The Case for Adelaide.....

[The Great Dane]

That's, as you keep saying, baseless speculation. I've no doubt they see some sort of jump in other areas, but not the huge numbers and huge percentage of their membership base that the Swans enjoy from Melbourne.

None of that is baseless speculation, it's self evident to anybody that knows anything about football fandom and the growth in support after a successful period.

Considering the size of the Melbourne market the 1-2k jumps after GF wins aren't "huge in numbers", nor is 12k a particularly large percentage of 61,912.

I have- the Swans note that they're the club with the biggest interstate membership base and have provided figures, there is nothing from any other club that challenges that notion, nor are there any figures that challenge that notion. You keep rejecting this in favour of some vague notion that all big clubs must have big membership bases in other cities. West Coast has 80-90k members, far more than the Swans- why aren't they trumpeting their obviously bigger than 12k interstate member base in Melbourne to garner more corporate support and sponsorship dollars?

Yeah and despite even a cursory glance of the stadium showing it almost half empty, GWS claim that they sell out Manuka Oval all the time...

Without the other clubs numbers we have no way to confirm that the Swans have the largest interstate numbers, or that they're even particularly bigger than any other similar clubs.

Also, I never said that the West Coasts interstate numbers were "obviously bigger", and how do you know that the West Coast aren't trumpeting their interstate membership numbers to sponsors and corporates? Just because they aren't doing it publicly doesn't mean they aren't doing it.

'I highly doubt', i.e. you're speculating.

Speculation based on some sort of incontrovertible fact isn't valueless, and it's an incontrovertible fact that the Swans away attendance isn't significantly different from any other similar club's, when you'd expect it to be significantly bigger if they had an abnormally large fan base in Melbourne.

I never said they nailed it out of the gate, they've built on it and made it work over the years, despite the pain of the relocation and of the team's continued poor performances for years. It was always going to be hard work, but now they enjoy sizeable fan and membership bases in both cities.

I never said that you did, but despite that you'd still expect certain thing's (that we've been over multiple times at this point) that simply aren't there if the South Melbourne fan base was showing up in any real numbers.

When those 12k are a third of their membership base, as it is in some years, absolutely it is.

Except that 10k was "closer to a quarter than a third" ten years ago when they had 30k members, and the 12k that they had last time it was reported in 2016 is less than a quarter of 61k members that they have now, and you still haven't presented any reason to believe that all or even a large percentage of that 12k were ever connected to the old South Melbourne club to begin with.

Look man, you've haven't got a leg to stand on so let's just move on.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

You are promoting exactly what I think you are.

You are trying to promote the idea a relocated team that spends a lot of time trying to actively engage with the fan base in their old market along with the new one.

That never works how the owners want it to and always sours both markets to some degree, in other words it's a bad way of going about relocation.

Show me one actual real world example where that has actually happened!

Look at the Swan's average away attendance, now compare it with other similar clubs from outside of Melbourne like the West Coast, Adelaide, and Brisbane. What you find is that apart from the odd year where Sydney and and West Coast's numbers have jumped up past 35k, all of their average away attendances are pretty similar.

If the Swans (or for that matter Lions) had abnormally large fan bases in Melbourne made up of supporters of the team before they relocated then you'd expect that their away attendances to be significantly larger than other similar clubs, but that simply isn't the case.

All of those things are important questions for the business to answer before they relocate, otherwise their relocation is doomed to fail. So honestly I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say.
I never suggested that you were, and you don't need to be for your ideas to still be bad ones.

I never suggested that relocation can't work in Australia, which suggests you are the one misunderstanding me and not the other way around.

There's no evidence that the Swans have maintained a large group of South Melbourne fans. Literally not one piece of actual hard data has been presented that they have. Also who cares what tokenistic crap they have on their jersey if there's no evidence that it's actually had any real world impact.

