So where to from here?

[reanimate]

Population reach. Clubs should be covering regions of 500k- 1mill people to ensure a spread of the game and sustainability of clubs. North shore population is around 250k, CC around 350k. In order not to be the small cousin any Sydney club wanting to be in the NRL needs to have a target population bigger than either of those individually so hence the need to combine the region for one club.

North Shore + Northern Beaches is over half a million, the game there has also been shooting itself in the foot and is not at all reaching its potential- moving the only club left in the region away will only make the problem worse. So noting the potential population reach, why should northern Sydney be going without a club while you're fine with regions south of the bridge and in the west retaining multiple clubs? It makes no sense.

 

[reanimate]

Problem the NRL have is there are two teams in the Kograh/Sutherland area and no teams from the Harbour Bridge to Newcastle while the one team that's in northern Sydney is tucked away on a peninsula.

Central Sydney is stuck with Roosters, Souths and 1/2 of the WT but at least the Roosters are branching out to the Gosford area.

Once Balmain lose their control, the team should be based at C'town for 7 games and the other 5 against bigger drawing clubs at ANZ.

The NRL is just happy to hand out cash to failing clubs to keep the status quo, realistically I can't see much changing anytime soon

The northern Sydney problem is easily solved by handing the Bears' area over to an NRL team full time- Manly, Souths, Roosters, whoever. It can be done, the NRL just needs to take action.

 

[Diesel]

The northern Sydney problem is easily solved by handing the Bears' area over to an NRL team full time- Manly, Souths, Roosters, whoever. It can be done, the NRL just needs to take action.

We had someone with the balls to do it but Grant, NEWS, whoever kicked him out early with 1/2 a job done

 

[Pommy]

The northern Sydney problem is easily solved by handing the Bears' area over to an NRL team full time- Manly, Souths, Roosters, whoever. It can be done, the NRL just needs to take action.

Or getting the joint venture going again?

 

[reanimate]

We had someone with the balls to do it but Grant, NEWS, whoever kicked him out early with 1/2 a job done

Yep, we're going to regret shafting him early, he was the only CEO who has gotten stuff done in a long time.

Or getting the joint venture going again?

The joint venture's existence should have been forced to continue, in one form or another. If the Bears were insolvent and couldn't continue at NRL level, then their area should have been given over to Manly (maybe modifying the name to something like Manly - North Sydney/North Shore Sea Eagles to appease the Manly fans who wanted the Manly name back) or to another club like the Roosters or Souths, rather than having the NSW Cup zombie Bears continuing to cling onto the area with the false hope of reviving on the CC. It's done nothing but harm the area.

 

[Starkers]

I think the NRL ought to look at establishing a genuine schoolboy competition, working with schools all across the country. From there, and working with the Government on this initiative, players are scouted and offered scholarships to universities nationally. This would form a university competition on a state-wide basis with players completing tertiary studies. It would replace the under-20's Holden Cup and national championships can be held on Grand Final day.

It is similar to the NFL draft, so that each year when students graduate at around 20-21 years of age, they go into a draft for the NRL. At this point they have a degree and a few years of football under their belt in a state-wide/national comp with prospects outside of football. Players who don't enter the university path can still make their way via the NSW and Qld cups.

The other consideration needs to be made on the salary cap. Whilst a grant should remain to clubs, the issue for people is that there is no transparency. The NRL should embrace as much money flowing into the game as possible, a lot of which seems to be "under the table" at the moment.

Instead, players are allocated a value under the salary cap according to their experience such as NRL games, Super League games, Rep games etc. A value is attributed to each point which the club must pay that particular player and tallied at the beginning of the season. A mid-season transfer window will also allow for a re-balancing. Given this is a simple statistic that is recorded, this methodology can be fully back-tested for results over the history of the NRL in order to formulate a fair price for each point/individual.

BUT - here's the catch. A club may decide to break the salary cap and spend over their allocated grant. If they do that they must then pay compensation to a central pool of funds which is then distributed back to clubs who are under the allocated number of points. A similar system works in Major League Baseball.

This essentially provides for clubs both ways. Rich clubs can pay players their true value and field superstar line-ups every week. However, the money in the pool of compensation will allow for the weaker clubs to remain financially capable and given there is a draft in place to compliment the salary cap, the compensation they receive can be put towards retaining talented players they groom from that draft in future years.

 

[toomuchsoup]

Stumbled across this mini doco from 93 about the future of league
Pretty funny considering where we are at the moment with expansion. We have the same problem as we did then.

