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Do mergers and joint-ventures work?

Do mergers and joint-ventures work?


  • Total voters
    30

Mr Spock!

Referee
Messages
22,502
I never said you protested to follow the Cronulla Rabbits, You are looking at the situation beyond what it was in the late nineties. The reason Souths felt so strongly about being kicked out was partly that the Roosters survived as a stand-alone club over them.

You are looking at things now when it is a good thing Souths survived though they should be playing at the SFS rather than Homebush in the late nineties things were very different.

From 1996 to 1998 South Sydney had the lowest average attendance of all clubs in the Premiership. In 1997 they drew fewer people to home games than the Hunter Mariners who were the most unwanted and least supported club in the history of the game.

So when I say Souths should have merged with Cronulla I am doing it from the point of view of the time that the rationalization period took place. Which was two years before the protests when Souths were averaging 5,000 people per game.
Rubbish. Like we know all this because Souths didn't meet the biased weighting of the sacred 'criteria'. A criteria which had superleague teams pumped up with Murdoch money.

I remember the idiot ceo from cronulla spruiking at the time that if cronulla merged with Souths the only identity Souths would have would be the colour of the socks.

Like Souths would merge with a superleague team?

I'd rather the club fold than follow that abortion of a merger. And many fans thought the same.

As for whittaker at the time....

NEIL WHITTAKER: Oh look, I think the door's been opened and then there've been opportunities for quite a while. I guess what the NRL is saying is that we'll continue to do whatever we can to assist them to do that. I mean that's what we've wanted all along. We've got six clubs involved in joint ventures, they've secured their future and it would be very good if we could ... if we could, you know, work with the Souths to achieve that for them as well.

Yep, out of those 6 clubs, 2 are recognisable, and 2 no longer exist. That really secured their future.


Souths stood alone because they weren't going to prostitute themselves just to make idiots like whittaker happy. They're the fans who piggins represented.

And once again if you think MORE rationalisation was the answer than you have no idea.

You sound like one of the pencil pushers from news Corp.
 

Mr Spock!

Referee
Messages
22,502
which is why the Manly & Norths marriage was doomed from the start. Geographic ties generally don't lend well to mergers....they're the biggest rivals!

It's be like f**king merging Roma & Lazio, Liverpool and Everton, or Real Madrid & Atletico Madrid.
Everyone knew that was going to be a disaster.
 

Mr Spock!

Referee
Messages
22,502
There was 22 clubs, something had to be done. As early as 1984 the nswrl knew that in order to grow a National Comp it would mean less Sydney clubs. Through the slow growth of the comp into a more National Comp over the last 35 years it has come at the expense of the Sydney teams due to their number. Nrl needs 4 more non Sydney clubs into the near future. If we go to 20 clubs or it comes at expense of four more Sydney clubs time will tell.
Yep cut out the bears to bring in the Gold Coast.

One of rugby leagues finest hours.
 

anjado

Juniors
Messages
1,092
Rubbish. Like we know all this because Souths didn't meet the biased weighting of the sacred 'criteria'. A criteria which had superleague teams pumped up with Murdoch money.

I remember the idiot ceo from cronulla spruiking at the time that if cronulla merged with Souths the only identity Souths would have would be the colour of the socks.

Like Souths would merge with a superleague team?

I'd rather the club fold than follow that abortion of a merger. And many fans thought the same.

As for whittaker at the time....

NEIL WHITTAKER: Oh look, I think the door's been opened and then there've been opportunities for quite a while. I guess what the NRL is saying is that we'll continue to do whatever we can to assist them to do that. I mean that's what we've wanted all along. We've got six clubs involved in joint ventures, they've secured their future and it would be very good if we could ... if we could, you know, work with the Souths to achieve that for them as well.

Yep, out of those 6 clubs, 2 are recognisable, and 2 no longer exist. That really secured their future.


Souths stood alone because they weren't going to prostitute themselves just to make idiots like whittaker happy. They're the fans who piggins represented.

And once again if you think MORE rationalisation was the answer than you have no idea.

You sound like one of the pencil pushers from news Corp.

The criteria were biased in favour of the Roosters which is why they were never in jeopardy of merging and every other club was. That's why local juniors were only given a small section of the said criteria because it was to the benefit of one club the criteria also only counted crowds from 1996 when the Roosters drew 2 massive crowds on the back of a free McDonalds give away and the novelty of Monday night football also competition points were taken into account mysteriously when the Roosters started buying every player on the market. They were the problem, not the Super League clubs it was the Roosters.

I was never in favour of the criteria or rationalization because the entire criteria were unfair and unbalanced and all in favour of the Roosters. If the criteria looked at important things such as oversaturation and self-sustainability without one person owning them the Roosters would have rightfully come in last.

Again the Neil Whittaker quote comes in October 1999 after Souths were thrown out of the competition. I am talking about when the competitions came together in 1998 which I have explained on numerous occasions.

I am talking about a time when Souths could only draw 5,000 people to a game and George Piggins grand plan was to save your club was to build a 12,000 seat stadium in Redfern which speaks for itself.