Finally if you had actually follow the argument and read what data we have you'd know that Reanimate's "very good point" that a ¼ to ⅓ of the Swans Membership base is in Melbourne, A. was in the past not now, B. sounds like a bigger deal than it was when in reality that ¼ to ⅓ only represented a max of 10k people, and C. there is literally no evidence whatsoever that it was made up mainly of old South Melbourne fans.
Basically the quarter to third thing was a fancy way of making the statistic sound more significant than it actually was, you know, lies, damned lies, and statistics.

BTW, there's even less evidence of a large group of old Fitzroy supporters than there is of old South Melbourne supporters.

The problem with your "benefit" is that there's no evidence behind it to support that it is actually a benefit at all, and there's good evidence that suggests it doesn't actually work the way you expect it to.

That evidence doesn't only come from here in Australia (as been discussed), I mean look through the relocation histories of teams like the Rams or Sacramento Kings, the picture's pretty clear that even when they tried to maintain their old fan bases they couldn't do it in any significant numbers and it hurt their business in the new market.

You are promoting exactly what I think you are.

You are trying to promote the idea a relocated team that spends a lot of time trying to actively engage with the fan base in their old market along with the new one.

That never works how the owners want it to and always sours both markets to some degree, in other words it's a bad way of going about relocation.

Show me one actual real world example where that has actually happened!

Look at the Swan's average away attendance, now compare it with other similar clubs from outside of Melbourne like the West Coast, Adelaide, and Brisbane. What you find is that apart from the odd year where Sydney and and West Coast's numbers have jumped up past 35k, all of their average away attendances are pretty similar.

If the Swans (or for that matter Lions) had abnormally large fan bases in Melbourne made up of supporters of the team before they relocated then you'd expect that their away attendances to be significantly larger than other similar clubs, but that simply isn't the case.

All of those things are important questions for the business to answer before they relocate, otherwise their relocation is doomed to fail. So honestly I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say.
I never suggested that you were, and you don't need to be for your ideas to still be bad ones.

I never suggested that relocation can't work in Australia, which suggests you are the one misunderstanding me and not the other way around.

There's no evidence that the Swans have maintained a large group of South Melbourne fans. Literally not one piece of actual hard data has been presented that they have. Also who cares what tokenistic crap they have on their jersey if there's no evidence that it's actually had any real world impact.

Finally if you had actually follow the argument and read what data we have you'd know that Reanimate's "very good point" that a ¼ to ⅓ of the Swans Membership base is in Melbourne, A. was in the past not now, B. sounds like a bigger deal than it was when in reality that ¼ to ⅓ only represented a max of 10k people, and C. there is literally no evidence whatsoever that it was made up mainly of old South Melbourne fans.
Basically the quarter to third thing was a fancy way of making the statistic sound more significant than it actually was, you know, lies, damned lies, and statistics.

BTW, there's even less evidence of a large group of old Fitzroy supporters than there is of old South Melbourne supporters.

The problem with your "benefit" is that there's no evidence behind it to support that it is actually a benefit at all, and there's good evidence that suggests it doesn't actually work the way you expect it to.

That evidence doesn't only come from here in Australia (as been discussed), I mean look through the relocation histories of teams like the Rams or Sacramento Kings, the picture's pretty clear that even when they tried to maintain their old fan bases they couldn't do it in any significant numbers and it hurt their business in the new market.

Haha.. wow...

 

[reanimate]

None of that is baseless speculation, it's self evident to anybody that knows anything about football fandom and the growth in support after a successful period.

Considering the size of the Melbourne market the 1-2k jumps after GF wins aren't "huge in numbers", nor is 12k a particularly large percentage of 61,912.

It is baseless speculation. Teams don't get the same big boosts (or maintain the big bases) in one particular city as the Swans do, otherwise those teams would trumpet the fact from the rooftops. They find the most inane things to boast about with memberships and their fanbase; we're the fastest to 6500! We had a 6% increase in memberships this year compared to the same point as last year! And so on.

There's not a chance that teams receiving equivalent interstate support to the Swans wouldn't also be boasting about it. Also, 12k is just under 1/5th of 61.9k, that's still an impressive effort for a team that left the city nearly 40 years ago.

