Super 18 what does it mean for NRL expansion?

[The Great Dane]

Funny given how you like to talk about A-League that you never heard them say "We can't put another team in Sydney. We already have FC, all we'd be doing is giving old customers a new product to buy at the expense of the old product".

That's a different situation.

The A-League have the demand for more clubs in Sydney, and I assume they know that they can garner the corporate and media support to maintain another team without it affecting their 2 others in Sydney.

If that's not the case, then it'd be a move as dumb as the NRL adding a team on the CC that is reliant on Sydney.

Like the Wanderers in Sydney & Bears on the Central Coast, both markets are underutilized for their respective codes. Same story with league in Brisbane. It doesn't matter that they're heartland markets for both codes, what matters is whether the fans in that area are active. At the moment the Central Coast have got nothing to be active about.

The CC maybe underutilized from an amount and consistency of patronage perspective, but apart from that no they're not underutilized.

They add absolutely nothing to the NRL's TV value (as from a TV point of view they're already tapped), they add very little in the way of corporate support (and of what they can add most of it is already associated with other organisations in the sports business in some way) and they add absolutely nothing to the NRLs geographical footprint and overall market share of the Australian sports market as they are already a strong RL market (unless they're not the heartland you profess them to be?).

Perth, South West Brisbane & New Zealand 2 are all ahead of the Central Coast. Perth has strong growth and an expat population. Like the Central Coast Brisbane is under capitalized and a second New Zealand would engage the other half of that market.

Unlike the CC there's still large interested population bases and untapped and interested corporate entities and advertising space in Brisbane that the NRL can tap into.

In other words there's still enough money to be made in Brisbane that the investment in a second team is more than worth the risk. Where the investment in a team on the CC isn't worth the possible return.

But what are the other options?
* Darwin? Relocated matches maybe but it's smaller than the Coast
* Adelaide? It's a stagnant AFL dominated market, look at it's growth rate it'll be eclipsed by the Central Coast-Hunter before mid-century. It shouldn't even be considered until Perth & Storm are firing on all cylinders.
* Central Queensland? It's smaller than the Coast & more spread out
* PNG? It's a third world country with major social and security issues
* Fiji? Similar to PNG
* Melbourne 2? No point even considering it until the Storm are getting 25k+ in that massive market
* Sunshine Coast? Eventually makes sense but Coast will still be bigger
* Tasmania? It's like a smaller version of Adelaide
* New Zealand 3? Get NZ 2 working first!

As it stands the Central Coast are currently one of the 4 best options for expansion.

Thanks for putting words in my mouth.

But even just using your examples Christchurch, Adelaide and a second Melbourne club are all reasonable possibilities within the same time frame as you'd be looking to introduce the CC (2025ish), as long as preparations for their introduction to the NRL began now.

A few decades? If you're complaining about the NRL lack of pro-activeness now, just wait till they say "we're not expanding for the next few decades just in case the town we really want comes good"...

All I said was that at the moment the CC, CQ and PNG are not realistic options for expansion but that might change in a couple of decades, nowhere did I say that the NRL should halt progress until those areas are ready for expansion. So I'm no quit sure what you're on about here.

There's at least 4 better options than Adelaide. Don't just look at the population with stars in your eyes.

Where did I say that Adelaide should be the next club into the NRL!?

I simply used Adelaide as an example of a city that is a better option for expansion than the CC, I'd suggest expanding to Perth, Wellington and Brisbane (possible to Brissy twice, but I'd advise against that in the near future, we don't want to over saturate Brisbane like Sydney) before considering Adelaide.

In the meantime the NRL should be investing in SA in an effort to prepare them for a club (just as they should be investing in any city they want to expand to into the future).

Have you ever stopped to consider that it could be because
a) they play soccer
b) in the shitty A-League

It's nothing to do with rugby league or the Central Coast Bears.

If the CC cannot support the Mariners through sponsorship and supporters, a club that costs roughly 10 million dollars less a year to run, then they will struggle to support the more expensive NRL club for any prolonged period of time (unless the Bears manage to find a very rich person willing to pay for their existence).

