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NRL: Lets talk about relocating teams, says QRL boss.

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Stallion

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Or it could simply be that News was lunching a new pay tv network in Australia and they were looking to add as many of the popular sports in this country to their portfolio, and with both RL and RU being 2 of the top 3 most popular winter sports in the country at the time they targeted both of them to attract as many subscribers as possible...

Nice cover! Like I said union has been deceitful and quite ruthless in its aim to limit/stop rugby league all over the world. Union has been a consistent low rating tv product for many decades and you think that News ltd innocently goes to bed with a RL competitor that is intent on stopping rugby league? Mmmm.? You have been blindfolded and have slept through an attack on the code of rugby league in Australia. You are not alone though! These union power brokers are very good at what they do and move in alot higher realms than you or I. And with the owner of News ltd confessing a dislike for rugby league, I suggest this fiendish plot has sprouted, and we are witnessing rugby league's stagnation and loss of cultural relevance in the wider community with "pelicans" like yourself unable to see the damage being done to the code by carving up its heartland.
 
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The Great Dane

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Nice cover! Like I said union has been deceitful and quite ruthless in its aim to limit/stop rugby league all over the world. Union has been a consistent low rating tv product for many decades and you think that News ltd innocently goes to bed with a RL competitor that is intent on stopping rugby league? Mmmm.? You have been blindfolded and have slept through an attack on the code of rugby league in Australia. You are not alone though! These union power brokers are very good at what they do and move in alot higher realms than you or I. And with the owner of News ltd confessing a dislike for rugby league, I suggest this fiendish plot has sprouted, and we are witnessing rugby league's stagnation and loss of cultural relevance in the wider community with "pelicans" like yourself unable to see the damage being done to the code by carving up its heartland.

Unless I'm forgetting they also got AFL, Cricket, Soccer, and bunch of other sports for Foxsports back then, was it only a RU conspiracy or do you think there was a grand conspiracy by all the other popular sports to attack RL!!!
 

Pommy

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Unless I'm forgetting they also got AFL, Cricket, Soccer, and bunch of other sports for Foxsports back then, was it only a RU conspiracy or do you think there was a grand conspiracy by all the other popular sports to attack RL!!!

Only a pelican would say something like that.
 

titoelcolombiano

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Hardcore facts like establisted fan bases and household familiarity to the neutral fans has been decreased by the carve up that occured couRte system of the flawed superleague logic/agreement. Simply incompetent administrators were at the helm and being untoward lyrics influenced by News ltd spoilers aimed at weakening this great code that happened to be progressing well in greater Australia.
So somehow South will eventually go tits up again cause of SL... Ok then...

Are you sure it's not a conspiracy perpetrated by RU and the Private schools!

Don't forget poor marketing and ticket prices ;)
 

titoelcolombiano

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I suggest that incompetent administrators would be ultimately to blame for poor marketing and inappropriate ticket prices.

I think it is RU pushing our ticket prices too high, using their friends in high places at Ticketek to allocate tickets in a way that make big events not sell-out and using their friends in high places at the marketing firm used by the NRL to sabotage the NRL
 

Perth Red

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I think it is RU pushing our ticket prices too high, using their friends in high places at Ticketek to allocate tickets in a way that make big events not sell-out and using their friends in high places at the marketing firm used by the NRL to sabotage the NRL

I think it could be solved by putting more teams in Sydney
 

beave

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Green are all still around today in the NRL in some form, many were give opportunities to survive that simply weren't offered to other clubs, and those opportunities weren't handed out based on merit.

Yellow (IMO the most unjust of the clubs that were kicked out) were wrapped up as part of the "peace deals", but were wrapped up with money in the bank and potentially could have survived and grown into big clubs given time.They were also in better situations than quite a few of the clubs that were 'saved' when they were forced to shut up shop.

Orange were folded out of hand as part of the peace talks. Obviously South were eventually allowed back into the comp due to a dodgy decision by a judge that was overturned pretty much straight away (probably should have been booted out again as soon as it was overturned as well, but that is a whole other discussion)...

Red went broke, but almost certainly would have gone broke independently of SL due to other factors.

Blue, are much more complex situations.

