How can we attract the best state league teams to participate in the Foxtel Cup?

http://www.neafl.com.au/

The idea of a competition enabling the best teams from the various state leagues to play each other is always appealing to the Rambling Couch Sitter. Especially given that the AFL has now become too professional and has been built around vested Victorian interests. Unfortunately, Australian Rules will never be able to adopt the Divisional model of the English FA simply because the potential travel distance is too great for a suburban club. Also the lack of population and money available in Australia make it difficult for a state league club to rise through the ranks to compete in the AFL.

The Foxtel Cup aimed to alleviate these issues by inviting the best clubs around Australia to play against each other in curtain raisers to AFL games, thereby granting much needed exposure for these clubs. The Cup is a 16 team knockout-based competition with three teams participating from each of the SANFL, VFL and WAFL, two teams from Tasmania and Queensland and one from NT, NSW and the ACT.

The competition itself is not without controversy as when the original invites went out the Top 5 SANFL clubs issued a joint statement on 15/12/2010 declining to participate “citing lack of prize money; sponsorship conflicts, salary cap implications, schedule concerns and removing the focus from their SANFL premiership ambitions”.

The response from these clubs is not entirely unexpected; even if it disappoints yours truly because I don’t get to see my beloved Norwood Redlegs play in this competition. It also devalues the Foxtel Cup because the winner of the Cup has not been able to compete against the best non-AFL clubs in Australia.

The main reason for the stance by the SANFL clubs is that the SANFL is generally considered the next best competition behind the AFL and the Thomas Seymour Hill Cup is very highly sought after by each club. Before the Adelaide Football Club entered the AFL, the total season attendance per capita for the SANFL was better than its VFL/AFL counterpart which adds some weight to this argument.

How do we ensure that the best teams from each league participate in the cup each year? It is a little tricky because the idea of exposing these clubs to a wider audience is very appealing. The answer may be to have weekends during the regular season that are dedicated to the Foxtel Cup, thereby allowing these matches to proceed with little disruption to the various state league competitions. There only needs to be three of these weekends in any given season.

In order to promote the Cup as the competition between the best club sides outside of the AFL, I would suggest that the grand final be played as a curtain raiser to the AFL Grand Final. This does mean that the SANFL will need to bring forward their season by two weeks as their Grand Final is normally played the week after the AFL Grand Final. This removes the obstacle of the SANFL clubs being more focussed on the T.S. Hill Cup. (By the way, this should rightfully be the focus of the SANFL Clubs!!)

Then there is the prize money aspect, I would suggest $100,000 for the winner, $50,000 for the runners-up and $25,000 for each of the losing semi-finalists. Add in the glory/incentive of playing in front of up 100,000 people, thereby providing much needed exposure for both finalists and there may be a chance to promote the game significantly at the grass roots level. But more importantly, the winner can justifiably say that they are currently the best non-AFL club in Australia.