Also, I never said that the West Coasts interstate numbers were "obviously bigger", and how do you know that the West Coast aren't trumpeting their interstate membership numbers to sponsors and corporates? Just because they aren't doing it publicly doesn't mean they aren't doing it.

Sure, teams in the AFL will publicly boast about anything and everything, but this is the one thing they'd hush up and keep quiet. Not a chance.

Speculation based on some sort of incontrovertible fact isn't valueless, and it's an incontrovertible fact that the Swans away attendance isn't significantly different from any other similar club's, when you'd expect it to be significantly bigger if they had an abnormally large fan base in Melbourne.

I'm not saying that their Melbourne base is 'abnormally large', only that the Swans have done a good job of engaging and retaining what is left of their Melbourne fanbase. To reiterate, they've been gone from the city for nearly 40 years and the team had been playing poorly for years before they left and continued doing so for years later. Despite that, the Swans' Melbourne membership base has grown and has represented anywhere from a fifth to a third of their total membership base in recent times. Their success helped re-engage their old fanbase and attract new supporters in their new city. They'll never be as big in Melbourne again as they were when they were based there, but they don't need to be.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

You are promoting exactly what I think you are.

You are trying to promote the idea a relocated team that spends a lot of time trying to actively engage with the fan base in their old market along with the new one.

.

WRONG. Straight away.

And so whatever you wrote after that is just noise to me. I honestly couldn’t be bothered.

You’ve chased me enough for a while here now. I don’t mind a difference of opinion, and was happy enough to reply to your opinions on my quotes, clarify my position politely. But now it’s just boring. And when people believe their opinions are facts.. that does it for me.

Believe what you want to believe Dane.

 

[greenBV4]

That's an insult to the fans in Sydney. You're more or less telling them their job is to invest their money and time playing the game and running junior competitons, then hand over the rewards to Adelaide and Perth.

What does Sydney get out of it?

I'm not suggesting the NRL should force this, I don't even think the NRL would be wise to force relocation at all (only dangle a carrot), was just putting it out as an option the club itself could take if it wanted to take the relocation carrot but also try and maintain a small ammount of support around its leagues club. And there would be no issue with an out of state club linking with a NSW cup club, it already happens today, it means the NSW cup side could focus on trying to maintain fans in Sydney, while the relocated NRL club can put its full focus on the new market

The CC showed that any sort of "split" relocation is likely doomed to fail, all in or not at all.

It just makes things really messy. It could be done well, but say Cronulla gets relocated to Adelaide but gets to keep their NSWRL district and NSW Cup side (I know they don't have one at the moment, but for argument's sake let's say they do), if RL in the area dies off as a result of the anger from the relocation, I can't see a team based in Adelaide being able to rekindle League in their former area as well as that district being merged back into being part of St George and it being handled by them. Both scenarios would be met with anger, but St George being next door on both sides makes access, integration and development much easier than trying to maintain an active link with Adelaide.

I could be wrong though, the Storm and the Sunshine Coast do a good job in partnership with each other, despite being in different states. It's all about execution. The Rugby League dead zone in Sydney's North Shore is the situation that has to be avoided, no matter what approach you take.

Yep, its possible, but all comes down to execution

 

[Travitoh]

I must be the only fan of splitting home games.
I don't think Adelaide would be worthy of 12 games presently nor Perth for that matter. 6-8 would be plenty. The other 4-6 could be played at the old home ground of the club (eg Sharks).

To me that is a better deal than sitting around waiting for something that is not going to come, Perth and Adelaide are only getting teams if its through relocation and the above model would be a fine relocation option for the new city and a better deal for the old suburb as they still get some home games.

Strongly disagree. If a team is relocated to Adelaide then all their home games should be played in Adelaide. 1 game every fortnight would build more momentum in the city than 1 game every 3-4 weeks would.

 

[T-Boon]

Strongly disagree. If a team is relocated to Adelaide then all their home games should be played in Adelaide. 1 game every fortnight would build more momentum in the city than 1 game every 3-4 weeks would.

Solid counter argument.

