Every team entered since 1987 has paid the $4 million fee, but the League is keen to ease the financial burdens on the pair as they look to establish footholds in non-traditional AFL areas.
“Well, you’d love to get parity,” Trigg admitted on Friday, after returning home from Thursday’s meeting with Andrew Demetriou and other key AFL officials in Melbourne.
“There are some clubs, including ours, that have made the sacrifice if you like, paid the price, and you’d like to think that teams coming in now would be making the same commitment.
“However, it has to be said that when you contemplate the up side of those clubs coming in and being successful, you want to give them every chance, and $4 million in the overall scheme of things in terms of the overall revenue model is relatively insignificant.
“I mean, contemplate for a moment what a 10 per cent growth in broadcast rights means for example. There’s $75 million or so.”
The expansion from 16 to 18 teams was the major topic of the meeting between the AFL and the club chief executives.
Moves are underway for the introduction of the Gold Coast team in 2011 with a western Sydney franchise a possibility in the same season; the AFL taking the opportunity to outline that progress to the clubs.
“I think there’s a clear understanding from all the CEOs that there is a very compelling case for why we should be entering those two key areas,” Trigg said.
“There’s been a lot of work done to date on the rationale as to why, and there were some preliminary thoughts tossed around as to how it would happen.
“There’s clearly a lot more work to be done on it, but we’re very supportive of the business case so far as to why we should be in those two growing markets.
“From talent pathways, corporate, broadcast rights and all other perspectives there is just a compelling case for us to be getting into those areas.”
South-east Queensland has long been an area of interest for the League, with home and away matches scheduled at Carrara Stadium in recent years and an ultimately unsuccessful push to re-locate the Kangaroos late last year.
As such, 2011 would appear an optimistic target for the western Sydney franchise, but Trigg said it wasn’t necessarily out of the question on what he had seen and heard on Thursday.
“Clearly there is a greater level of readiness for the franchise on the Gold Coast,” he said.
“But it’s a question of how bold the competition wants to be in terms of bringing on a team in western Sydney at the same time.
“The short answer is [I’m] uncertain, but with some more information on the ability to get the western Sydney team up and running; if we think we can do it then by all means let’s go for it.”
The AFL is yet to formulate exactly how each club will be allowed to build its playing list and will visit each of the existing clubs in the next six months to gather views on the recruitment process, including priority draft picks and priority access to uncontracted players.
“I don’t have any hard and fast views about it at the moment; I’d need to think that one through some more,” Trigg said.
Crows fans already edgy about the timing of the Gold Coast franchise’s introduction, given the early form of exciting young Queenslander Kurt Tippett, need not worry.
With the recruitment concessions still on the AFL’s drawing board, Trigg said “we might lock him up until 2020” just to be sure.
