The thing is though, the NSL was a reboot and it went stale as well, regardless of whether they were "real" clubs or not, The NSL was a clumsy and failed attempt to create a national league out of what were very strong and growing state leagues but it was just too ambitious for the time and never had the resources necessary, now we do have the resources to attempt to do it properly. It's not that the NSL was the right way or the A-League is the right way, it is that you can't just keep wiping the slate clean and starting again. If the AFL just started over with 10 new teams, one in each city, it would fail as well.

What has to happen now is for the wrongs to be righted and for the game to be reunited with all it's history, all its regions and all its participants. Once you do that you can start to work on player development and bringing more resources into the game so that we can attract Australian sports fans and global football fans. Having this division helps no one.

A second division and integration with the state leagues is absolutely necessary and the longer we put it off the more harm we do.

Some of the AFL clubs have been around since the 1860s. That's a century and a half of generational support. It's something that cannot easily be synthesised. Clubs like MV, SFC and WSW work because their population density is so high. All they need to do is win trophies and they work.WSW is the perfect demonstration of this. Grew rapidly due to onfield results. Declined when the results evaporated. When you don't have history, all you can rely on is success. Problem is success is difficult to sustain. 

I agree the NSL may have been too ambitious for the time, afterall, it was the first ever national league of any sport in Australia.
Therefore, I would disagree with your description of it being a "reboot".  It was the very first attempt of such a league, so it can't be viewed as a reboot.

I don't think Lowy and his fellow vultures actually gave a stuff one way or another about any football followers, old or new. He jumped on a business opportunity ....end of story. He had to pitch it to investors and the best way to do it was "No wogs and its going to be like the AFL/NRL in 10 years time, jump on board you cashed up dweebs"

Agreed..... problem is that Lowy couldn't pitch this to his new dawn investors because otherwise the franchises they where buying wouldn't be worth the Westfield's letterhead they where printed on.....

The AFL is actually the VFL with interstate clubs added, the NRL is the NSWRL with interstate clubs added, the NSL destroyed the NSW and Vic state league to build an over ambitious national league.

I

That's ALL alot of us actually want. Clubs peak and fade, their time to shine comes and goes. If the old clubs had been relegated or even excluded from the league, like alot of the old NSL clubs were  for very very unfair and imperfect reasons sometimes, due to mismanagement and on field performance, then the only true blame would lie with us. Anger would rightly be directed inwards at the club.... This 17 year and counting political and racist Apartheid has to end....., f#ck me they have gotten away with it for 17 years..... where are we living?

Sing it from the rooftops brother Eldar..... I'm with you.

Sorry mate but that is bollocks. Passion is passion, club is club. Even the AFL and NRL guys know that, some clubs haven't won a single thing in 50, 60 years yet still have die hard support. 

Maybe in NSW mate, in Victoria,  by taking the likes of South, Heidelberg and Juve out of the state leagues it actually gave a chance for clubs like Croatia, Preston, Green Gully, The Georgia's etc etc a chance to compete, grow and jump up to the NSL themselves at various points. 

So  why   did   the Americans   just  pay  $130m   for  a  30%  share  of  the  league?

just  because   Americans  love   a  franchise   comp ?

@ footballer

Under   the  old  FFA,  the  league   was   getting   crowds  of  40,000+  and  30,000+ ,  right  up   to  their   last  season.

It  is  certainly   disappointing   what   has   happened   since...

Scottish cup finals used to attract crowds of over 100,000 regularly right up to 1973.

It is certainly disapointing that this hasn't happened since.

@ Sutherlandbear

Can  you  elaborate  on  the  reason  why ?

That's 100% right

The mentality you responded to comes from the AFL / NRL approach I described above. There is no NRL in Victoria and any team would be weak. So the governing body puts a team in, sends their best players, and guarentees success. The market is artificially established. Over the course of 10 years, "fans" are trained to only watch when their team is winning. The game ends up with a conundrum

Football took the same approach after season 6. For the first time introducing concessions to boost new markets. Since then it has been stuck in a Robin Hood paradox (continual rob from the rich and give to the poor). The result is obvious based on some of the plastic support dribble I read on here

A competitive open league will be new and it will be scary to some here, no doubt about it. But the irony is these same fans already follow several sports and leagues around the Australia and the world with the same model

Why don’t you make a point instead of baiting everyone? 

