Booney wrote:JK wrote:The thought by most AFL supporters in this state with little to no interest in the SANFL, that the SANFL fans are all stuck in the competitions glory days is miles off the mark. We all understand we play 2nd fiddle (with daylight in between) to big brother, and that's fine, we just want our own competition to be fair and equitable, and thriving at a lower level, and dont see it as an unreasonable wish. We're happy to be the breeding ground for players talented enough to progress to AFL, although we don't want the competition to be exclusively for that purpose. We're happy to have those that fell out of the AFL because they generally help with the standard at our level. But the competition to the genuine SANFL fans requires a level playing field to be meaningful to supporters, many of whom have had multiple generations of their family involved with their club.
We don't expect our games on primetime TV, we don't expect multiple pages in the Advertiser, we don't expect the radio stations to discuss the competition for hours on end. We realise our place in the pecking order.
If the second comment is true, which I believe it is, then the first can't occur, IMHO. To truly thrive the competition does need greater exposure in print, the airwaves and the mouse clicks, it no longer receives that ( yes, yes, I know why ).
Forget the competition thriving once more, I don't think the football market has the dollars to support the AFL with it's greater exposure and a thriving SANFL. The best the SANFL can hope for is a return to a level playing field, without the AFL reserves sides, but without the advent of a national AFL reserves competition ( which I think most of us agree isn't likely in the short term, especially with the AFLW taking off and taking up AFL $$'s ) then what it is at the moment, is what it is and where it sits in the market place will remain the same. Out of the limelight, not thriving.
*Edit* When I say "football market place" I refer to the corporate dollar.
The word "thriving" is open to interpretation.
I would say that the SANFL was thriving before the reserves joined. Clearly the strongest local league in Australia, we would often pull minor round crowds larger than the cellar dwellers of the AFL. Our Grand Final regularly drew crowds around 30,000, even though we had the same bloody team in it for a decade. Discussion on this board was very fiery, one only need say that another side was shit and we would spend pages arguing about the issue.
If these are not all signs of a "thriving" comp for you then you have a different interpretation of the word to me.
JK's post hit the nail on the head.