The NEAFL was bankrolled by the AFL. I don't think that the NT Thunder were passing the hat around to fly into and out of Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra every fortnight. (Albeit even pre-COVID, AFL NT were so tired of running the Thunder for little benefit to footy in the NT that they were happy to hand back the $300k pa that the NT Government were also tipping in.)Pseudo wrote:Jim05 wrote:...
The salary cap is set at $200,000 for standalone clubs and $100,000 for AFL and aligned clubs. As previously communicated, there will be no licence fee payable by any club to participate in the 2021 second-tier competition with the AFL to subsidise all approved club travel for interstate matches.
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Look! The AFL is bankrolling a reserves competition! And the naysayers said it would never happen.
If they can pay for other clubs to fly up and down the eastern seabord, then they can pay to fly an SA based team into Mexico every week. Off ya go Ravens, there's how you can save your $400K. Take your cross-city cousins with you.
More interesting is the salary cap for the VFL next year. Do you reckon the SANFL went through the current financials and forward projections for the SANFL clubs with a fine tooth comb—or just took directions from head office, by setting it at a level where we wouldn't outbid the Vic clubs?
The ACT, and to some extent local Sydney, comps, are a cautionary tale of what happens when you just follow the whims of a 1000-pound gorilla. For the 2016 season, head office had the bright idea to make the NEAFL a true 'elite' 2nd-tier comp, so about 4 mostly strong ACT-region teams had either found it unattractive and gone, or been thrown out. The AFL said 'we'll just allow the one representative team for all of Canberra'—the rebadged Eastlake who became the Canberra Demons. Lo and behold, the well-established players at e.g. Belconnen didn't want to jump ship to their long-time rivals. Elite football in the ACT was shredded between the half-revitalised local comp (which had really become a 3rd-tier comp during those years when Queanbeyan, Ainslie and Belconnen were in what was called the NEAFL Eastern Conference), and the Canberra Demons were initially a chopping block. Then after 2 or so seasons, they started to gather together a playing group and were competitive. 2 years after that, the NEAFL was summarily axed. GWS, Swans, Suns and Brisbane are parachuted into the new VFL, and the Canberra Demons commented in an article (paywalled) in the Canberra Times in August that they didn't even get a phone call from AFL headquarters to tell them it was all over.