The fact that soccer and RL are two different sports has got little to do with it at the end of the day, if you can't find the sponsorship and support you can't find it.

You made the comparison between the Bears & Mariners and I said they're unrelated.

They're both in the same business and both plan to be operating in the same area, though the Mariners struggles don't provide evidence that the Bears will also struggle, they do shed light on the struggles that the Bears will face.

The woes of A-League clubs have no relationship to the woes of Rugby League clubs. Hell, look at how shitty your own club has been over the past decade and the A-League still want to set up shop in Canberra. If it had anything to do with it they'd look at the Raiders and give up now. But it doesn't, so they're not going to.

Nice try but no.

Outside of our position on the NRL ladder the Raiders are flying, the Raiders Group owns a ton of real estate, multiple successful businesses and some leagues clubs as well and supports all of it's operations through the profits of these endeavors alone.

It'd be nice if the Raiders NRL club could support it's self independent of the rest of the Raiders Group, but considering our situation we really don't have any reason to worry about it to much, and the NRL club is closer to financial Independence then some would think.

Is it worse than Leichardt?

I haven't been to Leichardt since the early 90s so I wouldn't know, but it's much worse then Brookvale.

It's literally been left to rot since the Bears left and it shows.

It's been years since I've been there but if it's as shit as what you're saying here's the solution - they don't play there - they play that match somewhere else in Sydney! Now you can stop stressing about it.

That's not how sentimental old footballers work and you know it.

The place that has no major teams. Sure...

You do realise that clubs don't have to be located in the in the middle of a market to tap it's resources right, The Roosters, Tahs and Swans for example all have lots of corporate connections in Northern Sydney and from a TV and advertising perspective the NS market are right in the sweet spot for NRL.

List all the clubs and their corporate sponsorships that are based in North Sydney. If it's so tapped out as you claim this should be a pretty long list.

Could it be that this is just an unsubstantiated statement?

Naming all of them would be impossible (for me at least), and honestly I don't have a few hours to waste listing sports groups and the businesses they are connected to or in partnership with in NS ATM.

Yeah they have the opportunity, many choose not to. So much for over saturation...

We can't force people to buy our products, and even if we did invest in starting up a new club on the CC it's unlikely that we'd attract many new customers (and almost certainly not enough to cover the investment), we'd just be taking fans of other clubs and trying to bend them into Bears fans, and at that point why bother!?

Actually it'd be a Central Coast team which according to basic geography isn't located in North Sydney.

Yeah and Basic geography says that Queanbeyan, Goulburn, Cooma, Crookwell, etc aren't in the ACT as well, but the doesn't stop their industry and markets from being connected and forever entwined in the ACT's does it.

 

[maccattack]

Can we get an underground tunnel built - with a Japanese bullet train in it - that runs between gosford and ANZ?

Give the peeps up there easy access to weekly games. Problem solved. Who's yo daddy.

 

[alien]

Manly aren't going to rename their club, and they wouldn't have to, to include the North Sydney area. They could just include it in their logo. Something like this (but something that looks a bit nicer).

 

[alien]

Can we get an underground tunnel built - with a Japanese bullet train in it - that runs between gosford and ANZ?

Give the peeps up there easy access to weekly games. Problem solved. Who's yo daddy.

 

[Perth Red]

Why everyone thinks Adeliade is a no hoper I'm not sure. The only evidence we have is the Rams, they were brought in right in the middle of the very damaging SL war and yet managed crowds and membership better than many historic clubs in their short existence. If you saw the state of RL in WA in 2005 you would have said there will never ever be another NRL club in Perth but here we are less than a decade later getting 20k to games, a redeveloped rectangular stadium, producing jnrs making it to the NRL level, SG ball team and elite academy and decent Tv audiences.
Get some investment in the SARL, get some regular NRL games to Hindmarsh, get in bed with Aleague to lobby for Hindmarsh redevelopment, get NRL on main channel at a decent time and we could comfortably see a successful Adelaide club by 2025. Sit and wait and hope somehow RL will miraculously become popular in SA and we wont ever see the game grow.

