Quote ="BrisbaneRhino"The AFL has gone national by transplanting teams from Victoria to Sydney and Brisbane. The Brisbane Lions (formerly the Bears) used to be Fitzroy I think. In any event these transfers of teams (which basically means the previous team dies) have taken advantage of the huge number of southern 'expats' in Queensland and Victoria, for whom 'football' means AFL and the existing player rosters of the transferred teams.
In fact the new Gold Coast team will be the first genuine 'new' AFL side, and it will be interesting to see how they go, as they won't have the advantage of an existing squad to start with when they kick off. They also get given cash handouts by the league to start up, player draft benefits and a higher salary cap (to attract interstate players) than southern/western sides.
It's also interesting that the Sydney Swans are sh*tting themselves over the thought of a second Sydney team, as this will dilute their appeal considerably.
Just thought you should know - SL is having to expand within its means by using finance raised by the new teams themselves, so everything is quite different. About the only 'advantage' I can see that Quins have had for example is in the overseas quota. Imagine the hue and cry if say Celtic had been given wads of cash and poached the likes of McGuire, Long etc to start up.'"
Would be good for the game if it got the crowds in, I liked the suggestion from an aussie coach a couple of years back that each club be allowed a marquee player who stays outside the salary cap, ie; sinfields contract stays outside the cap, but wakefield might tempt mcguire as they can offer way more than available under the cap, would also keep the better players from being poached (the aussie coaches reason for suggesting this when the gasniers etc left the NRL)
