go up the football pyramid.

I did this to see what it may suggest about a second division.
Assuming an average A-League crowd of 12,000 and a multiple of three, the numbers spit out an average crowd of 4,000 for a second division.

https://s14.postimg.org/5oedny35t/Division_multiples.png

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/the-problem-with-the-ffas-aleague-expansion-plan-20161022-gs8hky.html

Opening paragraph

The problem with the FFA's A-League expansion plan

 

• Michael Cockerill

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Apparently, expansion of the A-League is back on the agenda. No, really.

That being the case, the fault lines of a debate which excites the football public like no other are about to reach a sharper focus.

Derbies, or regions? New markets, or existing ones? Ultimately, that's the conversation which matters most.

Last week, semi-pro Canberra Olympic hosted Sydney FC in the FFA Cup semi-finals. More than 5,000 fans poured into Viking Park on a chilly midweek night. Cue the 'Canberra for the A-League' stories.

Trouble is, we've been reading them for years. Every time the FFA bandwagon rolls into town - whether it's the Asian Cup, a Socceroos game, an A-League fixture, or the FFA Cup - the signal comes from Whitlam Square that the locals need to turn up in force to prove they deserve a seat at the top table.
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I don't see how Townsville getting a new 40k stadium would help it's chances of getting a franchise. They'd still most likley play at Dairy Farmers which is a nice boutiquey stadium rather than have another small club playing in a massive empty stadium.

Campbelltown has thus far proved almost as big a problem area as the Gold Coast for sporting teams. The locals never got behind the Magpies when they were there fulltime. They still don't really get behind the Tigers either. But these are both imported teams into the area.

What percentage of people in the south-west are born and raised there, and how many have moved from other parts of Sydney due to cheaper housing? And already support a team and be unlikley to change? There are Souths fan out there but thats because many moved from the inner city to Macarthur. With generations of family influences these issues would be far greater in league circles than for the young HAL franchises though. 

I still think C-town would be a better option than the Shire. A lot of population growth but how much will immigrants feel an attachment to their new hometown region as well?

It doesnt take much for a Campbelltown side to have a viable model.
They will have a min x2 home games against the two Sydney sides but would most likely be gifted more the FFA to help establish the membership culture there. If you want a seat for x4 huge games then you've got to buy a membership. This is what skyrocketed the Wanderers popularity & membership culture due to the derbies being hosted at Pirtek.
So you have a sell out for these games at 18k each being conservative.

I did the projections on attendance aggregate not long but basically you could get home gates of 8,000 every week and still be sustainable, in a growing region which is within the big TV market and the stadium will always look half decent on TV.

I've been led to believe MacArthur Rams also have had a new training facility built. Can anyone confirm if this is the case and how good it is?

Does anyone like the idea of a team playing out of balmier sports ground??? If they were to play 1 or 2 game out of jubilee or cronulla you could get that whole area behind the team, and it wouldn't be taking too many supporters from SFC or WSW. Maybe it would work better vice versa (1 or 2 games at balmier, home ground jubilee), but personally would love to see a team playing there one day. Not olympic though...