 

[docbrown]

The A-League have the demand for more clubs in Sydney,

Just as there's a demand for a club on the Central Coast and a demand for the Bears brand to be reinstated. Trying to pretend that doesn't exist is silly.

They are more than capable of garnering the majority of their corporate and media support from the Coast itself and anything gained in North Sydney is just icing on the cake.

Naming all of them would be impossible (for me at least), and honestly I don't have a few hours to waste listing sports groups and the businesses they are connected to or in partnership with in NS ATM.

Name 10. Name 5. Name 3. Name 1. If they're so obvious it should take you less than a minute.

Face the reality - there are almost negligible corporate sponsors in North Sydney supporting NRL teams. Anything the Bears gain there will add to the NRL's overall pie.

The CC maybe underutilized from an amount and consistency of patronage perspective, but apart from that no they're not underutilized.

They add absolutely nothing to the NRL's TV value (as from a TV point of view they're already tapped),

and they add absolutely nothing to the NRLs geographical footprint and overall market share of the Australian sports market as they are already a strong RL market (unless they're not the heartland you profess them to be?).

Actually they're part of the Sydney metro for ratings and it's well known in sports marketing that areas with local teams watch more overall content of that sport than areas without. Adding the CC Bears will increase ratings.

You don't see the A-League going "Oh well, there's teams in Sydney and there's a team in Newcastle and Central Coast is a heartland market, so f**k'em"

No they understand that it's a unique market on its own terms and as I've said it's the 9th biggest in Australia.

Unlike the CC there's still large interested population bases and untapped and interested corporate entities and advertising space in Brisbane that the NRL can tap into.

I'm not saying that Brisbane isn't the larger market - in fact I've already said that Central Coast would be ranked 4th - but to keep claiming that it isn't worth the possible return is just an outright lie.

But even just using your examples Christchurch, Adelaide and a second Melbourne club are all reasonable possibilities within the same time frame as you'd be looking to introduce the CC (2025ish)

All I said was that at the moment the CC, CQ and PNG are not realistic options for expansion but that might change in a couple of decades, nowhere did I say that the NRL should halt progress until those areas are ready for expansion. So I'm no quit sure what you're on about here.

2025? :lol:

The Bears are ready to go within the next 3 years! It's the other options that are the long term prospects at best, if not outright pipe-dreams.

Before you start putting dots on the map in non-heartland areas, it might be prudent to make sure Perth & Melbourne are actually sustainable first. The people on the Central Coast shouldn't have to wait just in case Melbourne gets its shit together.

I simply used Adelaide as an example of a city that is a better option for expansion than the CC

Which again is just based on looking at a population figure with little understand of the marketplace.

I'd suggest expanding to Perth, Wellington and Brisbane (possible to Brissy twice, but I'd advise against that in the near future, we don't want to over saturate Brisbane like Sydney) before considering Adelaide.

I've said it before Perth, NZ2 & Brisbane 2 are all ahead of the Central Coast but Adelaide's a joke and Brisbane 3? Maybe they should get Brisbane 2 sorted first... :roll:

If the CC cannot support the Mariners through sponsorship and supporters, a club that costs roughly 10 million dollars less a year to run, then they will struggle to support the more expensive NRL club for any prolonged period of time (unless the Bears manage to find a very rich person willing to pay for their existence).

Again you're equating support for rugby league being equal to support for soccer. There will be more businesses and more people willing to support a Central Coast Rugby League team than a soccer side. Why? Because it's soccer! If support for both codes were truly equal, then it would be the A-League getting billion dollar deals and multi-million TV audiences. But it's not because they're just not in the same league.

The support for rugby league on the Coast smashes soccer. All they need is a team to solidify it.

Outside of our position on the NRL ladder the Raiders are flying

Maybe they should give up football and stick to real estate because they've only managed to crack the 13k attendance mark once since the NRL started. They're consistently in the lowest rung of the worst supported teams in the league.