 

[MugaB]

Strongly disagree. If a team is relocated to Adelaide then all their home games should be played in Adelaide. 1 game every fortnight would build more momentum in the city than 1 game every 3-4 weeks would.

Especially if was the back to back premiers the now Adelaide Roosters

 

[Perth Red]

No team is relocating, ever. End of discussion.....

 

[The Great Dane]

WRONG. Straight away.

And so whatever you wrote after that is just noise to me. I honestly couldn’t be bothered.

You've spent this whole time saying things like this-

However relocation has the straight up advantage of guaranteeing an "away" fan base in Sydney when Adelaide come to town.

and this-

The two major (and successful) examples are the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions (even though it was originally the Brisbane Bears). Both have a very large and established fan base in Melbourne from their origins. And of course, those fans would far prefer their team remain local but they'd otherwise have long disappeared. And the balance of building support in the new location and keeping many of the original fan base has been managed very well.

and this-

A BENEFIT of having an existing Sydney team relocate interstate would be that, if managed correctly, there is a guaranteed base of fans who would attend games in Sydney... Eg as above in my reply to GROTD's post. Just an example..

If that's not arguing that a relocated team can, and should, actively maintain a fan base in both markets then I don't know what it's meant to be, but it's still f**king stupid considering that you can't provide one piece of evidence that either the Swans, Lions, or any other team have ever successfully been able to maintain "a very large and established fan base" in their old market.

You’ve chased me enough for a while here now. I don’t mind a difference of opinion, and was happy enough to reply to your opinions on my quotes, clarify my position politely. But now it’s just boring. And when people believe their opinions are facts.. that does it for me.

Here's the thing about opinions mate; they aren't all equal!

An opinion supported by facts (which I have provided and you have ignored multiple times) is more valuable than one that isn't, and you just saying 'well it's my opinion man' doesn't address the facts that it's necessary to ignore for you to hold your opinion.

 

[The Great Dane]

I'm not saying that their Melbourne base is 'abnormally large', only that the Swans have done a good job of engaging and retaining what is left of their Melbourne fanbase. To reiterate, they've been gone from the city for nearly 40 years and the team had been playing poorly for years before they left and continued doing so for years later. Despite that, the Swans' Melbourne membership base has grown and has represented anywhere from a fifth to a third of their total membership base in recent times. Their success helped re-engage their old fanbase and attract new supporters in their new city. They'll never be as big in Melbourne again as they were when they were based there, but they don't need to be.

If it's not abnormally large compared to the other AFL clubs of similar standing (which is what the numbers we have seems to suggest BTW) then why would you bother singling out their Melbourne fan base at all!?

In that scenario it's nothing particularly special or unique compared to the other non-relocated clubs from outside of Melbourne's fan bases, and it basically confirms that their being a relocated club hasn't resulted in them maintaining a significant fan-base of "Bloods" fans in Melbourne, because if they had it would be significant and measurable. Basically it confirms everything I've been saying all along. . .

And you still haven't provided any evidence of any significant "re-engaging" of their fan base either. . .
You're basically just saying that because their support has grown in Melbourne (which BTW nobody is denying) that it is self evident that that growth is because of the old South Melbourne fan base or their descendants, when that isn't self evident at all.
I could go out into Canberra right now (and I'm sure you could do this in a lot of cities for a lot of teams) and find you a local Swans fan base numbered in the thousands, most if not all of whom became Swans fans within the last 30 years and almost totally independent of any outside influence. Now I'm not saying, that none of the Swans growth in Melbourne is because of Bloods fans, but why assume that it is significantly influenced by that connection when similar growth happens totally independent of any such connections all the time?

 

[reanimate]

If it's not abnormally large compared to the other AFL clubs of similar standing (which is what the numbers we have seems to suggest BTW) then why would you bother singling out their Melbourne fan base at all!?

In that scenario it's nothing particularly special or unique compared to the other non-relocated clubs from outside of Melbourne's fan bases, and it basically confirms that their being a relocated club hasn't resulted in them maintaining a significant fan-base of "Bloods" fans in Melbourne, because if they had it would be significant and measurable. Basically it confirms everything I've been saying all along. . .