As you obviously know the Bears merged with Manly then that merger failed (broadly speaking both parties are equally responsible for the failure). Were they forced to merge unnecessarily? Probably yes. Were they forced to merge purely as a result of SL? Probably no. But either way the Bears and Manlys' failed merger is their own fault not some grand conspiracy by News (or whoever) to get the Bears out of the comp, and even so the Bears still had a much softer landing then most of the clubs that were booted cause at least they are still alive and kicking (SQ, the Rams, etc, etc, can't say the same thing).

Without going in to deep cause you could write a whole book about this little chapter in NZ RL history, Auckland did actually fold and then the NZ Warriors old owner (who's name bloody escapes me at the moment) bought the Warriors brand from the owners of the old Auckland club and negotiated with the NRL for a new club and the successors to the Auckland Warriors to take part in the NRL from 2000, the NZ Warrriors. So technically the Auckland Warriors and the NZ Warriors aren't even the same club and without the bloke who's name I forget they wouldn't exist at all, but yeah very long story short.

Also your info on how the storm came to be isn't true either, they were going to be part of SL in 98 whether or not the two comps merged, so no the Western Reds, Rams, and Mariners were not "dissolved to form" the Storm as the Storm already existed before they were dissolved, it's just that once the others folded (really only the Reds and Mariners) their players flushed the market and the Storm were a new club with a the whole cap to spend and their administration already had connections to most of those players through SL making it much easier to sign them, so naturally the picked the eyes out of the old Reds, Rams, and Mariners rosters.

So yeah nowhere near as clear cut as you make it out to be and definitely not a cases of SL running roughshod over the ARL clubs...

on the reds/mariners/rams folding, I know for a fact that News limited promised NQ they would get the chance to grab a heap of the decent players from these clubs as well as they could see we were struggling attracting good players up north. Melbourne ended up getting all the good players and we got f**king nothing.

Reading between the lines, I’d say Ribot and Johns would have got into the ears of News and said ‘NQ is getting 20k to their games and is a league heartland, Melbourne need to hit the ground running, gives us all the good players to ensure this doesn’t become a disaster’ Which in hindsight I understand, but at the time we were all filthy about it.

I have respect for the Storm and everything they’ve achieved but f**k me, they inherited a very good team right from the get go.
 

Stallion

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I think it could be solved by putting more teams in Sydney

Reintroducing pre existing popular established clubs that have been lost along with their rivalries is a good idea! I know you will.not listen or accept this but it's plausible given Sydney is Australias largest city and the original heartland for the rugby league code in Australia. All the superleague 'agreement' did was ensured a loss of widespread support within Sydney and Australia, especially the casual fans for the much reveared and respected ARL competition. It basically eliminated longstanding supporter bases and alienated casual fans of the game. The supporter bases I refer to are not just situated in Sydney. They were Australia wide. So sad what has happened to this great and once envied competition. It's still up there however it has a more volatile scenario in gaining general public support due to codes like union and AFL taking a greater share of the market .
 
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titoelcolombiano

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5,276
Reintroducing pre existing popular established clubs that have been lost along with their rivalries is a good idea! I know you will.not listen or accept tissue but it's plausible given Sydney is Australias largest collection type and the original heartland ofor this rugby league code in Australia.

Don't forget to play the games of the re-introduced clubs at suburban grounds with low ticket prices - we'll take over the sporting world for sure then!!
 

The Great Dane

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on the reds/mariners/rams folding, I know for a fact that News limited promised NQ they would get the chance to grab a heap of the decent players from these clubs as well as they could see we were struggling attracting good players up north. Melbourne ended up getting all the good players and we got f**king nothing.

Reading between the lines, I’d say Ribot and Johns would have got into the ears of News and said ‘NQ is getting 20k to their games and is a league heartland, Melbourne need to hit the ground running, gives us all the good players to ensure this doesn’t become a disaster’ Which in hindsight I understand, but at the time we were all filthy about it.

I have respect for the Storm and everything they’ve achieved but f**k me, they inherited a very good team right from the get go.