Yet despite that the A-League still want to set up shop in Canberra? Why? Because the poor support for a Rugby League has nothing to do with the support for Soccer as you keep suggesting.

That's not how sentimental old footballers work and you know it.

Don't fall back on psychic powers. If they want to play there and the government doesn't want to upgrade it they can either a) play in the shithole for sentimental reasons b) play somewhere else. It's not a major sticking point that will cause the NRL to implode.

Tahs and Swans for example all have lots of corporate connections in Northern Sydney

That's why having the Bears back would be good to f**k their shit up.

even if we did invest in starting up a new club on the CC it's unlikely that we'd attract many new customers (and almost certainly not enough to cover the investment), we'd just be taking fans of other clubs and trying to bend them into Bears fans, and at that point why bother!?

People said the same thing about Newcastle before the Knights were formed. It's meaningless.

 

[The Great Dane]

Just as there's a demand for a club on the Central Coast and a demand for the Bears brand to be reinstated. Trying to pretend that doesn't exist is silly.

I don't deny that the demand exists, It's just that the possible return isn't worth the investment when you consider that for roughly the same amount of investment the NRL could get roughly (I stress roughly as it's just a very rough estimation) up to quadruple the feasible return.

At the end of the day the NRL is a business, so it's unlikely that they are going to turn away profit for sentiment, and nor should they when a decision such this expansion decision has such an affect on the future of the company and the sport as a whole.

Name 10. Name 5. Name 3. Name 1. If they're so obvious it should take you less than a minute.

Firstly I never said they were obvious.
Secondly here's a small list of corporations based in NS that are involved with different sporting entities, just off the top of my head.

News and all it's companies are self explanatory as they are involved with the NRL and all it's clubs at every level, but they also work with a lot of other sports organisations and clubs.

Westpac is based in NS and has a lot to do with big business up there, they're involved with Collingwood, the Crows and I'm pretty sure an A-league team as well, they also merged with St.George Bank which is involved with the Dragons and they work with plenty of other sports organisation all over the country.

AP Eagers (an automotive retailer) has a lot to do with the Rooster, Mainly because Politis works for them (or used to).

Aristocrat is involved with all sorts of sports teams and organisations all over the world.

Woolworths Limited and all the companies they own are involved with innumerable sports organisation and teams.

Coca-Cola Amatil are involved with innumerable sports organisations and clubs all over AUS, NZ, PNG, Indonesia, Fiji, and I'm probably forgetting a bunch of other places.

I could probably go on but I think that's enough.

You don't see the A-League going "Oh well, there's teams in Sydney and there's a team in Newcastle and Central Coast is a heartland market, so f**k'em"

No they understand that it's a unique market on its own terms and as I've said it's the 9th biggest in Australia.

The situation that saw the CC enter the A-league is different to the one that would see them enter the NRL.

Different situation, different results and different reasons.

BTW the A-league regret letting the CC join now.

2025? :lol:

The Bears are ready to go within the next 3 years! It's the other options that are the long term prospects at best, if not outright pipe-dreams.

So you'd either waste an expansion position on the CC out of impatience or introduce 4 teams in quick succession!?

Either are bad business plans.

Before you start putting dots on the map in non-heartland areas, it might be prudent to make sure Perth & Melbourne are actually sustainable first. The people on the Central Coast shouldn't have to wait just in case Melbourne gets its shit together.

Which is why there's such a thing as expansion reviews, investing in developmental markets, building pathways to the NRL, etc.

I'm not suggesting that we just plonk teams anywhere and hope for the best, if I was I would suggest places like Jakarta and LA for expansion.

Which again is just based on looking at a population figure with little understand of the marketplace.

Well populations part of it, but I also look Advertising value, business centers and growth, facilities and other infrastructure, culture, richness of the population, value to the sport as a whole, etc, etc.

I've said it before Perth, NZ2 & Brisbane 2 are all ahead of the Central Coast but Adelaide's a joke and Brisbane 3? Maybe they should get Brisbane 2 sorted first... :roll:

Why?

