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NRL Expansion. Ideas and opinions.

Who would you admit as the next team into the NRL?

  • Perth

    Votes: 75 57.7%
  • PNG

    Votes: 8 6.2%
  • Wellington/2nd NZ team

    Votes: 5 3.8%
  • Adelaide

    Votes: 6 4.6%
  • Darwin

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • Fiji

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Central Coast

    Votes: 10 7.7%
  • Central Queensland/4th Queensland team

    Votes: 12 9.2%
  • Samoa

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • Other (please specify)/No Expansion

    Votes: 12 9.2%

  • Total voters
    130

MugaB

Coach
Messages
11,997
As a bunnies supporter I was loathe to suggest that but what other clubs do you suggest.
Is one enough?
Personally I’d say Cronulla is the only option

I’d say the following are untouchable
Souths
Manly
Dogs
Parra
Penrith
St Merge
Wests
None barr roosters, not even cronulla
Without easts in eastern suburbs, cronulla can occupy the southern beaches and are a vast area in that southern pocket of sydney, look at a map, the sutherland area is big, its silly to relocate or cull the sharks, and with souths next door, both can play at SFS and cronulla,
St George have wollongong, Penrith have central west NSW catchment, wests have southwest sydney, eels north west/baulkham hills, manly on the northern beaches,
Canterbury is a maybe, but roosters definitely for relocation
 
Last edited:

Wily Ole Dog

Juniors
Messages
1,600
None barr roosters, not even cronulla
Without easts in eastern suburbs, cronulla can occupy the southern beaches and are a vast area in that southern pocket of sydney, look at a map, the sutherland area is big, its silly to relocate or cull the sharks, and with souths next door, both can play at SFS and cronulla,
St George have wollongong, Penrith have central west NSW catchment, wests have southwest sydney, eels north west/baulkham hills, manly on the northern beaches,
Canterbury is a maybe, but roosters definitely for relocation

now you mention it it would be wonderful :)
 

mongoose

Coach
Messages
11,324
None barr roosters, not even cronulla
Without easts in eastern suburbs, cronulla can occupy the southern beaches and are a vast area in that southern pocket of sydney, look at a map, the sutherland area is big, its silly to relocate or cull the sharks, and with souths next door, both can play at SFS and cronulla,
St George have wollongong, Penrith have central west NSW catchment, wests have southwest sydney, eels north west/baulkham hills, manly on the northern beaches,
Canterbury is a maybe, but roosters definitely for relocation

Being local to your "catchment" area is really not important these days. The Roosters have central coast don't they? The Storm have SE QLD, NZ plus whatever juniors are in Victoria.

The fact is the Roosters will have a brand new 45k state of the art stadium to play out of, why the hell would they move anywhere, why would the NRL want them to move?
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
65,849
Being local to your "catchment" area is really not important these days. The Roosters have central coast don't they? The Storm have SE QLD, NZ plus whatever juniors are in Victoria.

The fact is the Roosters will have a brand new 45k state of the art stadium to play out of, why the hell would they move anywhere, why would the NRL want them to move?

So Souths can move back and claim the whole area? Sharks to move or drop down and St George take the whole south coast, Manly have few fans and nothing else going for them, area is a union area anywhere so not much lost.
That would give 3 places plus another 3 for expansion of game content to sell and you have the 6 spots we need for the game to flourish over the next 50 years with two new Brisbane clubs, Perth, Adelaide, NZ2 and a new North Coast team covering NS to Gosford like Dragons covering Sth coast. 20 teams two conferences, 8 Sydney teams, 4 SE Qlnd teams, 4 Capital city teams, 2 NZ teams and NQ,Newcastle and Gosford and Wollongong regional areas covered
 

Travitoh

First Grade
Messages
5,185
The Adelaide Rams had a good average crowd of 15.5k in 1997 before the fall-out of the SL war ravaged them. That average is just a starting point with room for growth and would stand up as a decent average in the NRL even today.

That was also on a cricket ground.
If Adelaide did get a RL club again, there would be a new purpose built stadium built in or near the city to cater for both RL and soccer.
 

Last Week

Bench
Messages
3,646
So, now that Perth have ruled themselves off the list of expansion options, does this bring the Central Coast back into the equation? I say yes.

Discuss.
 

T-Boon

Coach
Messages
15,294
So, now that Perth have ruled themselves off the list of expansion options, does this bring the Central Coast back into the equation? I say yes.

Discuss.

I think both CC and Perth are still prospects for relocated Sydney teams.
 

MrE_Assassin

Juniors
Messages
444
Absolutely not for CC Bears, unless it’s a relocation which PVL and Greenberg have said won’t happen.

....... so, no!
 

ed612313

Juniors
Messages
332
Png...
Completely funded by the multiple gold mines that have pillaged the country for decades.
A country of 8 million where league dominates and they nit in the comp.... go figure.
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
65,849
Png...
Completely funded by the multiple gold mines that have pillaged the country for decades.
A country of 8 million where league dominates and they nit in the comp.... go figure.

it’d be interesting to see how the png kumuls squad would go if in the nrl. They would have to rely on 100% home grown which could be their big problem unless they based themselves in Darwin and just played games in PNG. Whilst they have massive grass roots numbers the elite grassroots isn’t there and would need a lot of investment. I just don’t see them being able to find the $6-7million plus in corporate support an nrl club needs.
 

