HUGE difference between sacrificing clubs that had existed for just a few years to ones that have existed for decades. Plus I don't see any Sydney fans baying for clubs to be cut, just losers like Perth Red and his acolytes. As to your last point, what about Melbourne who contribute no juniors to the pool of future players but happily pilfer other clubs juniors after they have spent money developing them? That is the very epitome of selfishness, but you won't say anything about that because your little buddy Perth Red will get his feelings hurt.
I've said plenty about Melbourne Storm in the past. I believe the $100m that News Ltd and the ARLC funnelled into them to make the club a juggernaut was really unfair on all the other teams and it makes me angry that so much favouritism was given to a city that doesn’t really care about the game.
Although Melbourne's privileged position pisses me off, I have to admit that the assistance given to them has provided our game with a profile in Melbourne that wouldn't exist if the Storm were never a juggernaut. The extra viewers from Melbourne who now tune in to watch big events like Origin and the GF make our broadcast rights more lucrative and help bring in money that can be shared around by the clubs and players. Teams in Adelaide and Perth can have a similar effect.
I do think it's time the ARLC and Melbourne Storm pulled their finger out and started working on grassroots development in Victoria. They should have started doing it 20 years ago. For that we can blame our administration for being short-sighted.
No one wants to see their team cut, but our game is a business these days and if a club isn't contributing and holding the other clubs back then it's a liability. There's no room for emotion in the business world. The strong prey on the weak and show no mercy.
News Ltd financed the Storm because our game needed a presence in the country's second largest market. That's just smart business.
Our game needs Sydney even more than Melbourne, but it doesn't need nine clubs in it to have the desired effect. It could easily do it with six or seven clubs so that we can expand into the 4th and 5th largest markets. It also makes good business sense to have a 2nd team in Brisbane and New Zealand. It would make even better business sense to have 3 teams in Brisbane and New Zealand so that every Friday night we can have a game in Brisbane, Sydney and New Zealand, broadcast live into their respective markets, to maximise revenue, then have the same thing done on Sunday afternoon. We need to do away with each game being assigned a unique timeslot.
Rationalisation sucks. It happened to me in 2002 when the Logan Scorpions were killed off because the Logan City Council forced them to pay an exorbitant amount to lease Meakin Park for 15 years, which eventually led to its downfall. I still get upset and livid about the injustice, but I've sort of moved on and I never stopped watching the game.
