LIKE kids playing hide-and-seek, the AFL has put its head down and is counting to a hundred. In three years, it will lift its lid and bellow loud enough so that those to the north can hear it: "Here we come, ready or not."

Those evangelists and converts on the Gold Coast assert that they are ready now. They want to be found.

Those in western Sydney will be given another year before the AFL comes through. To date, the fans here seem to be quite good at hiding.

The business of sport insists on football expanding to ward off competition from rival codes and to expand the market of players and viewers of the game. That means two more teams could join an already bulging AFL slate of 16 clubs within five years.

Last weekend, AFL Commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick told The Age of the league's insistence that a team be located on the Gold Coast by 2011 and western Sydney a year after that. The haste to push into Sydney's west in a meaningful way, and that the league was prepared to expand its competition — to not wait for attrition to squeeze a reluctant Melbourne team north — revealed a significant change in AFL thinking.

This determined path of expansionism has been trodden before. Heaven forbid the lessons of the Bears and Swans have not been learnt.

THE TEAMS

The AFL's proposed new team for the Gold Coast for season 2011 could arrive much sooner. Suggestions have arisen that the new club could begin playing in the local QAFL competition as soon as next year with players being drafted for the club from the national draft as early as this year.

Under this proposal, teenagers drafted to Queensland would be playing in the QAFL next year — as with many recruits to AFL clubs playing in the state leagues ahead of making an AFL debut — but they would have no capacity to play AFL for the first year or two of their contracts. This may have significant restraint of trade legal hurdles to clear.

The successful experience of rugby league's Titans in being given 18 months to establish as a club and get their infrastructure right before commencing in the National Rugby League suggests the value of the longest possible lead-in time.

Furthermore, the experience of Port Adelaide in being a legitimate established club that was able to sign and hold players for a year or two before joining the AFL ensured its more immediate ability to make the transition from state to national league.

Presumably the creation of an entity for western Sydney also would be done as a matter of priority so it, too, could try to get some momentum before inclusion in the AFL.

These state league clubs would better allow for club personnel, training and management structures to be established as much as playing personnel.

THE PLAYERS

Quite how you find 88 extra players for two new franchises is another thing. The AFL accepts that it cannot allow the two new ventures to be established in name only, and that a foothold is only established with success on the field. Thus, suggestions already have been made in football circles as to how this might occur.

One suggestion is for each club to list 10 "untouchables". New clubs then would have the right to seek to contract two players from each club's list outside of those untouchables. The contracted players also would have to want to go, so presumably the financial leeway afforded the Brisbane Lions and Sydney until recently will be reinstated. Significant additional financial incentive must be offered to contracted players to induce them to break a contract and change states.

The difficulty with the notion of untouchables is that it means none of the best 160 players in the competition would be at either of the two new clubs. Unless of course one of those players was uncontracted and prepared to walk for a handsome pay cheque. Not an unheard-of occurrence.

There has been some suggestion — angrily rejected by many at club level — that even from the untouchable list, one player could be taken. Thus the untouchables become touchable.

This appears unlikely but what it might do is inform an argument that perhaps 10 is too many to be considered untouchable and that perhaps that list be trimmed to five or seven.

Beyond that, the best young talent in the country is likely to be available to the new clubs in their formative years. Both clubs are likely to be given priority draft selections of the first two or three draft picks each year for the first few years of their existence.

Contentiously, there also could be a re-institution of priority draft zones with the Lions and the new Gold Coast team — known as what, the Dolphins? The White Shoes? The Melanomas? — sharing priority access to local talent and the same in NSW for the Swans and the Western Sydney Ugg Boots. This probably would render redundant other initiatives to develop the game and cultivate players such as the NSW scholarship scheme.

This move would meet significant resistance from Victorian clubs, some of which would argue they have had more success with finding and developing talent from the northern states than the Lions or Swans have had in the past.

But the reality is the players have to come from somewhere. Doubtless, there will be a minor dilution of talent in the competition — as was the case when the competition expanded from 12 to 16 teams — but whether it will be sufficient to detract from the quality of the spectacle put on weekly is another matter. What is certain is that it will hurt the feeder state competitions, denying them further players, but supplying players is what feeder competitions do.

THE FORMAT

An 18-team competition creates a range of possibilities. The first option would be to trim the season back to 17 rounds and have each team play one another once. This would create an evenness in the competition that would be absent from the draft and salary cap concessions granted to new start-up clubs.

Another option available then for a competition that models so much of its structure on the National Football League would be to split the league into two conferences of nine teams each. This would create a weekly bye in each conference, which is not ideal. Under one option, a conference system could work on a 21-round season followed by an expanded finals series.

Which teams go in which conferences obviously would be problematic. Naturally, for derby/showdown reasons as well as the travel, the two Perth teams would be in the same conference, as would the two teams each from Adelaide, Sydney and Queensland. Victorian teams would be divided between the conferences, though presumably the likes of Collingwood and Essendon would be in the one conference to preserve Anzac Day.

Another option is to keep the system as it is — a 22-round season and a top eight making the finals — and then only have each team play five other sides twice instead of the seven sides as is currently the case. The advantage in one regard would be that the final eight would not halve the competition and ensure making the finals represented an above-average performance.

TELEVISION

While expanding the competition is about expanding the game's reach to participants and viewers, there is little doubt it is also about expanding the bank balance. And there seems little doubt it will do that. The AFL's next television rights deal — indeed as each one that has preceded it has done — could break new ground. It has been suggested an expanded competition would be a genuine billion-dollar business.

Senior football industry figures have suggested the increase in the number of teams and games would represent a 20% increase in the value of the rights, aside from any natural price growth from the increase in new media. Media buyer Harold Mitchell said he agreed with the estimate, saying a billion-dollar deal would be the expectation, particularly because of the voracious appetite for content — and in particular sports content — of the internet, mobile phones and high definition television.

The extra game a week created by the introduction of an extra two teams — depending on the structure — would be likely to go to pay TV, as the free-to-air broadcasting market is saturated for coverage. Unless, of course, the free-to-air networks desired additional content for HDTV channels or the rights were further unbundled and spread across all free-to-air networks as well as pay TV.

So maybe the AFL does not have its head down counting for hide-and-seek. Maybe the chiefs are just counting the zeroes on the next TV deal.

Here they come, ready or not.