+xI think it better to ignore the average and just look at the total attendance each round.
We want the league to be bigger with more games, so they should be happy with the teams they have (as long as they pay their way) and add more. I don't care that some teams are less popular than others. It is an irrelevancy to me. If Macarthur and WU only bring an extra 1-2k+ people interested each round then how is that a bad thing? If we add in more teams and they do the same then we have increased the following of the league by 5-10k. Small steps with a long term goal. 20 teams, 38 straight rounds plus a circus round or two if they want. Better product and development.
The sooner we can get a lot of teams and more rounds in the better our comp will be. Some of those teams will have crappy seasons and hold the bottom of the table - same as some of our teams are now. Victory is a prime example of that. Having crap teams is good when your team isn't one of them and is playing one of them.
I used Keepup to see the schedule of games and the table. That's all it was to me. If we were/are spending $40m on that it is not a good investment for my old school 'bugger off social media' self. There are better uses for the money - like maybe 'donating' 500k prize money each year to the winner of the NSD. What better way to start healing that rift and show that money can benefit more than the top level?
The Saudi Pro League, as reported in another thread, has some crowds in their 100's. Like them, we could spend billions (ha!), and yet never achieve "acceptable" bums on seats.
We need to stop attempting to compete with AFL (the #1 league in its code) and the NRL (no idea, but obviously high) and be realistic about where we sit. The A League was in its inception actually punching above its weight but all the experts conspired to ruin it. We will never match the crowds the other codes get here, but there should be a good medium we can reach where clubs are financially ok, can produce players, sell the odd one to make some good $$ - just like other leagues around the world.
As much as I don't give a crap about Macarthur and WU, like Melbourne Heart, they should be given a chance to grow and maybe some random investor or freak action will see them head the right way. Culling clubs is not a good look - Northern Fury and Gold Coast may well have been rushed in, but getting rid of them was poison. The DD on M and WU was assumedly better (ok, did I really say that?) - but regardless give them some time. The league needs more playing time and I don't care which millionaires might be getting screwed so long as our up and coming get more minutes.