A quick observation of the A League atm, oh i can't observe anything due to no product. I do understand why Fox Sports re-negotiated a cheaper no frills deal before football and Fox parted ways. Harsh reality is postponement of matches absolutely kills any momentum Ch10 and Pararmount want to achieve with regard the metrics of their game.
I understand covid 21, impacts all sports but, for good, bad or indifferent, ultimately, the truth is truth. People don't even know whether to bother going or when the game is even on. If general supporters are expected to do more than one minute of research on this matter well, FA and APL are sadly mistaken. 
As seen previously, if the mind set continues with covid taking precedence over everything, Ch10 will start playing matches (when they actually do get to be played), on their Secondary Channels, already did with one Socceroo match. Ultimately, Cbs Viacom will re-negotiate the contract like Fox did and even walk before their time.

A large slice of football people are of ethnic origins and the powers to be, not yet unifying the Beautiful de-Wogafied game in Australia, is like fighting the cause with one arm tied behind their backs and wondering why A League matches are a ghost town all too often. Heritage being Sliced out of the top tier of Football stifles it's growth potential.
A League must be tier one, Nsd as tier two and Npl tier three. Pro/Rel must come in within three years as well. No excuses.
Everytime this concept is looked at as too difficult by the likes of Johnson, Townsend and O'Rourke, as others preceeding them, ultimately they are responsible for driving the game, yet they continue to drive it subtly into the ground, unknowingly it seems. Like the theory about the frog in the pan, unknowingly getting boiled slowly.

With the commentary aspect, mainly it is good and I understand the importance of diverse backgrounds in the commentary box in order to appeal to a wider variety of fans. Although, one guy often mumbles his sentences to express his views and they often are exhausting to get out, and are quite hectic to listen to. 
Commentary comands a reasonably good vocabulary. The guy doesn't have that, his word choices in sentences to make a point are 'cringe worthy' and I wonder, oh my, did you just express it that way? Confidence as a person does not often equate to good commentary. Maybe the skillset will broaden in time perhaps. Elocution lessons a good idea for a while?
The often threatening and colourful nature of language used in any sporting contest between athletes on any sporting field, of which we usually do not hear at the Stadiums or at Home watching on tv, does not ensure a good vocab or grasp of words for a player, trying to transition into the commentary box. 

Lastly another observation, Boutique Stadiums, yes I know it is like talking about vegetables and not about chocolate, I understand totally.
This kind of issue surprisingly plays into the mindset of supporters, the 'unfinished product' is a mental hinderance whereby, fans won't totally buy into what Football want from them 'Until the Basic Framework is in Place'. Western Utd must be given an Ultimatum, as too the Roar.
They seemed to not have the full support now that the novelty has worn off, as they are not Moreton Bay, they are Brisbane. 
 

No easy solution, all a victim of unfortunate timing.
With the part sale of the A-Leagues, the APL at least has funds to survive a few years.

Adelaide vs Wellington tonight On ten more then 30k would be good 

So   "more  than  30k"   would  now   be  considered   "good" ?

my  my   how   far   standards    seem   to   have   fallen   of   late...

So just to list the numbers up until now:

20/11: 146K (Sydney derby)
27/11: 88K
4/12: 85K (metro)
11/12: 89K (metro)
18/12: 63K (metro)
26/12: 57K (Melbourne derby)

What kind of numbers will we be seeing later on in the season when casual fans drop off? It’s an alarming decline after only one month and a big marketing campaign. Yes there’s a pandemic (although these numbers shouldn’t be affected too dramatically by that) and we obviously don’t know the streaming numbers. But I struggle to see how PP numbers are going to be significant. The most watched program on PP since its August launch are A-League matches…sounds good but I think it proves that the subscriber base is mostly A-League fans. Early days I guess.

