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I honestly believe if Murdoch didn’t get involved all those clubs would’ve survived and we would still have had 20 teams all along
Easts firehawks was a joke... the tigers club as its own entity playing out of suncorp yes. But the mopes running that firehawks bid had tickets on themselves so hard, they couldn't even answer straight forward questions from journos on their "official bid conference" all they come with was copying the L.A lakers app fan service idea, then just kept repeating it... it was one of the most cringeworthy conferences ive ever watched... to say they had a great bid is being disingenuous to both jets and dolphins... they were better off joining with the jets, but that probably would have failed spectacularly with those fools on the bid committee...
According to Piggins (although he provides figures to back the claims up):
40 or 45 years translates to three generations in these markets not having a team while our main competitor has invested heavily on generating new fans. We've allowed AwFuL to form a decent base in Brisbane and it will decrease the amount of people who blindly follow our game in this market over the next 40 years. All of this damage has been caused by insular saboteurs from Sydney who cannot see past their own interest.
NSWRL club rivalries don't translate into a national audience. No one outside of Sydney gives a f**k about Parramatta vs Penrith or Sydney vs South Sydney. Keeping all of these small clubs alive for sake of preserving their small rivalries, which draw small crowds when they're not played on a public holiday, has prevented the game back from generating a footprint across Australia.
f**k off you 2 headed C.U.nt.. you cant comprehend how backwards you are.. go and follow union, better chance to get a team backwards ass logan
You've just been shown evidence that the Cowboys and Reds were destitute in Sydney due to the NSWRL burdening them with expenses that Sydney clubs didn't have, yet you think they would have been fine?
Mate, you're in denial and viewing the situation with sky blue tinted glasses.
Pirates has to be the next team. They tick all the boxes for what the game needs.
A lot of people would say the same about yourself, just the tint is a more earthy tone...
Comparing the Broncos- the one ticket in a RL town- with 11 Sydney clubs is comparing apples with oranges.
Ignoring the fact that (as Arthur Beetson pointed out once) for every person you meet in Qld who liked the Broncos, you could find 3 who hated them. The ARL was actually aware of the need for more teams in SEQ long-term and addressed this need. Neither did I suggest every circa 1994 Sydney club had more credibility than the Broncos. Notice that I didn't suggest Cronulla or Penrith defecting to SL made any difference, because (at the time) they were small fish with less than 30 years history and a single Premiership between them. Their support was niche, and whichever comp they played in, the wider RL didn't care. Both clubs have a different standing in the game today, but so does a club like the Cowboys.
Difference is that the BRL clubs continued playing after the introduction of the Broncos. The Broncos were never in the same competition, as they were a NSWRL club.
Laugh all you like, but Super League drew better attendances than the ARL. The best attended clubs in 1997 were Brisbane, North Queensland, Auckland, Parramatta and Newcastle. Only one of them was from the Sydney. None of those clubs were around in 1908. Two of them were less than a decade old and the other two were playing in just their third season.
I wasn't talking about average crowds per club, I was talking about the notion that nobody outside of Sydney cares about clashes like Easts v Souths, Dragons v Dogs or Parra v Manly
