3 month countdown.........

[The Great Dane]

It strikes me as funny that the Broncos/News/NRL shenanigans (as you say) made exception for a GC club, while staying firm on "no 2nd Brisbane club".

My understanding of the late 1997 peace settlement is that the Broncos got a SE-Qld monopoly - which effectively signed the death warrant for the Crushers & Chargers. To go from that to allowing the Titans is a softening of that position.

That's more or less the ins and outs of it.

The thing is though that nobody publicly knows the ins and outs of the deal it's self, all we know is that there was some sort of Brisbane/SEQ exclusivity clause that News negotiated for the Broncos after the SL war, and that it's now lapsed.
In saying that though, it's assumed by most people that the clause covered just Brisbane and not all of SEQ because when expansion talks came about in 03-05, potential SEQ bids, like the Titans, were on the table, but Brisbane bids were most certainly off it.

We do however know that when the Broncos originally joined the NSWRL in 1988 that they negotiated a three year Queensland wide exclusivity clause, and that the Giants were based in Tweed Heads instead of in Brisbane as a workaround.

It's also rumoured that the Jeanswest bid (another bid for a license in Brisbane arguably as good as the Broncos bid) was offered the "GC" license first, but turned it down because they were only interested in a Brisbane license, which lead to the the Internationals Syndicate (i.e. the Giants, whom BTW originally bidded for a Brisbane license as well) being offered the GC license even though their bid was widely considered inferior. That suggests that, at least at some point, the NSWRL were looking at potentially having two teams in Brisbane before they were pressured to accepted the Broncos bid because of the unofficial support it had from the QRL and local RL community.

From the 3 bids that presented, the best (long run) choice may have been Wellington.

Personal bias aside (I am a Wellingtonian), going for the Orcas would buy the ARL time to get independence from News Ltd (and the Broncos insistence on a Brisbane monopoly) so that they could add a real Brisbane 2 and Perth in the next expansion phase in the early-mid 2010s.

Imagine 18 teams with Brisbane 2, Perth & Wellington, but no GC.

They weren't anywhere near as well backed financially as the Titans, they didn't seem to be able to attract sponsors as well as the Titans, and from memory (so don't quote me on this) there were concerns about using the Cake Tin as their permanent home ground and where they'd be able to set up a permanent home in the long run.

So yeah, maybe in hindsight the Orca may have been the better option, but at the time it didn't seem like it at all.

 

[The Great Dane]

No one ever suggested knocking down and rebuilding stadiums.... the last thing the Sydney fans want is more stadiums lacking in character. That's part of the charm of going to Brookie... Kogarah...Leichhardt...Shark Park etc. Just a sneaky 20 mill would do for a few tweaks and upgrades.

Then in some cases (looking at you Brookvale and Leichhardt) all you'd be doing is prolonging the inevitable by a few years, and wasting a fortune to do it as well.

Doesn't matter anyway because it's never going to happen.

 

[2012....Sharks Year]

Then in some cases (looking at you Brookvale and Leichhardt) all you'd be doing is prolonging the inevitable by a few years, and wasting a fortune to do it as well.

Doesn't matter anyway because it's never going to happen.

Each to their own mate... but you obviously don't understand the passion of the supporters of these clubs and their desire to see these derbys played out in front of packed houses in their traditional grounds. Probably a debate for another topic. Cheers

 

[tri_colours]

It's real nice that they had a top notch sponsor and stuff, but they had supposedly already run up a significant debt before they had even played a game, and that debt only built up over their three seasons in the competition, until it combined with the pressures of the SL war, and tanking attendance number that accelerated the process, sunk them.

Take SL out of the picture and they were almost certainly still screwed. Unless there was a miracle and somebody came along and bailed them out they were destine to collapse sometime around 2000.

It seems that they made the classic mistakes of underestimating how much money they'd need in start up funds to get the business off the ground, underestimating how much it would cost to run the business annually, and overestimating how much money they'd bring in annually.

They had a number of top line sponsors, fourx, Qantas, etc just to name a few . And there was nothing 'supposed' about any of them. The 'supposedly' cash strapped club made Wallabies star, Jason little a reported 300k offer, ran a major TV add campaign leading into there kick off . Certainly doesn't sound like a side that was 'supposedly' on the slide from day one.

It's easy to Say 'leave SL out of the picture' But It was Murdoch and his inflated player prices that made it impossible for any start up club not aligned to News LTD.

Mistake??? how where they supposed to know what was to come. - foresight is a wonderful thing.