Again you're equating support for rugby league being equal to support for soccer. There will be more businesses and more people willing to support a Central Coast Rugby League team than a soccer side. Why? Because it's soccer! If support for both codes were truly equal, then it would be the A-League getting billion dollar deals and multi-million TV audiences. But it's not because they're just not in the same league.

I have never said that the NRL and A-league are equal or that support for the two sports is equal on the CC.

Rather that the problems that the Mariners face are indicators for what and NRL team would face.

Maybe they should give up football and stick to real estate because they've only managed to crack the 13k attendance mark once since the NRL started. They're consistently in the lowest rung of the worst supported teams in the league.

Say what you like but the Raider business model works and the Raider will almost certainly be around in 50 years time, the same cannot be said for many of the other NRL clubs.

Yet despite that the A-League still want to set up shop in Canberra? Why? Because the poor support for a Rugby League has nothing to do with the support for Soccer as you keep suggesting.

Again I've never said that there'd be poor support for a CC NRL team, only that the money isn't there to support a team on the CC and that it's very unlikely that they'ed be able to gain enough corporate support (that's very different then fans) for the club to be sustainable over any extended period of time.

BTW I have said many time that a Canberra A-league team would almost certainly have more support then either the Raiders or the Brumbies and I can think of at least 2 groups that may be willing own and operate, part fund them and use their corperate connections to make up the short fall.

If your interested those groups would be the Raiders group and the Vikings group.

That's why having the Bears back would be good to f**k their shit up.

In the grand scheme of things the most damage a bears team might do to either the Tahs or the Swans is maybe pull a few corporate sponsors away, which for teams in their positions is really not that big a deal and maybe sprout a handful of news articles (like the ones about the WSW) about the Bears coming back and reclaiming their territory, again no big deal.

 

[docbrown]

At the end of the day the NRL is a business, so it's unlikely that they are going to turn away profit for sentiment, and nor should they when a decision such this expansion decision has such an affect on the future of the company and the sport as a whole.

Yet any other time the NRL takes a profit-over-passion standpoint people are up in arms.

Sorry, but the numbers you're saying are just imaginary.

Firstly I never said they were obvious. Secondly here's a small list of corporations based in NS that are involved with different sporting entities, just off the top of my head.

Wow. I'm not sure what to make of that. Some of those are a bit of a reach.

News ops are out of Surry Hills. God knows how many times I've been to Holt St. And I mean why would the Bears buddy up to them anyway? Those guys are responsible for their demise, it makes no sense.

Westpac have multiple offices but they're also based in the CBD too. Yeah you might rule out that one financial institution but do you realise how many more banks, financial agencies and insurance companies are set up in North Sydney that don't currently have an NRL affiliation? And that's just one sector of the sponsorship market.

And Woolworths? Really? You know Bella Vista is closer to Parramatta than the North Shore...

I could probably go on but I think that's enough.

Good, I'm glad you stopped because that was a joke.

The situation that saw the CC enter the A-league is different to the one that would see them enter the NRL.

Different situation, different results and different reasons.

Exactly. You're the one claiming that the Mariners woes somehow affects the Bears. It doesn't.

I'll repeat your words -- Different situation, different result and different reasons.

So you'd either waste an expansion position on the CC out of impatience or introduce 4 teams in quick succession!?

Pretty sure there are currently no viable NZ2, Adelaide or Melbourne 2 bid and the Brisbane Bombers & Brothers bids aren't up to scratch yet as they don't fully exploit their potential. As it stands only the Pirates & Bears have solid bids.

Well populations part of it, but I also look Advertising value, business centers and growth, facilities and other infrastructure, culture, richness of the population, value to the sport as a whole, etc, etc.

Feel free to post your entire in depth analysis of all the expansion markets here. I'm sure you've spent days, weeks, months, years on it... :roll:

I have never said that the NRL and A-league are equal or that support for the two sports is equal on the CC.

Rather that the problems that the Mariners face are indicators for what and NRL team would face.

