Three questions in response to your brilliant post:
1) Did BRL players earn more than NSWRL players, at the time (before the Broncs came into the NSWRL comp)? Approx, how much did players earn those days in the 80's? I know they weren't earning hundreds of thousands of dollars like they do today and the huge third-party sponsorships weren't around back then (didn't come into league until about the mid 90s), but did the majority or all of the players earn enough to be able to play it full time (i.e. professionalism)? In what year did full-time professionalism come into league?
2) You say you were dissapointed when u look back at the events that have now transpired, in regards to the disintegration of the BRL comp. What do you think could've been done to make sure it was preserved and still going healthy and strong (even with Brisbane being admitted into the comp)? What does poker machines have anything to do with players moving to NSW? Why did Sir Joh outlaw them?
3) Where does the current Queensland Cup stand, in comparison to the former BRL? Is the QLD cup popular up there? What's the quality of play and overall support like in that? What can be done to improve the QLD Cup? Would you say its the next highest rugby league competition in Australia, after the NRL?
1. There was without doubt more money to be made by more players in the NSWRL (poker machines) but what I meant was a group of elite players were able to make just as much in Brisbane. There was no need to move to Sydney. The Broncos gathered most if not all of these players up in 1988.
Lets take the obvious example - Wally Lewis. He was NSWRL standard in the late 70's and part of the inaugural winning SOO team in 1980. Numerous attempts to lure him to Sydney failed and he played most of his career in the BRL. He was the biggest name in the game in Qld and there was no need for him to move south. I'm sure he did just fine money-wise.
Everything is relative to today. Your marquee players earned "good" money compared to the average man in the street in the BRL when you factored in sponsorships and business interests. Anybody that basically made an Origin team that wasn't playing in Sydney, you could assume was making reasonable to good money. I think you'll find most players in the Sydney comp in the early to mid 80's had full time jobs.
Impossible to put figures on what they earnt. Your average wage in society at the time may have been 10-15k.
2. I'm a traditionalist I guess in a world moving super fast. What I miss about the BRL is no different to what I presume many in Sydney miss about the old NSWRL.
If you live in Sydney a game at Kogarah in the old days was no different to a game at Langlands Park. St George vs Cronulla ... Easts vs Valleys.
The suburban grounds, the picnic atmosphere, the smell of linament and pies at the ground, identifying with your players as people who lived locally in a lot of cases, player loyalty, kicking the ball on the field after the game, kicking the ball at half-time!, the tribalism of playing your arch enemy teams. Nobody will convince me that this scenario isn't better for kids (and adults for that matter) than concrete jungle super stadiums, and a different roster on your team every year.
If you weren't at the game, chances are you weren't going to see it ... its that simple.
Poker machines in NSW meant the Leagues clubs in Sydney had money, and the leagues clubs in Brisbane didn't. Sydney clubs could buy Brisbane talent, and not vice-versa. The more money being paid to the football team, meant more time could be spent on preparing teams for just that ... playing football. Like today and the age of professionalism, yet on a lesser scale.
My flippant remark about Sir Joh being a criminal was not really aimed at this point. Lets face it ... socially, poker machines are bad news for many in society. Sir Joh being a criminal is another topic and mostly subjective, for another time perhaps. Peronally, I despise the man and his politics ... but as much as it irks me to say it, perhaps he was somewhat of a visionary in not allowing poker machines into Queensland. Funny how moves are now underway to go the other way, and I firmly believe they could be outlawed again nation-wide in the next 20 years or more. The social issues associated with poker machines cannot be ignored. Clubs need to get their head around this fact and develop alternative means of supporting their footy teams ... another debate for another thread perhaps ... but to think anything else is just head in the sand stuff.
Nothing could have been done to stop the disintegration of the BRL. Same as nothing could have been done to stop the disintegration of the old NSWRL. Its all just progress. The NSWRL just was able to hang on a little longer ... population and money. Mega-corporations and television run the game as we all know ... National competitions drawing vast audiences is what its all about nowadays ... inevitable really due our countries relatively small population. Doesn't mean that one can't be disappointed in the way its all progressed. It has often been said we here in Australia are just 20 years behind America. Pretty true I think.
3. The Queensland Cup in the main has been regionalised. Very few of the "old" teams still exist. Only the strong ones. None of the old rivalries exist with any heart.
All teams change allegiances to varying NRL teams at the drop of a hat. Personnel change yearly. I don't care to look it up, but I think currently the Broncos have 4 feeder sides in the QCup. Before that it was Aspley, before that Toowoomba and there are probly more I can't think of.
How on earth are the people of Toowoomba going to relate to a Broncos feeder team consisting of a group of players on the fringe of the NRL that have zero to do with Toowoomba ? That always amused me that association. I'm surprised they got the 500 people to games that they got, but I guess the players have friends and families, so thats how.
How can supporters possibly relate to this ? They can't. Crowd figures under these circumstances are as you would expect. Poor. The fact that all these sides are feeding one NRL team or another probably puts the competition on a par at least with whatever the Premier League is in Sydney nowadays. Not sure where the U20's National comp fits in. But with coaches openly admitting their "standby" players would be playing in the QCup rather than the NYC suggests its inferior.
This is just how I see the state of affairs. Don't pretend to know everything nor be right on everything.
Oink !
ps Brutus a few posts above - keep stoking that fire mate ... well done