 

[The Great Dane]

They had a number of top line sponsors, fourx, Qantas, etc just to name a few . And there was nothing 'supposed' about any of them. The 'supposedly' cash strapped club made Wallabies star, Jason little a reported 300k offer, ran a major TV add campaign leading into there kick off . Certainly doesn't sound like a side that was 'supposedly' on the slide from day one.

Actually, considering that they went broke a few years later, that sounds exactly like a start up business that is spending a ton of money that they didn't have on luxuries they couldn't afford. . .

Also there was no supposedly about them being on the slide, they were definitely on the slide, they were so definitely on the slide that they sent themselves broke in 5 years.

It's easy to Say 'leave SL out of the picture' But It was Murdoch and his inflated player prices that made it impossible for any start up club not aligned to News LTD.

I never said to leave SL out of the picture. What I said was even if hypothetically SL never happened the Crushers almost certainly still would have gone broke sometime around 2000.

Oh BTW, you need to read up on your SL history lol.

Mistake??? how where they supposed to know what was to come. - foresight is a wonderful thing.

Nobody is expecting them to have foresight as such, but the NSWRL/ARL should have seen that they didn't have enough startup funds to support their business plan and withheld a license from them until they addressed that.

 

[The Great Dane]

Each to their own mate... but you obviously don't understand the passion of the supporters of these clubs and their desire to see these derbys played out in front of packed houses in their traditional grounds. Probably a debate for another topic. Cheers

And you obviously don't understand that the passion of the supporters has absolutely no effect on the political and economic realities of the country.

Also any so-called fan that is refusing to attend games or support a club because the teams games are being played out of a modern state of the art stadium instead of their 'traditional ground', that is normally an outdated shithole that falling down around them, then more fool them.

 

[flippikat]

Also any so-called fan that is refusing to attend games or support a club because the teams games are being played out of a modern state of the art stadium instead of their 'traditional ground', that is normally an outdated shithole that falling down around them, then more fool them.

Spot on. The AFL moved out of suburban grounds years ago, and it's been a great success.

IMO It's better to centralize and spend the money that would have been spent starting up suburban grounds on decent public transport (so Manly fans for instance can get to & from centralized stadium easily), because transport spending benefits not just sports fans but EVERYONE.

 

[tri_colours]

SL

Actually, considering that they went broke a few years later, that sounds exactly like a start up business that is spending a ton of money that they didn't have on luxuries they couldn't afford. . .

Also there was no supposedly about them being on the slide, they were definitely on the slide, they were so definitely on the slide that they sent themselves broke in 5 years.

I never said to leave SL out of the picture. What I said was even if hypothetically SL never happened the Crushers almost certainly still would have gone broke sometime around 2000.

Oh BTW, you need to read up on your SL history lol.

Nobody is expecting them to have foresight as such, but the NSWRL/ARL should have seen that they didn't have enough startup funds to support their business plan and withheld a license from them until they addressed that.

You used the word supposedly . I take it its that its all guess work ! Prices were inflated and they did slide, we both know why that was, but no evidence of from day 1 . Just your usual anti establishment pearls of wisdom based on nothing other than 'supposedly'.

And your physic powers are amazing - a Day? - A Month in 2000? or is this just further guess work?

What was it you never said ?

The Great Dane: 'Take SL out of the picture and they were almost certainly still screwed'

 

[Perth Red]

You can’t judge the success or failure of any club in that SL era or hypothesise with any certainty what might have been with no war. Player salary inflation, sponsors and fans abandoning the game etc would have caused such an unprecedented budget environment that’s its impossible to judge any club that was killed off post 97.

What we can agree is that those decisions set the games ideal footprint back 30 plus years at least.

 

[Perth Red]

Each to their own mate... but you obviously don't understand the passion of the supporters of these clubs and their desire to see these derbys played out in front of packed houses in their traditional grounds. Probably a debate for another topic. Cheers

the facts dont support this. The suburban grounds have the lowest attendance avg in Sydney.

 

[tri_colours]

Each to their own mate... but you obviously don't understand the passion of the supporters of these clubs and their desire to see these derbys played out in front of packed houses in their traditional grounds. Probably a debate for another topic. Cheers

Not to mention that 15k at a 20k ground looks great on tv while15k at a 80k ground is an embarrassment.

 

[The Great Dane]

You used the word supposedly . I take it its that its all guess work ! Prices were inflated and they did slide, we both know why that was, but no evidence of from day 1 . Just your usual anti establishment pearls of wisdom based on nothing other than 'supposedly'.

I did use the word supposedly, but you are taking it out of context!