I'll repeat your words -- Different situation, different result and different reasons.

BTW I have said many time that a Canberra A-league team would almost certainly have more support then either the Raiders

Say what you like

Ok I will. If they keep their fan base stagnant they'll always be the also-rans of the competition. I doubt they'll get axed but they'll just kind of fade away into irrelevancy even more so...

Again I've never said that there'd be poor support for a CC NRL team, only that the money isn't there

Based on your in-depth analysis that apparently doesn't include knowing where corporate HQ are located...

 

[pHyR3]

Why everyone thinks Adeliade is a no hoper I'm not sure. The only evidence we have is the Rams, they were brought in right in the middle of the very damaging SL war and yet managed crowds and membership better than many historic clubs in their short existence. If you saw the state of RL in WA in 2005 you would have said there will never ever be another NRL club in Perth but here we are less than a decade later getting 20k to games, a redeveloped rectangular stadium, producing jnrs making it to the NRL level, SG ball team and elite academy and decent Tv audiences.
Get some investment in the SARL, get some regular NRL games to Hindmarsh, get in bed with Aleague to lobby for Hindmarsh redevelopment, get NRL on main channel at a decent time and we could comfortably see a successful Adelaide club by 2025. Sit and wait and hope somehow RL will miraculously become popular in SA and we wont ever see the game grow.

its not impossible, but like perth it needs years of groundwork before its feasible. I would said Adelaide and NZ 2 are top contenders for expansion to 20 teams in maybe 1 or 2 media deals time (2023 or 2028). set up a foundation of juniors, play games there, sell memberships, then examine the possibility of a bid.

 

[alien]

i'd like to see the nrl bring in the central coast bears and the brisbane bombers in, in 2016. around 5 years later bring in perth and adelaide. if nz think they could have another 2 or 3 nrl sides then the warriors might as well leave the nrl, and nz have their own national comp, which would also be feeded by the pacific nations..

 

[pHyR3]

i'd like to see the nrl bring in the central coast bears and the brisbane bombers in, in 2016. around 5 years later bring in perth and adelaide. if nz think they could have another 2 or 3 nrl sides then the warriors might as well leave the nrl, and nz have their own national comp, which would also be feeded by the pacific nations..

ah yes, new zealand will have a glorious national comp of 4 teams. it will bring in the crowds super rugby can only dream of.

 

[docbrown]

i'd like to see the nrl bring in the central coast bears and the brisbane bombers in, in 2016. around 5 years later bring in perth and adelaide. if nz think they could have another 2 or 3 nrl sides then the warriors might as well leave the nrl, and nz have their own national comp, which would also be feeded by the pacific nations..

New Zealand's only got a population of 4.5 million.

It's easily split into a Auckland/North vs Rest of the Country divide with 2 NRL teams if a new team is based in Wellington & Christchurch. They should both be called NEW ZEALAND akin to the Jets & Giants so that there's a complete rivalry right across the nation.

Eventually that could be 3 teams with Auckland, Wellington & South Island branching off. If the NRL gets popular enough in the South Island demand will drive expansion.

Both scenarios are a reasonable division of the market place.

 

[pHyR3]

New Zealand's only got a population of 4.5 million.

It's easily split into a Auckland/North vs Rest of the Country divide with 2 NRL teams if a new team is based in Wellington & Christchurch. They should both be called NEW ZEALAND akin to the Jets & Giants so that there's a complete rivalry right across the nation.

Eventually that could be 3 teams with Auckland, Wellington & South Island branching off. If the NRL gets popular enough in the South Island demand will drive expansion.

Both scenarios are a reasonable division of the market place.

agreed, 3 teams is the max NZ could ever sustain in the medium-long term. Auckland, Wellington and South Island. And even that would take decades of work.

imo wellington isn't quite ready for a team, hopefully by the next round of expansion in ~10 years.