And you still haven't provided any evidence of any significant "re-engaging" of their fan base either. . .
You're basically just saying that because their support has grown in Melbourne (which BTW nobody is denying) that it is self evident that that growth is because of the old South Melbourne fan base or their descendants, when that isn't self evident at all.
I could go out into Canberra right now (and I'm sure you could do this in a lot of cities for a lot of teams) and find you a local Swans fan base numbered in the thousands, most if not all of whom became Swans fans within the last 30 years and almost totally independent of any outside influence. Now I'm not saying, that none of the Swans growth in Melbourne is because of Bloods fans, but why assume that it is significantly influenced by that connection when similar growth happens totally independent of any such connections all the time?

You might be able to find thousands of Swans fans in Canberra, but the number of paid up members would be much smaller than that. Same goes for the Melbourne base, those 12k members don’t represent their entire fan base in the city, just those willing to put down money for a membership. The more hardcore, the ones more engaged with the team. That they can still get 12k people to put down money for a membership nearly 40 years after they moved away is, in my opinion, very impressive.

Businesses aren’t charities and the Swans wouldn’t still be selling merch, memberships and organising fan events out of a full time office in Melbourne if it wasn’t a profitable venture for them. The Swans themselves put down their success in Melbourne (and that they’re the club with the largest interstate membership base) to their history there and their efforts to engage their old fan base and keep at least some of them onboard.

 

[MugaB]

You'll like this "bring back john fafita"
From the start of "NRL till now"

1. Brisbane Broncos
2. Newcastle Knights
3. Melbourne Storm
4. Parramatta Eels
5. Northern Eagles
6. Sydney Roosters
7. Canberra Raiders
8. St George Illawarra Dragons
9. Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
10. Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks
11. Wests Tigers
12. Penrith Panthers
13. Auckland Warriors
14. North Queensland Cowboys
15. Adelaide Rams
16. South Sydney Rabbitohs
17. Gold Coast Chargers
18. Perth Reds

That list there is one of the most frustrating things about Rugby League expansion - it is the inaugural NRL season ladder, with the mergers going ahead and the Reds retained

18 teams and an almost perfect national spread, all it needs is Brisbane 2 and NZ 2 either through relocations/axes for 18 or expansion/retaining the crushers for 20 teams and we would of been set...

can someone get a time machine and make this happen

Ive been saying this for ages with cowboys, warriors having their 25th year anniversary, imagine we kept the other 2-3 expansion teams, Perth, Sth Qld and Adelaide,
Its annoying that the bulk of fans who advocate for expansion want Sth Qld and Perth, when we already had it in 1995, looking at the list you've posted it even includes CC and Adelaide.

I'd make one change tho = East Coast Roosters playing out of central coast stadium/SFS as they do now, and have the bears logo on their shoulder, (like magpies do at Wests)
And Northern Eagles out of brookvale/NSO

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

You'll like this "bring back john fafita"
From the start of "NRL till now"


Ive been saying this for ages with cowboys, warriors having their 25th year anniversary, imagine we kept the other 2-3 expansion teams, Perth, Sth Qld and Adelaide,
Its annoying that the bulk of fans who advocate for expansion want Sth Qld and Perth, when we already had it in 1995, looking at the list you've posted it even includes CC and Adelaide.

I'd make one change tho = East Coast Roosters playing out of central coast stadium/SFS as they do now, and have the bears logo on their shoulder, (like magpies do at Wests)
And Northern Eagles out of brookvale/NSO

What a list..

Perhaps we might see them all come back together again... one day..

A man can dream..

 

[RoosTah]

PART 2 - COMPARISIONS..

So – comparing them all together, with my opinions.

Brisbane V2

• Stadium - Suncorp @ 50K plus.
• Travel Costs - Moderate (equiv to Broncos)
• Projected Fan Base - Largest. City of 2.5M.
• Junior base - Large (but shared with Broncos)
• Pro's - Big City, Games each week in Brisbane, capacity for big crowd revenue.
• Cons - Saturation in Brisbane, which fans will follow/convert to them?