As much as it is going to hurt, I think there should be 2 less teams in Sydney. Weather it's mergers or relocations, it has to happen

 

[Marlins]

By 22'
28 teams
18 Nrl teams
10 2nd tier teams

 

[The Great Dane]

By 22'
28 teams
18 Nrl teams
10 2nd tier teams

Are you are suggesting promotion and regultion?

If so then the NRL simply have neither the money nor talent pool to support that, and Australia's population is simply to small and to spread out to support it as well, besides all it would take is for Brisbane or Melbourne to have one bad year and be regulated and boom the value of your top tiers TV rights are halved and the competition (and the sport in Australasia) is screwed for the time being.

However if you are suggesting a national second tier to replace both the Qcup and NSWcup then there's some merit to that, and it should be investigated, however I recon that the costs of running the clubs would be prohibitive to most groups interested in joining and that the NRL would end up having to fund 6 or so clubs which again they can't really afford.

Personally I'd only be supportive (not that it really matters if I'm personally supportive or not) of a national second tier if it was truly national and represented potential expansion areas with a mind to move the most successful (off field) teams into the NRL when the time is right to expand the NRL, I'd also suggest prohibiting current NRL clubs/brands to stop the competition from becoming the NRL light and also give other lesser know clubs/brand and older clubs/brands the chance to shine.
So I'd look to have the spread of teams be something like Sydney X2, Brisbane X2, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, CC, CQ, and as a little bit of a left of field idea, Geelong as a substitute for a second Melbourne club.

 

[Marlins]

Are you are suggesting promotion and regultion?

If so then the NRL simply have neither the money nor talent pool to support that, and Australia's population is simply to small and to spread out to support it as well, besides all it would take is for Brisbane or Melbourne to have one bad year and be regulated and boom the value of your top tiers TV rights are halved and the competition (and the sport in Australasia) is screwed for the time being.

However if you are suggesting a national second tier to replace both the Qcup and NSWcup then there's some merit to that, and it should be investigated, however I recon that the costs of running the clubs would be prohibitive to most groups interested in joining and that the NRL would end up having to fund 6 or so clubs which again they can't really afford.

Personally I'd only be supportive (not that it really matters if I'm personally supportive or not) of a national second tier if it was truly national and represented potential expansion areas with a mind to move the most successful (off field) teams into the NRL when the time is right to expand the NRL, I'd also suggest prohibiting current NRL clubs/brands to stop the competition from becoming the NRL light and also give other lesser know clubs/brand and older clubs/brands the chance to shine.
So I'd look to have the spread of teams be something like Sydney X2, Brisbane X2, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, CC, CQ, and as a little bit of a left of field idea, Geelong as a substitute for a second Melbourne club.

Yes a combined Qld/nsw style league. Not relegation just yet but the would be the goal eventually. I think there is enough talent going around to support this. If we did have a relegation it would be only one team going up or down and I couldn't see storm or broncos getting the wooden spoon. Someone like the knights who will struggle over the next two seasons would be perfect to drop back and rebuild.

 

[BuffaloRules]

Its going to be a long off season I fear...

At least there will be another team first on the relocation/merge chopping block this time other than the Sydney crowd average leading Tigers...

What about Souffs?

They are only two years removed from a premiership and already their crowds have reverted to Shyte...

 

[alien]

We actually could have 18 teams, as long as we accepted that the quality of the teams would be a bit weaker for a while. In 2018, bring in a second Brisbane team (that plays their home games at Suncorp Stadium), and Central Coast Bears. 5 years later bring in Perth and Adelaide. Even when it's 20 teams, keep it as the top 8 teams that make the finals. Christchurch and Wellington can join the NSW Cup. Fiji can join QLD Cup. When it's 20 teams in the NRL, there could just be 19 rounds, so you play every team once, and have State of Origin on stand alone weekends, with other Rep games like Samoa V Tonga, etc. Have a Nines World Cup every pre season. Leave the test matches for after the NRL season.

 

[alien]

Stumbled across this mini doco from 93 about the future of league
Pretty funny considering where we are at the moment with expansion. We have the same problem as we did then.

As much as it is going to hurt, I think there should be 2 less teams in Sydney. Weather it's mergers or relocations, it has to happen

Thanks for posting the videos. I remember watching it on tv when I was 13.

