Excellent post. Take out the more central LGAs of Glen Eira and Monash and you still get a catchment of over a million fish.

Dandenong would be the centre of the area as it's where the Frankston and Pakenham lines meet, much like how Pakenham is for Western Sydney.

If ever a South East based team was to come in Sandown is the only area/venue that i could say would be realistic.
Dedicated turn off from Dandenong Rd, services by a train station from x2 lines with existing amenities.

It would take a hell of a lot of opportunistic negotiation from the FFA side of things which i could see would be in the too hard basket to dedicate resources towards.
It's a shame as the region could truly take ownership over their very own team on a national scale.

Agree with the fact that the stadium probably has to be situated in Dandenong as the 2 train lines meet there!

As for a Training HQ there is PLENTY of room out there for a quality training facility. Casey Fields for example.

This weekends round marks one quarter of the season gone. That initself is enough reason to expand to 12 teams/33 rounds ASAP

Has it been said in the past by officials that the HAL will stay in the format its in of everyone playing 3 times after expansion?

Im curious because I've seen alot of people in the past mentioning going to 33rounds with 12teams then when we have 14 teams have everyone play each other just twice for 26 rounds and the 30 rounds for 16teams, etc etc.

If the latter is the goal then I can't see the HAL going to 33 rounds. With tv content playing such a big role in how the HAL operates there would be no way they would increase the content for 12 teams then drop it back for the next lot of expansion.

To put it into perspective:

10 teams/5 matches x 27 rounds = 135 matches per season
12 teams/6 matches x 33 rounds = 198 matches per season
14 teams/7 matches x 26 rounds = 182 matches per season

but then hypothetically we kept the triple round robin format for 14 teams so each club played 39 matches so we had a season length similar to the rest of the world
14teams/7matches x 39 rounds = 273matches per season

what happens when we go to 16 teams? a 45 week season isnt practical and the tv companies arent going to agree to the drop from 273 matches to 240 matches(8matches/30weeks)

Its not ideal but while we have 12teams I wouldnt be surprised to see the HAL do something similar to some of the smaller EU leagues and have everyone play each other twice(22rounds) then split the ladder into top 6 and bottom 6 to work out the final 5 rounds giving us 27rounds(Yes I know most EU leagues play each other 3 times before splitting for 38rounds)

Again not ideal but that would give us an increase in content without the huge dropback at some point in the future as we expand to more and more teams as we would go from

10 teams/5 matches x 27 rounds = 135 matches per season
12 teams/6 matches x 27 rounds = 162 matches per season
14 teams/7 matches x 26 rounds = 182 matches per season

They do that for promotion and relegation. Wouldn't make sense to split it for no reason.

Did you read the rest of my post?

Yes.. I don't disagree with any of it.. I just wanted to make a point regarding splitting the league into two for a certain part of the season.

cricket at hobart pulled 7k on day 1. quite concerning on ffa behalf considering the talk of the town and all the local newspapers and radios covered their progress right from perth including their arrival at the airport.

if cricket can only do 7k, could a new hobart a-league team do better.

Fair enough. We can have different reasons for setting up the league that way though. They don't have to be the same reasons as the SPL for example.
It would be about as ideal as playing each team 3 times per year. It would only be a short term measure but in my opinion it is probably a more realistic prospect than playing 33rounds for the reasons in the above post.

Perth on Day 2(Saturday, good weather and when the Aussies looked most dominant) had 13k. so just under double for a city 8 times the size. Couldn't imagine many Northern people travelling down for it with the weather predictions for over the weekend either.

From a different perspective though the Hobart Hurricanes averaged 16,640 for their 4 matches last season with the highest being 18k.

Don't you think there would be an issue with crowds and TV audiences watching two teams at the bottom playing each other?

No more than there is now.

Test matches aren't that big of a draw anymore, especially not with the mess of the current Australian team. But T20 is another story, the hurricanes averaged 17k.

After reading the SOuth Melb bid thread I just wanted to put this out there. And its not to have a crack at Lakeside Stadium because I think its a gorgeous little ground but more to put into perspective the size of North Hobart Oval for the people with doubts(Yes I under stand facilities would need upgrading.)