Souths had little money because they were poorly run and had few fans turning up to watch matches.

Again like I have stated on numerous occasions ideally rationalization shouldn't have happened but clubs such as Souths were drawing smaller crowds than the Hunter Mariners which just wasn't sustainable they only drew crowds in 1999 because they were threatened with expulsion.

Suddenly crowds doubled from 6,000 to 12,000 because of that threat they weren't the only club like that Penrith were the same and on the flipside, the Bears were f**ked over by the appalling weather in 1998 which delayed the building of Graham Park by 12 months which left them homeless.

No, I am not a news limited pencil pusher I am just capable of critical thinking. If you look back at the actual criteria you would understand which club it favoured it wasn't the Super League clubs it was Eastern Suburbs who were under no threat of merging at any point which made no sense at the time.

Your quote about Cronulla's chairmen saying that was purely the reason rationalization never worked. Clubs were either way too selfish demanding a take over like Cronulla and Parramatta were or they refused to fight it as Souths did which led to a wishy-washy scenario where neither results were satisfying or helped the game in any way. Illawarra allowed themselves to be taken over by St George.

My argument is that a rationalization process which involved every club rather than protecting just one was a better scenario than the one in which the Bears died. The likes of Balmain and Wests were struggling to survive and every club held discussions over the viability of merging at some point so despite you saying Piggins fought for the fans even he would have maybe accepted terms at the beginning of the rationalization process before he became aware of other clubs selfishness.

The NRL should have been in charge of making joint-ventures of the clubs which would have kept them as joint-ventures rather than takeovers.

Or ideally not have any sort of rationalization process, to begin with. My argument was that if you are going to merge teams together it would be better if you did it with logic then just throwing things together and hoping for the best which is what happened.
 

anjado

Juniors
Messages
1,092
Wests Tigers is based at Concord. Wests Leagues is at Ashfield. They have 3 matches at Campbelltown this season.

Wests have two Leagues Clubs as you should know one at Ashfield and one in Leumeah. Wests had been playing in Campbelltown from 1987 so they were for all intents and purposes a club which is based in Campbelltown and had been for well over a decade.

So when Wests and Balmain merged it was a merger of a club based in Campbelltown and a club based in Leichhardt which are 49km apart.
 

unforgiven

Bench
Messages
3,138
Wests have two Leagues Clubs as you should know one at Ashfield and one in Leumeah.
They are 2 separate leagues clubs ran by 2 separate boards, the original ownership model of the club was 50% Balmain, 25% Ashfield and 25% Campbelltown, so its not as far fetched as you make it sound under that ownership model and it makes more sense with the ownership changes in the years since.

The club quickly moved to 50% Balmain, 50% Ashfield ownership and is now at 25% Balmain and 75% Ashfield with Balmain having no voting rights. It is hard to argue that Wests and Balmain were 45km apart when they historically shared boundaries!
 
Messages
390
The evidence of constantly shifting sands - via a proposal that went swiftly from St George-Cronulla to St George-Cronulla-Illawarra - was much in line with Saints' further dealings with News Limited in '95. Warren Saunders recalls going to a birthday celebration for an old cricketing mate, Noel Hughes - father of Canterbury's famous Hughes brothers "dynasty" - and there talking football with one of the boys, Graeme Hughes. "He asked me what we (Saints) were doing and I told him there was nothing happening with Cronulla - or going to - and that talks with Easts were off," Saunders remembered. "He said to me: 'St George are the jewel in the crown. Super League would probably be very interested in you as a stand-alone club. I think I could orchestrate something that could be very attractive for you'."

Extract from Ian Heads, Saints: The Legend Lives On - The Story of the St George Rugby League Football Club (Playright Publishing, 2001) 285.
 
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Messages
722
North Sydney should have merged with South Sydney, while Easts should have merged with Wests :p

In late 1997, the powerhouse Hunter Mariners should have merged with the Newcastle Knights
 

flippikat

Bench
Messages
4,379
The criteria were biased in favour of the Roosters which is why they were never in jeopardy of merging and every other club was. That's why local juniors were only given a small section of the said criteria because it was to the benefit of one club the criteria also only counted crowds from 1996 when the Roosters drew 2 massive crowds on the back of a free McDonalds give away and the novelty of Monday night football also competition points were taken into account mysteriously when the Roosters started buying every player on the market. They were the problem, not the Super League clubs it was the Roosters.

It was a mess, for sure. The period of 1998-2001 was full of flawed decisions and missed opportunities (not just in terms of rationalizing Sydney.. Selling out Perth, Adelaide, Gold Coast & SQ Crushers was nuts!)

I seem to remember there was talk of relocating some Sydney clubs to one of those expansion sites.. I think Balmain and the Gold Coast were linked? I think that could have been part of a viable solution at the time - say, Norths to Gosford (taking on the CC Junior region, and leaving the Sea Eagles as the north of the bridge team), Roosters OR Rabbitohs to Adelaide, Tigers to the Gold Coast, Dragons to Wollongong.. then a Bulldogs/Magpies Joint Venture playing out of Campbelltown.