MugaB

Coach
Messages
11,997
it’d be interesting to see how the png kumuls squad would go if in the nrl. They would have to rely on 100% home grown which could be their big problem unless they based themselves in Darwin and just played games in PNG. Whilst they have massive grass roots numbers the elite grassroots isn’t there and would need a lot of investment. I just don’t see them being able to find the $6-7million plus in corporate support an nrl club needs.
Theres a joint bid with Cairns Pride and The PNG Hunters, this is what you are thinking of
 

The Great Dane

First Grade
Messages
7,771
Png...
Completely funded by the multiple gold mines that have pillaged the country for decades.
A country of 8 million where league dominates and they nit in the comp.... go figure.

A country of 8 million the vast majority of which don't have the disposable income to afford a ticket even semi-regularly.

Even if you could get the gold mines to bankroll it for a while (which I doubt you could), they wouldn't hang around forever and eventually the whole thing would collapse.

It's sad as I think everybody would like to see it happen, but for the time being a PNG NRL team is a pipe dream.
 

ed612313

Juniors
Messages
332
Agree re the disposable income....
Ticket prices would have to be very cheap to get over 15k to the games.
Why is it not feasable to get the mining companies to bankroll it? The pnly issue i see with this aspect is PNG corruption withing the Govt but if monitored properly that would be easily taken care off. The govt has let those gold mines rape the country for decades. It would be a very small cost to bankroll a set up in comparison to there yearly turnover.
Surely there are advertising companies that would be keen to get onboard. Of the 8 million id reckon minimum 1 million would watch each game. Thats a lot of people watching digicel or sp lager ads.....
 

The Great Dane

First Grade
Messages
7,771
Agree re the disposable income....
Ticket prices would have to be very cheap to get over 15k to the games.
Not including premium tickets (like corporate boxes), they'd probably have to be down around au$5 each or less, that's about a third of the price of the cheapest tickets you'll find at any NRL match currently, and unless the club could get an unbelievably favourable deal on rent for their stadium, which isn't impossible but isn't likely either, they'd be losing ridiculous amounts of money per-game, especially when you add in the other costs that they'd have to cover like extra security for example.
Why is it not feasable to get the mining companies to bankroll it?
Because there're very few companies that willingly take a business opportunity when they know that there's little to no hope that that business will ever be profitable, and that even if it could be profitable they'd have to sink a ridiculous amount of money into startup funds to get it to that point.

And if you are going to try to play the altruistic angle to them then there're plenty of things that they could do in PNG that would not only be better for Papuan society than bankrolling a footy team, but would be cheaper as well, like paying for upgrades to hospital wings and schools, or your average corporate charitable outreach.

I honestly think that it's more likely that you'd find a multi billionaire willing to bankroll a team in PNG, than you being able to convince many companies, of almost any kind, to bankroll it as the main investors. The only exception I can think of is companies that might want to use the team as a vehicle for marketing an community engagement, but once again there are way cheaper and more effective ways of achieving that without bankrolling a footy team.

The pnly issue i see with this aspect is PNG corruption withing the Govt but if monitored properly that would be easily taken care off.The govt has let those gold mines rape the country for decades.

The wide spread corruption is just another reason not to expand to PNG for the time being. You do not want to be entangled in something like that if you can avoid it.
It would be a very small cost to bankroll a set up in comparison to there yearly turnover.
That doesn't mean that they wouldn't rather have that money in their pockets then spent on a company owned football team that will likely never be able to support it's self.
Surely there are advertising companies that would be keen to get onboard. Of the 8 million id reckon minimum 1 million would watch each game. Thats a lot of people watching digicel or sp lager ads.....
I'd be willing to bet that if we could get a couple hundred thousand people from VIC, SA, and WA regularly tuning in, that it'd be more valuable to the NRL than getting a million from PNG.

Again, I think everybody would like to see a PNG team in the NRL but it's just not feasible at the moment, it's especially not feasible while places like Perth, Adelaide, Wellington, Christchurch, etc, don't have teams.
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
65,849
Watching Brandon Smith tonight just shows up what a myth the player depth debate is. Can’t get a starting nine position at Melbourne yet is an outstanding international hooker. He should be a starting nine at the west Coast Pirates!
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
65,849
Surprised the first nrl game in png only drew 10k. A sign of what impact reasonable ticket price has on ability to attend maybe?
 

tri_colours

Juniors
Messages
1,828
Rugby League might be something that unites the country, something there government may get behind. Im not sure what the problem is but they do have some very profitable mines and plenty of natural resources.
 

ed612313

Juniors
Messages
332
So.... The PNG set up is basically divided into 4 conferences. The southern district just recently had a 9s tournament.
76 mens teams participated over the weekend.
Yes.... 76.
 

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