New Zealand Mk2

• Stadium - Unknown
• Travel Costs - High (equiv to Warriors).
• Projected Fan Base - Medium (equal to/less than Warriors). Wellington @ 415,000. (4th highest)
• Junior Base - Low/Medium.
• Pro's - Possible One city team (eg Wellington), Develop further growth in NZRL, new "eyeballs" on the game.
• Cons - Expensive, Strong competition from Rugby, Warriors have had mixed success in 25+years. Unknown city.

Perth

• Stadium - HBF Park @ 20K
• Travel Costs - Highest
• Projected Fan Base - Large. Population 2.1M - 2nd Highest.
• Junior Base - Small
• Pro's - Great (even if small) Junior Base to build off and local support. One-team town, large population base, new "eyeballs" on the game.
• Cons - expensive, vast travel (not all of which is currently direct). AFL Stronghold.

Central Qld

• Stadium - None (to be built)
• Travel Costs - High.
• Projected Fan Base - Small/Moderate. Population Mackay 80k, Rockhampton 80k** (unsure of collective region population) - Lowest Population base.
• Junior Base - Moderate/Large
• Pro's - Heartland Area should guarantee good crowds and great juniors.
• Cons - no stadium, comparatively small potential fan base (aside from expected crowds at games).

Central Coast

• Stadium - Central Coast Stadium @ 20K
• Travel Costs - Low (to Sydney).
• Projected Fan Base - Moderate. Population of 300k - 2nd Lowest.
• Junior Base - Medium
• Pro's - Great stadium and heartland base.
• Cons - Relative close proximity to Sydney & Newcastle clubs, relatively low population base.

Adelaide

• Stadium - Hindmarsh @ 22k (as of 2023)
• Travel Costs - Moderate
• Projected Fan Base. Large. Population 1.1M - 3rd highest.
• Junior Base - None/Lowest.
• Pro's - Stadium, proximity to eastern states (inc travel n timezones), proven interest in RL via crowds present n after. One-team town, large population base - new "eyeballs" on the game. Direct Flights to all other team cities.
• Cons - Juniors. AFL Stronghold.

Yep – a bit of reading there. If nothing else, some good new material for the thread to banter over

So in my opinion there is a strong case for Adelaide to be considered as a viable expansion option. I get it's the least-fancied and talked about amongst League fans elsewhere. So I'm championing that voice. Further to that, I think it ranks 2nd behind Brisbane Mk2 as the most viable and attractive option - which has the capacity to broaden the Rugby League audience and consequentially be a financial success. So hopefully it's the 18th team at some point in the future.

Bring Back the Rams!!

END PART 2

______________

PART 3 - TYPICAL OBJECTIONS

Love your work mate. I've spent a lot of time in Adelaide and I reckon it's a great city. It's kind of like a sleepier version of Melbourne that isn't under the pretentious delusion that it's Paris or Rome. Having watched the A-League team there play out of Hindmarsh stadium (although admittedly not through my own volition) I've often thought it's a bit of a missed opportunity for the NRL.

Like you rightly point out though, the juniors problem is significant and the market size also raises questions for me. It's only a 1 million person city, and it's not a growth area. In all honesty, If I were to go for a smaller market like SA, I'd probably go for a South Island team in NZ first purely because there's already a similarly sized stadium in Christchurch, strong junior base and Union base as well from which to recruit and it would give the Warriors a local darby that would strengthen kiwi league and likely kick the Warriors up the back side.

That said, you make a great case and I love your thinking. I'd genuinely love all of these teams in the game really. It'd be brilliant to see Adelaide, Perth, NZ2 and Brisbane all join, but for obvious reasons that's not going to happen for some time.

 

[mongoose]

I think ideally Adelaide should be a relocation... possibly with a brand tweaking. But if you're going to bring in Adelaide then kill 2 birds with 1 stone and push a Sydney club out.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

I think ideally Adelaide should be a relocation... possibly with a brand tweaking. But if you're going to bring in Adelaide then kill 2 birds with 1 stone and push a Sydney club out.

