The Greater Western Sydney Giants are the AFL's team, not Sydney's
If you were given a dollar for everyone who asked Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy for a selfie or an autograph at the MCG Friday night, or shouted "Go Storm" as he walked past, you would have enough money to buy something really pricey ... like a ticket to the AFL grand final.
The Storm, who play a preliminary final against Canberra on Saturday night, have marketed themselves, intuitively rather than purposefully, as a Melbourne team, rather than an NRL one.
AFL plays of the finals: week two
Bontempelli, Stringer and Co run all over the reigning premiers as Hawthorn go out in straight sets while the Swans avoid that fate as they muscle past Adelaide at the SCG.
The Giants, who play a preliminary final against the Western Bulldogs the same night, are positioned as an AFL team, rather than a Sydney one.
OK, the Swans, who moved north from Melbourne in 1982, have a lock on "Sydney's team", but the Giants are not perceived as representatives of what they cloyingly call "Greater Western Sydney."
They are representative of the AFL's drive to gain access to the NSW and Queensland share of the national advertising spend, with the two states contributing nearly 60 per cent.
AFL chairman, Mike Fitzpatrick, made this very clear when he said on ABC radio on September 9, "We'd like to be the No 1 code...We will get our market share of that population and that translates into a big football club (Giants)."
Nor can the Giants, hand on heart, declare themselves a team representative of Sydney's west when they are geographically ubiquitous. They have moved from their initial Blacktown base to Homebush and play three premiership games a season in Canberra.
Twenty seven million dollars were spent building them a base at Blacktown, where the then Rudd Government was impressed with the spiel that it had the highest concentration of Indigenous people in Australia.
They were given a further $45m in public funding when the subsequently disgraced NSW minister, Ian Macdonald, an AFL tragic, paid for an upgrade of Sydney Showground.
Nor are they deterred by a recent decision by the ACT Government, following community opposition, to defer a GWS-Grocon $800m "Manuka Green" bid, where $80m to $100m would be spent on re-developing Manuka Oval.
The AFL's born-to-rule arrogance was obvious when it decided to start a second team in Sydney, assuming Blacktown is the heart of what they call Greater Western Sydney.
The western suburbs region of Sydney is a vast, amorphous urban landscape, with multiple nodes.
Sure, Blacktown is midway between Penrith and Parramatta but what about Lidcombe, Liverpool, Campbelltown, the Blue Mountains and the rich vein of playing talent in the south west corridor, together with potential season ticket holders in the upper middle class suburbs of the Hills district.
The Giants don't belong to Sydney; they belong to the AFL who has subsidised them over $100m, gifted them No 1 draft choices, salary cap concessions and exclusive access to NSW regions to put them in a position where they can make the grand final after five years.
How would you feel if you were a follower of the Western Bulldogs who have made two grand finals in nearly 100 years?
No wonder almost all Melburnians, except the AFL, are cheering for the team who last made a grand final 55 years ago, against a team who could make it after five years.
Surely, the Bulldogs administration would be eyeing some of the Giants talent they are playing at Sydney's Showground (Spotless Stadium) and wonder whether it could have guaranteed a grand final berth.
But the Bulldogs won't say anything publicly because they rely on the AFL for additional funding.
The AFL ignore the Storm, while the Melbourne clubs embrace them. Bellamy was a guest of the Hawks at the MCG on Friday night where Lisa Alexander, Australia's netball coach, was interviewed at the pre-game dinner. The AFL's emcee mentioned how exciting it was for two new teams to be backed by AFL clubs – Collingwood and GWS – but no mention of the Storm and its Sunshine Coast netball team.
Storm captain, Cameron Smith, was also at the MCG. When he appears on Foxtel's AFL 360, the questions usually focus on his AFL team, the Hawks.
Storm chairman, Bart Campbell, has often said his club's aspiration is to hold the same place in the Melbourne sporting landscape as the Swans do in Sydney.
Compare this to the AFL chairman's recent sabre rattling of national domination.
OK, the Storm are 18 years old and the Giants only five.
But if you had a dollar for every Storm fan who outnumbers a Canberra supporter at AAMI Park on Saturday night, discounted by the margin the Bulldogs followers exceed the Giants at Spotless, you'd have enough to buy two AFL grand final tickets
http://www.smh.com.au/afl/greater-w...he-afls-team-not-sydneys-20160919-grk007.html
