Have you been down to a local juniors club recently?
Next time you do count the NRL logos, you'll find them incredibly mixed and more often than not there won't really be any one team that is more popular than the others.
As I said before, in the past I've been around juniors clubs quite a bit, and I've seen absolutely zero evidence that playing for a team that feeds into a particular club's system makes the participates anymore likely to support that club, and that most of the time the participates already have their mind made up on their favorite NRL club long before they decide to try actually playing the sport.
Your anecdotal evidence is just that- anecdotal. I've spent plenty of time around the local junior systems of both Rugby League and Union on the Northern Beaches, both as a player and later helping out with coaching. It obviously differs by year and the people you get coming through, but around here the fans putting their kids through junior League are generally 80% and upwards Sea Eagles fans (as are the Union fans who are also League fans). The remaining 10-20% are families who have moved into the area who support a mix of other teams (mainly Roosters and Parra, interestingly, with a few Souths fans, as there always are). Their kids went on to be a mix of Sea Eagles supporters and supporters of other teams, sometimes supporting both in some capacity. Spending all their time in the Sea Eagles system, having all their friends be Sea Eagles fans and getting to meet Sea Eagles players etc ends up having an effect.
Things might be different in Canberra, if that's where you are, as you have a greater transient population than we do here. I'd expect to see more fans of other NRL clubs around your junior systems there.
What do you think is going to happen?
Are the Bears going to show back up and all the fans you've converted going to just throw it in and become Bears fans, then after that point it'll become impossible to convert people in "Bears territory" into Sea Eagles fans, because I mean that's simply not how fandom works.
People like what they like, and those that could be inclined to support the Sea Eagles will still be inclined to support the Sea Eagles no matter whether the Bears, or anybody else, tries to make them change their mind. All you've got to do is give them a push to get them actually engaging with the club.
No, but it will end up being a colossal waste of money in the long term. Sure, the club might get a few supporters out of that time period, but the investment in terms of money spent in that time period vs the return would not be worth it. If the Sea Eagles wing it, start spending there without any clarity as to what the NRL has in mind for the area and a new Bears team is allowed back in, once that new Bears entity is set up and developing the area with the backing of the NRL, it will (relatively) quickly render any long term goals the Sea Eagles had with spending all that money in the area worthless.
You seem to think that's all gravy, but it would infuriate everyone involved if the Sea Eagles go spending millions in the area for 10 years for a few extra thousand fans, only to have the rug pulled out from under them. The goal with that long term spending would be to turn those thousands of extra fans into tens of thousands of fans and hopefully hundreds of thousands down the track given time. Getting cut off early in the process would add up to a stack of blown money and those goals not met.
That can be avoided and that money spent with clarity if the NRL makes key decisions and makes a direction and goals for the area clear.
They don't need to make it official, the Bears already did that when they gave up on the CC bid...
What the Bears are doing should have little to no effect on what the Sea Eagles are doing anyway, and you bringing them up as a road block is just looking more and more like they are a convenient excuse.
Of course the NRL should make it official, there's
no reason they shouldn't. The current approach, where they've offered no direction as to the future of the area has led to what you see now. Direction from the NRL would go a long way in terms of starting to heal the damage.
If it's 100% Manly's fault that nothing's happened there, why haven't the Roosters jumped on the North Shore and made it theirs? According to you it's easy to access, there's no real roadblocks in the way and the Bears and their district mean absolutely nothing to other teams' activities. The Roosters are looking to grow their base outside their original area, as evidenced by their activity on the Central Coast. They've even signed a deal for Norths to serve as their reserves, so why aren't they declaring the North Shore theirs and developing the area as if it's theirs? Roosters players aren't going to North Shore schools, they aren't going and interacting with Norths juniors- why? According to you there's no reason why, so why isn't it happening?