 

[Perth Red]

Brsbane2 & Perth 2017/18
Adelaide & Wellington 2023/4

CC can host 6 games a year same way as the Gong does, most RL fans up there already support a Sydney team anyway.

anything else is massively wasting opportunities to grow the game.

on corporate support, if the number of empty boxes at grounds in Sydney are anything to go by then there isnt a lot of companies willing to back NRL clubs anyway. I was shocked how few boxes were being used at a Sths v Roosters game I went to. Go to an Eagles or Dockers game and every box at Subi is full. Just another example of over stauration in Sydney, adding another mouth to feed is the last thing the place needs.

 

[oikee]

Somebody has to work out how to fix our code and expansion fast.
I was just looking at the Eels over in Seattle. Two games, one a college game, the other against New York.
Both had 65 to 70 thousand , packed to the rafters, all corporate boxes full.

Sydney really needs to cut the amount of teams back. Our code cant function while we have 8 teams in one city. Not when your up against world cities with one town teams. New York has one footy team.

That one team is bigger than the whole AFL put together, in a city of 11 million.

The more the NRL plays little suburbia, the closer our code is to the grave.

 

[oikee]

Here is the perfect set-up for the NRL.

Two teams Perth.
Two teams Melbourne.
Two teams Brisbane,
Two teams NZ.
6 teams for Sydney.
Newcastle, Townsville,Gold Coast and Central Queensland.

That is 18 teams. That is the perfect Storm. Every (major) city gets two bites of the cherry, every area has massive derbies.
Notice i left Adelaide out. ? Dont get bogged down in Adelaide, use Adelaide for trails, Origins, Internationals and whatever other events they would like to buy. They dont ever need a team, and will never have two teams.

 

[docbrown]

CC can host 6 games a year same way as the Gong does, most RL fans up there already support a Sydney team anyway.

People said the same thing about Newcastle before the Knights were founded.

Imagine people saying today "Newcastle doesn't deserve a team, there's too many Sydney/NSW teams blah blah they all support Sydney sides blah blah blah"

New York has one footy team.

That one team is bigger than the whole AFL put together, in a city of 11 million.

Not including up state there's 2 and technically they're across the river but yes the NFL shits on anything Australian from great heights but that's because we're a nation of 23 million and they're a country of 316 million. No Australian sports league will ever compare to what they have in the US.

Here is the perfect set-up for the NRL.

Two teams Perth.

Maybe get one working first...

 

[Perth Red]

TBF the Knights have been on the verge of closure a few times and were saved by Tinkler most recently. Nice stadium, good fanbase, still cant get the corporate support to make them sustainable. Gosford has less than 200k people in it, add a 100k more within 30min drive but is it really enough to sustain a team when we want teams to be drawing 20k, have incomes of $20mill and be driving NRL tv ratings? They are in a very similiar situation to Wollongong, would you suggest we should put another team down there? A partial relocation is by far the best option for Gosford or setting an NRL game program for them with the clubs that have the biggest fanbases there. Manly v Tigers, Souths, Knights, St's would all draw a crowd there.

 

[The Great Dane]

Yet any other time the NRL takes a profit-over-passion standpoint people are up in arms.

That's because most people still don't understand that RL is a business that needs to make money to survive, and that what might be the 'good' or 'right' thing to do isn't always whats best for business.

It also doesn't help that the RL media is made up of people with agendas, who will bend anything to fit their agenda even things that are good results.

Wow. I'm not sure what to make of that. Some of those are a bit of a reach.

News ops are out of Surry Hills. God knows how many times I've been to Holt St. And I mean why would the Bears buddy up to them anyway? Those guys are responsible for their demise, it makes no sense.

Westpac have multiple offices but they're also based in the CBD too. Yeah you might rule out that one financial institution but do you realise how many more banks, financial agencies and insurance companies are set up in North Sydney that don't currently have an NRL affiliation? And that's just one sector of the sponsorship market.

And Woolworths? Really? You know Bella Vista is closer to Parramatta than the North Shore...

You really don't understand how corporations work.

Whether or not their HQ is based in the direct vicinity (which I would argue all of those HQs are in the direct vicinity of NS considering that they are based in Sydney!) makes f##k all difference to the amount of control (for lack of a better word) they have over an area.

