You have to ask yourself also if it wasn't for the SL war how big would the Swans and Lions got. Not as big I would suggest.
This is one factor the AFL don't consider when they talk about he Suns or GWS.
Something similar happened in North American motor sport back in the 90s and 00s. Open wheel racing split in two when the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony George, formed his own competition because he disliked CART's a) enormous spending on technology and b) adding road and street races from other continents at the expense of ovals in America. He created the Indy Racing League, trademarked IndyCar and banned CART from the Indy 500. His competition used cheaper cars and focused on America. Fans flocked to NASCAR to see the stock cars, as crowds for the Champ Cars at CART and IndyCars at IRL dropped.
CART overspent and went bust in mid-00s, was bought by another company and renamed the Champ Car World Series. The Andretti family and other strong teams and drivers from CART jumped over to IRL. CCWS went bust in the late-00s. Tony George bought the rights and the rest of the drivers and teams made the jump He got rid of the champ car event that was run at Surfers Paradise by CART/CCWS from the early-90s until 2007.
The IRL became the IndyCar Series and its popularity is small compared to where CART was at when they had Nigel Mansell and were running events on the Gold Coast. The moral of the story is CART tried to expand globally to attract F1 fans, but eventually lost its fanbase to NASCAR and went bust in the process. The IndyCar Series won by focusing on the sport's history and existing fanbase.