Giants/Suns funding has exceeded the nominal amount of tv rights funding per team (as an average total league media rights/18 teams) by 12.4 million over the last 12 years – just over 1m a year.
This doesnt include additional commercial revenue recieved by the league as a result of these additional matches or other ancillary revenues derived from these clubs involvement.
At present, it looks like the AFL hasnt lost money, but it hasnt necessarily gained any revenue from these teams involvement. It has apparently expanded the games development numbers and added additional exposure for the game, and that may well be worth the additional million a year the league is spending.
That said, the revenue from tv rights would probably have been there if two teams had been added from pretty much any location. Non AFL revenues for the Suns in particular are low, while gate and membership revenues for the Giants are frightenly low after a decade.
