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Live sport this Sunday on SNWhateley: The most logical place for a 20th AFL team
Jaiden Sciberras • July 20th, 2025 3:30 pm
How imminent is the announcement of a 20th AFL team?
With Tasmania set to commence their AFL journey in 2028, the competition is once again set to field an odd number of teams, and as history suggests, this may not be the case for long.
Looking back to 2008 under then CEO Andrew Demetriou, the Gold Coast Suns were formed and granted a provisional license to join the AFL in 2011 as the league looked to grow the competition further north.
Two years later, Team GWS were named as the priority for expansion to become the 18th AFL team, entering the competition in 2012, just one year after the Suns inaugural season.
This meant that in 2011, the AFL fielded 17 teams across the country, the first and only time the league has featured an odd number of clubs since 1994, prior to the merger between Brisbane and Fitzroy and before both Port Adelaide (joining from the SANFL) and the Fremantle Dockers (established in '94, joined in '95) featured in the competition.
Similarly, the AFLW has never fielded an odd number of teams despite their ongoing expansion over the course of its eight-year tenure. Commencing with eight teams in 2017, the AFLW expanded to 10 in 2019, 14 in 2020, and 18 in 2022's season 7.
Given the AFL’s history surrounding an even number of teams, the likelihood of a 20th team to compliment the Tassie Devils appears imminent, and as per Gerard Whateley, Adam Simpson and Sam Edmund, the conversations have ramped up over the possibility of a third team out of Western Australia.
“If we do have a 19th team, we will definitely have a 20th team,” Whateley told SEN Crunch Time.
“For the first time, the language changed out of the West Australian football commission, and the most logical place is Western Australia’s third team.”
Simpson: “I’m assuming they’re talking south, rather than north.
“I thought that Darwin, the Northern Territory, Alice Springs, isn’t there a little committee there already?”
Edmund: “Cairns has been mentioned. Historically, it seems horribly unlikely now, but Norwood has been mentioned over time as well.
“Your part of the world is where the money and the corporate support is!”
Simpson: “I think this there’s an area or a region, it’s probably south. The Bunbury area has a stronghold on football, but whether they can grow a supporter base (is unlikely).
“What has happened in the last five or six years is that there is an airport in Busselton, which has become a direct flight from Melbourne.
“The North Melbourne experience, if the AFL came over and enjoyed that week, they would have seen what it was like down there. There is enough, I’d suggest, to perhaps hold another team.
“At the moment, it feels like it could work, but I’m not really sure. You’ve got to do the sums and the numbers.
“I’m still worried about the talent, and the talent pathways. We’ve got to get that right as much as the 20th team, because you’ll get a lot of division in the competitions with haves and have-nots, rebuilds and non-rebuilds.
“Imagine rebuilding with 20 teams. IF you get that wrong, you’re there forever.
“The last piece is, you’ve got to have a conference then. It makes sense to do that. Give us a long runway and get it set up and prepare everyone for that. That’s exciting, if we can get that done well.”
Whateley: “I’ve always thought a third team in Western Australia would be a heavy favourite.
“It would utilise Optus Stadium more. It’s such an outstanding investment and a showpiece, that you would end up with X amount more games.
“My personal view, we’ll only have two years of odd numbers. It’s wretched for the competition, odd numbers.
“Every competition around the world knows this, so you don’t want to be stuck in an odd number.
“I think as soon as Tasmania is absolutely locked in as the 19th, work will start on the 20th, and there will probably be bids put forward, and there will be this landmark day where something is chosen.”
