I'm not going into detail to respond to you on all your comments, because it's old ground what happened 70 plus years ago compared to today ,and thus banging my head against a brick wall.
Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
You can live in a Canberra bubble ,and throw pins at maps.Anyone can do that.I can do likewise from Sydney.
F##king what, lol, a Canberra bubble.
I'm not the one who lives in a city with a massive media base who are willing to parrot back all my thoughts to me through idiots like Rothfield, Kent, Crawley, Gould, Warren, etc, etc, etc.
And if wanting a sensible spread of our product across the country to coincide with the larger markets (whether they be for fans, sponsors, or whatever) is wanting "pins in a map", then so be it!
At least I want the game to grow as big as possible and for as many people as possible to be exposed to it, and I'm not satisfied with your little Sydney wankfest.
The reality is,Sydney has already been screwed by rationalisation,and lost fan support as a result.To suggest otherwise exhibits ignorance.
No ones suggesting that RL doesn't lose fans when clubs are cut.
Wests,Tigers,Dragons and Illawarra.individually got more fans to their games than collectively as joint ventures.
TV ratings, memberships, merch sales, etc, etc, are all much higher now then they were back before the mergers.
And who's suggesting more mergers? I'm not, I was even against them back in the day!
I don't think anybody seriously is.
North Sydney fans are they all following other clubs.my experience suggests no.
I'm an ex Bears fan and I'm following other clubs.
Experiences are subjective, they prove nothing.
The AFL do not want anymore relocations.
That's BS.
They have tried to get clubs to move to Tasmania (Western Bulldogs and the North Melbourne), Canberra (Melbourne Demons, North Melbourne, and I think the Dogs as well at one point), the GC before they had the Suns (Demons), and were pressuring St. Kilda to move full time to Wellington at one point.
What they are scared of doing is at the moment is forcing relocation.
The Swans have benefitted ,that is not a guess and more so when Souths were flicked.The Tahs benefitted .
Prove it!
Seriously, I've been trying to get someone to show me some sort of substantial evidence to support claims like this for years.
And I have no doubt should the Force be flicked the Pirates would benefit.
I'm not so sure.
And NRL fans(not just Sydney) are fickle,check Raider's crowds when they were losing and when they are winning.
I watched St George many years ago prior to any thought of SL,and their crowds were far better at Jubilee than today.And the Steelers had decent crowds at times.
I don't see what this has to do with the argument at hand.
I do know this rl fans are divided into those who will watch the game and not tied to a club and rarely attend, those that are tied to a club and would still follow the game, and those tied to a club who would toss it in should they lose that club.The latter are not an inconsequential number.
Yes, but this is a generational problem!!!
Yes when you remove a club from an area you see a drop in numbers across the board, but those numbers pick back up with the generational change because the the children and the new people in the area don't know who the old club was let alone have any feelings for them.
If this wasn't the case then Glebe, Annandale, and Newtown would be wastelands for RL, South Melbourne and the inner west of Melbourne would be wastelands for Aussie rules, all of America would be a wasteland for American football and basketball with all the chopping and changing that they do, etc, etc, and that's simply not the case.
If a club gets into deep financial problems I would accept relocation, but only on that basis.
I'm not for relocation either, but removing a Broncos, Melbourne, Manly, Warriors, etc, would be a thing of suicidal stupidity even if they were flat broke.
It's not as simple as crowds and finances, you have to take so many more things into account!