The AFL has made a lot of noise and heavily promoted it's recent expansion clubs, Gold Coast Suns & Greater Western Sydney. The media has helped promote the AFL with continual positive articles on the clubs rightly or wrongly.
I personally think that it is amazing how much publicity these two clubs get for wat has been very mediocre or poor returns in their short beginning. Many a source has stated that the Brisbane Bears were probably just as bad when they started and the new clubs need to be given a go. Firstly I can state that the Brisbane Bears were never as bad as what the current crop are serving up and even though they went through a bad patch for a period, the basic statistics in their first few years were far more promising.
To start with compare beginning years for all three.
Brisbane Bears (1987) finished 13th (14 teams) with 6 wins, 16 losses, a percentage of 79.3. They won their first 2 games, 4 of their first 8 games and won 3 games on the road. 2 wins were over teams that finished in the top 5. All in all a good start for a new club in unchartered territory, playing in a rugby league stronghold and on a ground outside of Brisbane.
Gold Coast Suns (2011) Finished 17th (17) with 3 wins, 19 losses, a percentage of 56.3. All of the Suns wins came against teams in the bottom six and as the percentage indicates, the Suns had almost twice as many goals kicked against them as they scored.
Greater Western Sydney (2012) Currently 17th (18) with 1 win, 11 losses, a percentage of 49.3. The only win for GWS is over the Suns who have yet to win a game this season. Like the Suns in their formative year GWS are having double their score put on them.
What is yet to be seen is when these teams will improve, Brisbane finished 10th in their 3rd year before dropping back down the ladder again over the next few years before finally cracking into the top 8 in 1995. Whilst Gold Coast and the Suns may yet turn out to be great teams, it is a long way off on current standards. One advantage these two teams have is how much money and coverage is being poured into them to ensure that they are a success off the field. With both clubs being set up in areas where AFL is not the number one game and are seen to be Rugby league strong areas, the AFL has a vested interest to ensure these teams survive. A crucial factor to the survival of the clubs though is the fans. Brisbane was not a successful club and highly unpopular club until they finally relocated to Brisbane and played from the Gabba, it was at this point that many from Brisbane actually felt that this was their team. Also by this point Brisbane had started to play finals football and very attractive football. If the Suns and GWS continue to look like it is just a matter of how much they lose by each week they will struggle to not only attract new fans to the game and the clubs but also to retain what they already have. The biggest worry for the clubs is when some of their promising young players start showing real game breaking potential. Will those players stay loyal to the new clubs or will they chase the dream of playing finals football of for one of the big Melbourne clubs. A player only has so long in the game and a premiership is every players goal. One only has to look at a young Brisbane Bears player, Nathan Buckley, who signed with Collingwood to "Win a premiership". Ironically he never won one as a player and if he stayed would have been around to win 3.
Loyalty is what will be the test of the new clubs, both of the players and the fans. Once these start to dwindle, it may be a very expensive expansion exercise.
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