Expansion has been the catchword not only of the A-League but of all Australian sport.
The 11-year existence of the A-League has seen a gradual expansion of membership, frenzied debate of how expansion should proceed, and lessons that need to be drawn from. The A-League’s expansion experience can be contrasted to those of Australia’s two largest sports competitions, the AFL and NRL, as well as to those of football in the USA and Japan – where national professional leagues were established in the 1990s.
The A-League currently stands at 10 clubs, representing a net gain of two since its inception – firstly, the replacement of New Zealand Knights with Wellington Phoenix in 2007, the short-lived expansion in Queensland with Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury in 2009 (with Gold Coast folding in 2012 and North Queensland reforming at state league level), and finally, the admissions of Melbourne Heart (now Melbourne City) in 2010 and Western Sydney Wanderers in 2012, which have been more radically game-changing in terms of cementing the status as a viable and credible national competition.
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States of the Codes – Australian leagues and expansion
The development of sports competitions in Australia is shaped by the country’s history and geography. Not only the fact Australia is a federation of six states with two territories, but also a tyranny of distance that is by no means unique to Australia. For instance, the football leagues of Brazil had long been state-based, while Argentina and Uruguay among others had suburban-based competitions, before moves to establish fully national league structures in Brazil and Argentina from the 1970s onwards, a process that took several years to complete.
Therefore, club competition in Rugby (or Rugby Union), Rugby League and Australian Rules, as well as football, developed not simply along state lines but along local lines, both country and suburban. In Australian Rules, the competitions were VFL (which itself formed out of a breakaway of the VFA which became a second-level league, and now uses the term VFL), SANFL and WAFL, with a myriad of suburban and country leagues throughout Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, ACT and southern NSW. The code had a lesser but persistent presence in Sydney and Brisbane. Rugby League, by contrast, remained largely confined to New South Wales and Queensland and followed the same pattern with the NSWRL, BRL and country leagues. Governing bodies were set up along state lines with numerous quirks along the way. In football this is evident with overseers not only for each state and territory, but also for Northern NSW based in Newcastle, which somehow qualifies as a ‘state’ on its own.
What is worth noting is that top level talent in both codes often stayed in their local leagues and this was the case for decades. There was no question that the VFL and NSWRL – the basis for today’s AFL and NRL – were the premier leagues in their respective codes, although this status was formidably challenged. Obviously they drew the highest attendances by virtue of population and were the best-known leagues outside their strongholds. What is clear is that by the 1970s, top players gravitated towards the VFL and NSWRL at the expense of other leagues. which was a key factor in the introduction of the State of Origin concept in both codes. Representative teams – and in Rugby League, international tests – were the highest honour players could aspire to and these games often delivered the highest possible standard. As recently as 1982, the Kangaroos selected a player from a country league (Toowoomba) for their international tour. Interstate rivalries like NSW vs Queensland and Victoria vs SA were, and remain, much cherished (indeed, the latter has been successfully translated into the A-League). In truth, the talent drain to the “big leagues” was no different to what has happened with most of the world’s football leagues since the 1970s.
Expansion of suburban competitions had already taken place. The NSWRL admitted Parramatta and Manly in 1947, and Penrith and Cronulla 20 years later. The SANFL admitted Woodville and Centrals in 1964. The VFL, on the other hand, largely stuck with its 12-team competition since the 1920s.
The result was that by the turn of the 1980s, as the talent drain towards Sydney and Melbourne continued, talk intensified of establishing full-fledged national competitions in both codes. Two significant factors affecting the development of Rugby League and Australian Rules during the 80s was the advent of poker machines in Leagues clubs in NSW, and the dire financial straits that many VFL clubs had found themselves in. Not everyone was enthusiastic about the idea of creating national competitions in either code, particularly in South Australia where the concept encountered some resistance. At the same time, both Rugby League and Australian Rules seriously considered, for the first time, taking their sports beyond their traditional strongholds. This occurred in 1982 when ailing VFL club South Melbourne relocated to Sydney, while the NSWRL admitted teams from Illawarra and Canberra. Speculation intensified about whether a Brisbane team would join the NSWRL, and whether Perth and Adelaide clubs would be competing in the VFL, and whether a national league would be accomplished by admitting other states’ most successful clubs into the ‘national’ leagues (Port Adelaide for example), or the newly-minted ‘composite’ club sides purporting to represent a whole city.
The admission of the West Coast Eagles (1982), Adelaide Crows (1991) to the AFL, and of Brisbane Broncos and Newcastle Knights (1988) to the NSWRL, cemented the status of the ‘Sydney’ and ‘Melbourne’ leagues as the undisputed showcase competitions, relegating all others to second-tier (or lower) status. Nevertheless, the old tribal loyalties from those leagues have not disappeared entirely, particularly in Adelaide. Therefore sport competitions in Australia are structured much like American professional sports like baseball, basketball and ice hockey, which have major (MLB, NBA and NHL) and regionally-based minor leagues. In the case of baseball, the system extends beyond North America – the reformation of the ABL part of the sport’s renewed push in Australia.
Besides the desire to spread beyond traditional strongholds, expansion of the NSWRL and VFL had other motives behind them as well. With many Melbourne VFL clubs in dire straits off the field, it was widely thought that expansion plans were a money-grabbing exercise to prop up those clubs, primarily through licence fees. At the same time, the AFL did show a certain and tenacity with persisting with Sydney and Brisbane in winning over locals to a ‘foreign’ sport. In the 1990s and 2000s, its persistence was rewarded with the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions being firmly embedded in the sporting landscape (with periods of success on the field), while Rugby League went through its Super League war and the ramifications afterwards.
Mergers and relocations, in addition to new teams, figured highly on the agenda of both codes – the AFL expanded to 16 teams in 1995 and has been at 18 teams since 2012. After Fitzroy folded into Brisbane, attempts by AFL to relocate teams into new markets hit a roadblock (e.g. resistance from North Melbourne fans) before Gold Coast and GWS were formed. The ARL competition was expanded to 20 teams in 1995 before Super League tore the game asunder and the NRL was formed as a result for 1998. Markets like Perth (which had potential in terms of junior development) and Adelaide were abandoned, while Melbourne Storm and most recently Gold Coast Titans were established. Whereas AFL has invested heavily in its expansion project, the NRL has chosen a seemingly more cautious route of consolidation with its current 16-team format.
In the meantime, football (or soccer, if you insist) and basketball launched national competitions, the NSL and NBL, in 1977 and 1979 respectively. Both leagues demonstrated the possibility of running national competitions (state leagues for football and basketball still exist and serve a vital purpose for both sports), though both were far from stable in terms of composition over the years with the word ramshackle coming to mind. The recent withdrawal of the Townsville Crocodiles from the NBL highlights that league’s long-term difficulties. The NSL, on the other hand, was a victim of inept administration, self-interest and the gradual talent drain affecting most leagues, although its record of producing talent that served the Socceroos well was not something that can be scoffed at.
In past and present expansion projects, the A-League has to draw upon lessons not only of its own expansion clubs, but also of the evolution of the AFL and NRL.
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