What I said was that: "they had supposedly already run up a significant debt before they had even played a game". As in I can't confirm for certain that the significant debt did in fact exist before they had actually played a game, but the debt definitely did exist, and it definitely existed pre-SL proper (that's why they begged to be a part of SL for a while) and it was reported at the time that it existed before they actually started a season, so there's a good chance that that is the case.

And your physic powers are amazing - a Day? - A Month in 2000? or is this just further guess work?

Is misrepresenting what I say all you've got?

What was it you never said ?

Hey look, yet more misrepresentation!

What I meant (and it's pretty f**king obvious what I meant) is that I didn't say that SL shouldn't be discussed in the Crushers downfall, which is how you interpreted it in the first place. But if you want to be a disingenuous merkin then go right ahead.

 

[The Great Dane]

You can’t judge the success or failure of any club in that SL era or hypothesise with any certainty what might have been with no war. Player salary inflation, sponsors and fans abandoning the game etc would have caused such an unprecedented budget environment that’s its impossible to judge any club that was killed off post 97.

What we can agree is that those decisions set the games ideal footprint back 30 plus years at least.

There're whole fields of economics that exist solely to make predictions about the future of the global economy, and they're literally people whose whole job is to evaluate the future viability of businesses. So to suggest that it can't be done in this specific case is f**king asinine.

By the way, if you are running the hypothetical that the SL war didn't happen then it makes it significantly easier to predict whether a club was viable or not, because all of that sudden unforeseeable salary inflation, drop in demand for the product, etc, etc, never happens and the status quo of the time more or less stays the same.

So if they were failing during the status quo of the time, then it's pretty safe to predict that they'd continue to fail if that status quo was to continue, unless you had reason to believe that they were in the process of trying to significantly change their circumstances, which in the Crushers case (and most the rest of the clubs at the time) doesn't seem to be the case at all.

 

[The Great Dane]

Not to mention that 15k at a 20k ground looks great on tv while15k at a 80k ground is an embarrassment.

If you were at the game instead of watching it on TV then you wouldn't have to be embarrassed by the look of it, and the attendance would be bigger and less embarrassing!

 

[tri_colours]

Just out of curiosity Great Dane, how many meanings does the word 'supposedly' have?

 

[tri_colours]

If you were at the game instead of watching it on TV then you wouldn't have to be embarrassed by the look of it, and the attendance would be bigger and less embarrassing!

Getting back to the football, the game and the clubs make the majority of there money from TV, and not gate takings these days. So I think me taking out a Foxtel subscription will work out better all round.

Even if its a great match most half baked viewer will turn over when they see 1 bloke surrounded by 8 empty seats.

 

[2012....Sharks Year]

Just out of curiosity Great Dane, how many meanings does the word 'supposedly' have?

Whenever I'm struggling to get to sleep at night I click onto one of Great Danes posts and I'm out like a light almost instantly....takes himself way too seriously....supposedly.

 

[2012....Sharks Year]

Getting back to the football, the game and the clubs make the majority of there money from TV, and not gate takings these days. So I think me taking out a Foxtel subscription will work out better all round.

Even if its a great match most half baked viewer will turn over when they see 1 bloke surrounded by 8 empty seats.

The cameramen have it sorted though... they have a camera permanently zoomed into the only section of the stadium that looks remotely populated. Like you said.....embarrassing.

 

[Perth Red]

There're whole fields of economics that exist solely to make predictions about the future of the global economy, and they're literally people whose whole job is to evaluate the future viability of businesses. So to suggest that it can't be done in this specific case is f**king asinine.

By the way, if you are running the hypothetical that the SL war didn't happen then it makes it significantly easier to predict whether a club was viable or not, because all of that sudden unforeseeable salary inflation, drop in demand for the product, etc, etc, never happens and the status quo of the time more or less stays the same.

So if they were failing during the status quo of the time, then it's pretty safe to predict that they'd continue to fail if that status quo was to continue, unless you had reason to believe that they were in the process of trying to significantly change their circumstances, which in the Crushers case (and most the rest of the clubs at the time) doesn't seem to be the case at all.

rubbish, if unique scenario extreme predictions could be done we wouldn’t have had the gfc.

there was no status quo for those clubs, by the time they entered the comp in 95 the war was was already underway.

 

[Perth Red]

Not to mention that 15k at a 20k ground looks great on tv while15k at a 80k ground is an embarrassment.

Strawman argument, no one is suggesting nrl club games should be held in 80k stadiums. Reality is12k- 15k crowds are unlikely to sustain clubs in years to come.