North Hobarts dimensions are 154m x 112m.
The measurements below are according to the ruler function on google earth so I'm not sure how 100% accurate they are

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8 000.

With all this talk of South Melbourne I thought I would make a kit/crest for them. Its hard to do existing teams without going to far away from what they already have.
I used a Puma template as I saw they announced Puma as their new kit partner a few weeks back.

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thats definitely the go for the kits, though the blue should be lighter as it is currently with their kits, current logo and similar to the running track. its up to the administration though, how hard they reach out to the general public and the decision of logo and jersey will have a big say along with a lot of other things.

I've been thinking about the amount of teams we should have in an A-league 1 and 2 in the next decade based on the current population. I personally think we should have a team for every 1-1.5 million people in the 5 major cities and also have a team in each state and territory. Here's my list:

Sydney FC (4.9 million)
Western Sydney Wanderers
Sutherland Sharks
Central Coast Mariners (sort of represents the North Shore)
Campbelltown/Liverpool
Melbourne Victory (4.5 million)
Melbourne City
South Melbourne
Melbourne #4
Brisbane Roar (2.3 million)
Brisbane Strikers
Perth Glory (2.1 million)
Perth #2
Auckland City (1.6 million)
Adelaide United (1.3 million)
Gold Coast (0.62 million)
Newcastle Jets (0.43 million)
ACT (0.39 million)
Christchurch (0.37 million)
Sunshine Coast (0.3 million)
Wollongong Wolves (0.29 million)
Hobart (0.22 million)
Wellington Phoenix (0.2 million)
Geelong Cats (0.18 million)
Townsville Fury(0.18 million)
Cairns (0.15 million)
Darwin (0.14 million)

27 teams: 14 in A-league 1 and 13 in A-league 2.

Data from: http://mccrindle.com.au/resources/Australia-Population-Map-Generational-Profile-2015_Infographic_McCrindle.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_New_Zealand#Populations_of_present-day_city_.28and_Auckland.29_councils

http://mccrindle.com.au/resources/Australia-Population-Map-Generational-Profile-2015_Infographic_McCrindle.pdf 

Hopefully this meeting goes well.
Chris Rowbottom ‏@chrisroww  1h1 hour ago Exclusive: Key backers of Tasmanian A-League bid will meet Premier Will Hodgman in Hobart this week. Details @SXNewsTas at 6pm.

There's just no way any stakeholder in the game would go for a change from the triple round robin format as it would necessitate a loss of one of the three regular season Melbourne and Sydney Derbies; there were over 100,000 reasons to keep it in the first editions of both this year.

That's why I think the magic number is 14 teams for a 39 game regular season, one more than the EPL, for example, and the FFA should be negotiating the new broadcast deal with a 14 team model in mind if they have any ambition for the game at all.

I do believe that the Australian talent pool and supporter appetite can support more than 14 national league teams, so immediate steps should be taken by the FFA with those bids that miss out on this round of expansion to start on the A2-League below it, with a view to get it to 14 teams down the track as well.

Awesome stuff, hope he comes out to back the bid.

It just means less content. 33 less matches. You could extend the finals season, give pre-season games, the FFA cup could have an earlier run. There is plenty of content but 16 team home/away season would be the sweet spot for the HAL imo.

Yeah 16 team 30 week season is where we want it in my opinion.

There is ways around it, I was just trying to point out its not as simple as bumping the season up to 33 rounds without thinking about future structure(I doubt the FFA has even thought that far ahead).

Had a little rwork of my Tassie kit/crest today. Bit happier with this one.

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I really hope the aim is to get rid of finals at some point. Then when that happens let the season run next to the FFA cup and it being the final match of the season will be a big final type match pulling a grand final type crowd and audience.

I think finals are here to stay. Too much money involved. 

I suggest you take a look at tv ratings for past finals series and you will understand why they will never get rid of the finals.

Just watched the news report on this and Stamoulis and Belteky meeting with State Government to confirm how much support they will get from them.

Also had Andrew Wilkie - MP for Denison(Hobart City) saying that he is meeting with the Federal Government again later this week working towards some funding towards redeveloping North Hobart Oval.

Redo of the Strikers one using their current kit maker Gorilla Sports. Not much difference.

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