So Sydney would look like this...
North Harbour Sea Eagles (Brookvale, or new boutique stadium.. some games at SFS) the North of the Harbour club.


South Sydney Rabbitohs OR Sydney Roosters (SFS) - with one of these moving to Adelaide, and one starting in Sydney to be the inner city club.

Parramatta Eels (Parra Stadium) - inner west/Parra.

Penrith Panthers (Penrith Stadium) - Far West.

Southwest Bulldogs (Redeveloped Campbelltown, or possibly new boutique stadium in Liverpool) - South western corridor.

Sydney Sharks (Shark Park) - Southern suburbs

With ANZ stadium used for blockbuster games/double headers.

There you go - Sydney down to 6 clubs.
 
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big hit!

Bench
Messages
3,452
Everyone knew that was going to be a disaster.
and marlins should know that St George / Cronulla merger would be a disaster too. Or Souths / Easts, etc. Geographic proximity does not make an 'obvious' merger.

St George / Illawarra works based on colours and what they bring to the party - Saints brought funds and have the heritage, Illawarra have the junior nursery and growth. The agreement to base the club down there works too and gives the region ownership of the team even though they lost the jersey and steelers name. Much of the dynamic that existed in the late 90s between these two clubs continues to exist.

This last point is the issue with the Balmain & Wests merger - Balmain are destitute today, but they want to continue to have a big say in the operations of JV. Wests provide the tangibles that enable it to continue as a going concern including funds and a growth area, etc. Balmain have a valuable asset in the merger though......the Tiger brand. It's an intangible but Wests are hamstrung in pulling out. Balmain know this.
 

flippikat

Bench
Messages
4,379
and marlins should know that St George / Cronulla merger would be a disaster too. Or Souths / Easts, etc. Geographic proximity does not make an 'obvious' merger.

The more I think about that point, the more I believe that a set of relocations may have been more beneficial than joint ventures. (Something along the lines of my post above).

We wouldn't have the "multiple home grounds" insanity that Joint Ventures have created, nor the collapse of the Northern Eagles, nor would we have lost having top tier clubs in Adelaide or Perth.. and maybe even have room for a full-time club on the Central Coast.. AND we would have kept most of the club identities/brands from pre-Superleague days.
 
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Hello, I'm The Doctor

First Grade
Messages
9,124
The evidence of constantly shifting sands - via a proposal that went swiftly from St George-Cronulla to St George-Cronulla-Illawarra - was much in line with Saints' further dealings with News Limited in '95. Warren Saunders recalls going to a birthday celebration for an old cricketing mate, Noel Hughes - father of Canterbury's famous Hughes brothers "dynasty" - and there talking football with one of the boys, Graeme Hughes. "He asked me what we (Saints) were doing and I told him there was nothing happening with Cronulla - or going to - and that talks with Easts were off," Saunders remembered. "He said to me: 'St George are the jewel in the crown. Super League would probably be very interested in you as a stand-alone club. I think I could orchestrate something that could be very attractive for you'."

Extract from Ian Heads, Saints: The Legend Lives On - The Story of the St George Rugby League Football Club (Playright Publishing, 2001) 285.

Can we please find some new metaphors. PLEEEEEEEEASE....

I guess when the number 1 qualification to run something in the game is "im a Rugby League person", you cant expect the brightest sparks to turn up.

"You spent 10 years running head first into a pile of guys the size of gorillas. Perfect!!! When can you start running my $million organisation?"
 

unforgiven

Bench
Messages
3,138
and marlins should know that St George / Cronulla merger would be a disaster too. Or Souths / Easts, etc. Geographic proximity does not make an 'obvious' merger.

St George / Illawarra works based on colours and what they bring to the party - Saints brought funds and have the heritage, Illawarra have the junior nursery and growth. The agreement to base the club down there works too and gives the region ownership of the team even though they lost the jersey and steelers name. Much of the dynamic that existed in the late 90s between these two clubs continues to exist.

This last point is the issue with the Balmain & Wests merger - Balmain are destitute today, but they want to continue to have a big say in the operations of JV. Wests provide the tangibles that enable it to continue as a going concern including funds and a growth area, etc. Balmain have a valuable asset in the merger though......the Tiger brand. It's an intangible but Wests are hamstrung in pulling out. Balmain know this.
What say does Balmain have in the running of Wests Tigers? The club is now controlled by Wests Ashfield!
 

firechild

First Grade
Messages
7,704
Manly picked up a cool $3m from memory, far more than the salary cap at the time, no strings attached, for knifing the Bears in the back. Manly weren't dumb, but the same cannot be said of the governing body, who should have demanded their money back and had contracts to enforce it.
Manly played the money owed by North Sydney to their players despite having absolutely no obligation to do so. But sure, stick your head in the sand and pretend Manly were the bad guys. The North Sydney faction acted like petulant children, choosing not to vote then complaining that they didn't get their way.
 

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