 

[RoosTah]

We actually could have 18 teams, as long as we accepted that the quality of the teams would be a bit weaker for a while. In 2018, bring in a second Brisbane team (that plays their home games at Suncorp Stadium), and Central Coast Bears. 5 years later bring in Perth and Adelaide. Even when it's 20 teams, keep it as the top 8 teams that make the finals. Christchurch and Wellington can join the NSW Cup. Fiji can join QLD Cup. When it's 20 teams in the NRL, there could just be 19 rounds, so you play every team once, and have State of Origin on stand alone weekends, with other Rep games like Samoa V Tonga, etc. Have a Nines World Cup every pre season. Leave the test matches for after the NRL season.

Agree with your fundamental point about quality, but think Perth and NZ2 (should aim for 3 NZ teams - the better they get the better tests will rate and the more competitive they'll be - AFL ain't got that) are more immediate priorities than the others. I'd start there, then worry about Brisbane 2 and Adelaide, whilst I'd leave the CC alone for us at the roosters to grow into until it had at least 500k people.

 

[alien]

Agree with your fundamental point about quality, but think Perth and NZ2 (should aim for 3 NZ teams - the better they get the better tests will rate and the more competitive they'll be - AFL ain't got that) are more immediate priorities than the others. I'd start there, then worry about Brisbane 2 and Adelaide, whilst I'd leave the CC alone for us at the roosters to grow into until it had at least 500k people.

Lol, of course you want the Central Coast for your own team. That is one reason why I want the Central Coast Bears to come in - so Roosters or Sea Eagles don't get the area!

NZ are competitive enough! They beat Australia quite a bit already! Lol.

I said 3 NZ teams, but 2 of them to be in the NSW Cup instead!

 

[RoosTah]

Lol, of course you want the Central Coast for your own team. That is one reason why I want the Central Coast Bears to come in - so Roosters or Sea Eagles don't get the area!

NZ are competitive enough! They beat Australia quite a bit already! Lol.

I said 3 NZ teams, but 2 of them to be in the NSW Cup instead!

They are doing well, but we need to make the game a genuine and feasible sport of choice for people over there who's Super Rugby side isn't doing well or don't like aspects of Union. We'll never topple Union - but we could be a much bigger number 2 football code in NZ than we currently are.

Let's not forget that NZ is a country with 4.5 million people AND it is our biggest representative rival, so it's a much larger and more important market than South Australia and WA.

If we make the kiwis really care about the game there and they're consistently beating us, then the Trans Tasman rivalry could rival origin - then we'll have 2 series where every game rates 4 million+ a match

 

[alien]

They are doing well, but we need to make the game a genuine and feasible sport of choice for people over there who's Super Rugby side isn't doing well or don't like aspects of Union. We'll never topple Union - but we could be a much bigger number 2 football code in NZ than we currently are.

Let's not forget that NZ is a country with 4.5 million people AND it is our biggest representative rival, so it's a much larger and more important market than South Australia and WA.

If we make the kiwis really care about the game there and they're consistently beating us, then the Trans Tasman rivalry could rival origin - then we'll have 2 series where every game rates 4 million+ a match

Well I definitely think there should be Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in the NSW Cup, and I believe the Warriors should be a team for all of New Zealand. I believe the Warriors should split their home games evenly between Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

 

[RoosTah]

Well I definitely think there should be Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in the NSW Cup, and I believe the Warriors should be a team for all of New Zealand. I believe the Warriors should split their home games evenly between Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

Problem is for a lot of kiwis they just don't resonate... Auckland is to people from places like Christchurch, Hamilton, Wellington etc like Sydney is to people in places like Brisbane - i.e. they're not about to jump on us for support and so just taking a few games around the country whilst being based out of Auckland isn't going to cut it.

Even more importantly, the number of kiwis in the NRL rivals the number of Qlders, so they deserve another team due to that alone.

 

[alien]

Even more importantly, the number of kiwis in the NRL rivals the number of Qlders, so they deserve another team due to that alone.

It's not necessary. A lot of players come from the pacific islands, but we won't see any of the pacific islands have an NRL team. I wouldn't mind them being in the NSW Cup or QLD Cup though.

 

[RoosTah]

It's not necessary. A lot of players come from the pacific islands, but we won't see any of the pacific islands have an NRL team. I wouldn't mind them being in the NSW Cup or QLD Cup though.

Yeah I can see the rep angle and the importance of giving the game a profile outside of Auckland just isn't sinking in on this one.

Put it another way - why is the CC, with its Canberra sized population and high unemployment, - a greater priority than?