Those corporations own and control many of the large businesses and products that are on the ground in NS and any major decision that these businesses make (such as sponsorship of a Football team) needs to be approved by the corporation first, so their influence effects the amount of support the NRL gets in area massively.

For example when Foxtel (which BTW is based in Northern Sydney I believe) decided to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on NRL broadcasting rites, News corp had a vested interest in the NRL producing the best results for them to get the best return, so they support the NRL by giving money to the clubs through sponsorship and third party agreements and getting the multitude of businesses they own or are connected to support the clubs as well.

BTW on reflection AP Eadgers hasn't really got much pull in NS and really doesn't apply as an example of a corporation with lots of pull in NS, but give me a break it was 2 AM in the morning when I made that list.

Exactly. You're the one claiming that the Mariners woes somehow affects the Bears. It doesn't.

Again I never said that "the Mariners woes somehow affects the Bears", I said that the problem the Mariners are facing are indicative of the problems that the Bears might face.

Pretty sure there are currently no viable NZ2, Adelaide or Melbourne 2 bid

Bids are not the only way to expand the NRL and even if it were none of those bids would need to be ready before 2020, that's a long time to plan a bid.

on a side note, there's lots of stirring in the background in NZ, if the NRL calls for bids I wouldn't count out a couple of NZ based bids popping seemingly out of nowhere if I were you.

and the Brisbane Bombers & Brothers bids aren't up to scratch yet as they don't fully exploit their potential. As it stands only the Pirates & Bears have solid bids.

What do you mean when you say that the Brisbane based bids aren't up to scratch?

And again I'd like to point out that taking bids isn't the only way to expand a competition, or even the best way for a competition to expand when they have as much money as the NRL does.

Feel free to post your entire in depth analysis of all the expansion markets here. I'm sure you've spent days, weeks, months, years on it... :roll:

You just love a good straw man don't you.

Ok I will. If they keep their fan base stagnant they'll always be the also-rans of the competition. I doubt they'll get axed but they'll just kind of fade away into irrelevancy even more so...

Stagnation of Manly's supporters base never hurt them on the field, and the Rabbit's support base was stagnate for a very long time until they began to be successful on the field again.

At the end of the day the Raiders are sh!t house at garnering and keeping fans,, until very recently they seemed to think that insulting their supporters was the way to go, add to that 20 year of mediocrity, the culture in Canberra of only supporting winners and the very cold weather when the NRL season is on and naturally you get very low crowds.

But the 2010 and 2012 home finals prove that if the Raiders are going well the support is there to fill Bruce, the problem is getting that support to turn up week in and week out no matter the results and that's not an easy problem to fix at all.

 

[Rodney]

The bears bid is nowhere near ready.
And the area has been left vacant so long that any effort to clean up the CC would be stepping on a tonne of other teams toes.

Their first problem is the fact that they're tied to the bunnies, and the local NSW cup team signed up to feed Easts.
Their player base is almost entirely out of their hands past the u18s.
The CC has been left 'vacant' for too long and it has allowed other teams to try and stake a claim.

Newcastle, Easts, Manly, Canterbury and even Wests have strong ties to the region.

If the CC was to be bid ready they'd need to clean up the lot and make the area as independent as possible and the bid.
The NRL won't let them in if they're going to immediately undercut several other teams supporting development in the region.
The Bears aren't going to be given a mandate to hack away other teams foundations, they have to convince them to align independently or work around them.

You'd also want the bears based out of CC if they were going to try and settle down full time.
Or at the very least some official ties with the Wyong Roos.

The only real tangible advantage the bears have over any other bid would be brand recognition.
And we've seen with the rabbitohs that the team dosen't need to be based at 'home' to retain that recognition.
However Redfern to Homebush is a much shorter distance than North Sydney to Gosford.
And the extension to homebush has the advantage of also being the general direction their fans may live due to urban sprawl.

The bears aren't a strong a bid as you claim.