These postponements will probably drag down the numbers further. 

Yep the a league is struggling. Does that make you happy? 

Since when is 30k a drop in standard you Moron? Piss off.

When   was   30k   considered   "good"  ?

This is what the post he responded to was saying.  You both seem to be objecting to a post that makes the same point your making, but better.  AFL clubs like Essendon and Carlton haven't had success for decades, but still draw big crowds.  They are entrenched, generational clubs, with a fanatical base support that means even prolonged periods of relative failure doesn't see support collapse.  A club like GWS needs to win and be successful.  Its why Gold Coast support sucks.  However, its also why West Coast succeeded in the long run.  Despite being a created 'plastic' franchise, which had some initial trouble, its based in an AFL city.  So, a period of success saw WAFL followers switch allegiances to WC.  Now, not only does its support dwarf that of a lot of old Victorian teams, that support is entrenched.  They emulated the support of old big Victorian clubs, and did it in only a couple of decades.  Glory had something similar going, to a lesser extent.   

If the FFA expansion was following an AFL model, which I doubt, it was West Coast, not GWS or Gold Coast they aspired to.   Its the whole, fish where the fish are, model.  However, they bungled it.   Or maybe they didn't, and it was just never going to work.  I dont know.

I have always thought part of the reason for the AFLs relative success compared to football, was lack of choice.  People might follow a local team and an AFL team, but if they find the AFL a bit on the nose, other than just watching local footy at the ground, they have limited options, so they hold their nose, and keep supporting.  An A league fan that is disillusioned has plenty of other options to watch top flight football, so they just leave.

You answered your own question. The reason for WCE's success was due to lack of options, not because of success. There would have been plenty more successful teams in the WAFL but elite sports fans demand elite sport. Having a team in a professional national competition was always going to take fans away from having a team in a local competition

The AFL had a crush, kill, destroy mentality that is synonymous with leagues like the NRL, NFL and other stand alone leagues. Its a model that only works when the governing body has a monopoly, which we dont

This was never going to work for football. Never. Even _if_ the model could work, which it can't, as you rightfully pointed out there was a 10-20 year period for teams like West Coast and Storm to be ingrained in their respective codes. When our starting point was 8 unknown teams, which 2 teams were we supposed to give 15 years of support and what would that have meant for the other 6 teams struggling for 15 years in the interim?

There is no "one way" to have a successful sport. The AFL and NRL were successful in approaches that worked for them. Our situation is different. The A League has had many attempts to artificially boost metrics and they have all failed in the long run. And there is no need

I'll put this a slightly different way. Imagine you are trying to establish McDonalds in an Asian country that doesnt have McDonalds. Your fear is they wont like it so you use the same brand and colours, but you serve Asian cuisine instead. This will fail because it wont be McDonalds enough for fans of McDonalds, and it wont be top notch Asian cuisine for those who prefer Asian food. Thats the conundrum the A League is in. Either there is demand for a football league in this country, or there isnt

The FA were put in charge to establish a competitive football league. If the starting point for the FA is to state "there is no demand for a competitive national football league in this country" then they are simply the wrong people for the job

#ALeague #ADLvWEL72k

which seems pretty good for a Wellington game on New Year’s Day

I agree with your points, they arent the same. However, to look at your McDonalds analogy.  What does McDonalds actually do? As there is a successful business.  A Mcdonalds is recognisably a McDonalds everywhere, but if you go into a McDonalds in Asia, expecting the same menu as the US, your going to be disappointed. South Korea has Shrimp burger, Bulgogi burger, etc.  They dont copy paste American McDonalds into foreign countries, and expect its going to succeed.  But they don't change everything that made McDonalds successful in the first place either.    If you want a big Mac in Sth Korea, you can get one, but if you want Bulgogi, you can get that to.

You cannot copy paste European leagues to Australia, but you cannot just replicate the NRL or AFL either.  So, where is the middle ground?  What needs to be retained for the authenticity of the sport, what needs to be changed to make it work in Australia (as a pro code I mean, as a community sport, its working just fine now imop).