It's a long time ago now but I believe Souths were removed before Gallop started and were reinstated just before Gallop took over.
I'm not defending Gallop at all, I agree under his tenure the game was held back immensely and has been forever damaged. The money we lost in tv deals is something we can never get back. At the same time we did still manage do expand despite the game having so little revenue.
I don't see how you can blame anything that happened under Gallop for our lack of expansion now. As I said our current TV deal was worth 2 billion and per year around 4 times what we had under Gallop (the last one was also much larger). Memberships and overall revenue in the game are way up. It was only a couple of years ago that we were banking millions for a future fund.
Now we're losing money and apparently expansion is totally off the table for the foreseeable future. Crowds are down and ratings are down. I don't see how you can possibly blame Gallop for that anymore.
I dont' disagree with your comments.But you will agree if we had received proper value for our TV contracts then, we may not be debating now.In fact we may have had a B2 and Perth lined up for 2023.
Expansion happens when firstly there is demand, so we can check that box.But just as importantly there has to be money to expands the AFL has shown throwing it around like confetti.
They have grassroots covered ,they have their digital set up done, so they did expand, but it still is not the ultimate as Nthn Tv ratings and Lions debacle has shown.
The other factor also you have not taken into account, when TV deals come in and increase so does the star players' demands .such as the $1m ones running around in the game.
Memberships are indeed up as are sponsorships,but gate takings certainly for Sydney are well down.
We're losing money for 1 year, when the next 2018 deal kicks in the NRL should not be losing money.
The clubs themselves may lose money,but that's up to them, if they want to survive the axe.