I was thinking the other day that Manly Warringah Sea Eagles would be the perfect team to do this should the Penn family pull up stumps.

Hindmarsh Stadium is better than Brookvale, so the club gets a better ground.

Adelaide has a larger market than Manly Warringah.

Sea Eagles crowds and TV ratings are on the low end, so their loss to the Sydney market wouldn't anger the broadcasters.

South Coast Sea Eagles or Adelaide Sea Eagles.

 

[The Great Dane]

Love your work mate. I've spent a lot of time in Adelaide and I reckon it's a great city. It's kind of like a sleepier version of Melbourne that isn't under the pretentious delusion that it's Paris or Rome. Having watched the A-League team there play out of Hindmarsh stadium (although admittedly not through my own volition) I've often thought it's a bit of a missed opportunity for the NRL.

Like you rightly point out though, the juniors problem is significant and the market size also raises questions for me. It's only a 1 million person city, and it's not a growth area. In all honesty, If I were to go for a smaller market like SA, I'd probably go for a South Island team in NZ first purely because there's already a similarly sized stadium in Christchurch, strong junior base and Union base as well from which to recruit and it would give the Warriors a local darby that would strengthen kiwi league and likely kick the Warriors up the back side.

That said, you make a great case and I love your thinking. I'd genuinely love all of these teams in the game really. It'd be brilliant to see Adelaide, Perth, NZ2 and Brisbane all join, but for obvious reasons that's not going to happen for some time.

I don't see why juniors are an issue at all really, at least not specifically a problem for Adelaide.

As long as they are smart there's no reason why Adelaide couldn't build a solid professional team built almost totally of players from outside of SA, just like the Storm have done in Victoria and sports teams across the world are forced to do all the time. The days of teams being totally reliant on local juniors are quickly dying (and are dead in most of the world), and the more we move away from that state of affairs to a national system of junior development the better.

Besides if we're really concerned about junior development in SA, then the single biggest thing that could lead to juniors numbers growing in South Australia would be for a professional team to be placed in Adelaide, and for that team, alongside the NRL, to slowly build a pathway to professionalism in SA. In other words if you want to see significant junior growth in SA then you want to see an NRL team in Adelaide.

 

[greenBV4]

I was thinking the other day that Manly Warringah Sea Eagles would be the perfect team to do this should the Penn family pull up stumps.

Hindmarsh Stadium is better than Brookvale, so the club gets a better ground.

Adelaide has a larger market than Manly Warringah.

Sea Eagles crowds and TV ratings are on the low end, so their loss to the Sydney market wouldn't anger the broadcasters.

South Coast Sea Eagles or Adelaide Sea Eagles.

Someones starting to see the light

not sure if Adelaide is ever really called "south coast" though

 

[reanimate]

I was thinking the other day that Manly Warringah Sea Eagles would be the perfect team to do this should the Penn family pull up stumps.

Hindmarsh Stadium is better than Brookvale, so the club gets a better ground.

Adelaide has a larger market than Manly Warringah.

Sea Eagles crowds and TV ratings are on the low end, so their loss to the Sydney market wouldn't anger the broadcasters.

South Coast Sea Eagles or Adelaide Sea Eagles.

Looking at the situation from a neutral perspective, I can see how moving Manly might make sense, but given that the NRL has shown they have no idea what to do with a team’s former area when they’re no longer there, it’s not a good idea. Sydney’s North Shore is already a mess of a League dead zone, add the Sea Eagles’ former area to that and the whole North side of Sydney has basically no League presence anymore. Given that there’s ~1 million people between the North Shore and Northern Beaches, it’s worth keeping a team in that market.

Between the Eastern Suburbs and Parramatta on the south side of the bridge, there’s an absolute glut of teams, you’d think one of them would be prime for relocation, but given that it’s the NRL we’re talking about, I bet it is Manly that ends up getting relocated in the future.