Yeah News promised the SL clubs all sorts of stuff, then once they and the ARL started the process of merging the competitions they threw all of the SL clubs under the bus except for the Broncos and Storm who they kept ownership of...
 

The Great Dane

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Reintroducing pre existing popular established clubs that have been lost along with their rivalries is a good idea! I know you will.not listen or accept tissue but it's plausible given Sydney is Australias largest collection type and the original heartland ofor this rugby league code in Australia.

Bring back the Dirty Reds!
 

Stallion

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Bring back the Dirty Reds!

North Sydney v Manly Warringah rivalry was gold. :open_mouth:So was Balmain v various clubs. And Wests Magpies had some great rivalries as well. I do concede that West Magpies could be a plausible relocation franchise with the iconic Balmain name badged with a club called Balmain Campbelltown Tigers. But this is pure speculation and folorn hope unfortunately.
 
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The Great Dane

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North Sydney v Manly Warringah rivalry was gold. :open_mouth:So was Balmain v various clubs. And Wests Magpies had some great rivalries as well. I do concede that West Magpies could be a plausible relocation franchise with the iconic Balmain name badged with a club called Balmain Campbelltown Tigers. But this is pure speculation and folorn hope unfortunately.

So I take it that is a no to bringing back Glebe then.
 

Perth Red

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People would rather a team in Adelaide with 5000 fans when Adelaide couldn't give two hoots about league and their attention is focused on two massive AFL teams that average over 71,000 between them plus a strong local comp that is still quite strong and drew 40,000 to it's grand final.

I'm all for an Adelaide team but in a second tier comp, like PNG Hunters.

Cough, June 2018 17,700 fans attend nrl in Adelaide, cough
 

Perth Red

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As soon as Rusty (and to a lesser extent Packer) goes and he isn't replaced their attractiveness to sponsors and more importantly third parties will basically half, once their attractiveness to sponsors and third parties halves their sponsorship space won't be worth anywhere near what it's currently worth which is bad in of it's self but what'll really f**k them is that they won't be attracting anywhere near the third parties that they currently do.

Once third parties start to overlook them significantly more of their players wadges will have to go on the cap and they suddenly won't be as competitive in the players market as they currently are cause they'll effectively be paying overs on the cap to attract and keep players on the roster, once they aren't as competitive in third parties and thus in the players market they won't be able afford as many good players (let alone star players) as some of the competition, once that happens it's a quick spiral down, the standard of players at the club will tank, since they can't afford enough good players to compete with the clubs that can afford them they won't be as competitive on the field so their rate of success will tank, once their rate of success tanks their ability to attract and hold onto fans will tank, as their ability to attract and hold onto fans tanks their membership, attendance, and viewership numbers will tank, once they tank they'll be even less attractive to sponsors and third parties.

From that point unless something drastically changes they'll either fall into this sort of limbo that the Raiders and others like them are stuck in where they are surviving but it's borderline impossible for them to actually be competitive and successful for an extended period of time because the rules of the comp are so weighted in favour of a handful of their oppositions, or (and much more likely considering their history IMO) they'll overspend, take risky business deals, and probably cheat the cap to try and stay competitive and eventually that will bite them in the arse and they'll be really f**ked.

That is why they are reliant on Crowe (and to a lesser extent Packer) and it's why their current success isn't sustainable...

Haves and haves not's, it's probably the biggest problem with the NRL currently... And frankly I highly doubt that the NRL's interested in doing anything to change it.

Tbf people said exactly the same thing about Melbourne when fox owned them. Fox moved on, Storm havent missed a beat. Not every club can be bailed out by pokies or flogging off their land so we’d better hope the likes of Souths can show sustainability or we could end up with a very small nrl!
 

Stallion

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Don't forget to play the games of the re-introduced clubs at suburban grounds with low ticket prices - we'll take over the sporting world for sure then!!

I'm aware of the satire in your comment. However their is merit in upgrading and increasing capacity of suburban grounds as the geography and transport system of Sydney lends itself to locality based rivalries. Sydney's population also demands various local grounds that cater for at least 25 to 30000 capacity grounds. Geographically and mathematically (population wise) Sydney is massive! But don't let valid facts get in the way of weakening rugby league in Australia's largest city.
 
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