They built it and they came

Five year annual growth in AFL participation by region with the introduction of GWS and the Gold Coast

Compound annual growth rates (CAGR) from 5 years before introduction of team to first year of competition (GC and Qld from 2006 to 2011, GWS and NSW from 2007 to 2012. Football states same value for both periods)
ABCSource: AFL census input to the AFL license taskforce report to data via Tasmanian government, 2019Get the dataDownload image