The Raiders are in the most competitive regional sports market in the country, on the other hand the Cowboys have effectively zero direct competitors of any significance.
The only other professional sports club in Canberra is the ACT Brumbies. Rugby union is almost dead in this country. The Giants do take some games to Canberra, but they're a Sydney club. The AFL have taken a few games to North Queensland. There was an A-League and an NBL team in Townsville. There's an NBL team in Cairns.
The Cowboys also get more free publicity through exposure and institutional support from the media and government in Queensland alone than the Raiders could ever dream of.
That's because the Cowboys have strong support in SEQ. There's about 3 million people across SEQ. It's a large market and any team that has support there does will commercially. The Melbourne Storm can thank their strong supporter base in SEQ for being one of the most popular teams over the last 25 years.
At times the ACT government is almost hostile to the Raiders by comparison.
Why do you think that is?
The ACT swings to the radical left. That segment hates rugby league.
The Cowboys have a state of the art stadium with modern facilities.
Only since 2020. For their first 25 years they played at a racetrack the was hurriedly put together. There was nothing fancy or state of the art about Willows.
Meanwhile the Raiders have easily the worst stadium in pro football in Australia outside of the suburban grounds in Sydney, with corporate facilities that were outdated when they were installed 30 years ago, and less corporate boxes and sponsorship hoarding to sell in total than the Cowboys as well.
Willows was no better than Bruce Stadium.
The average price of Raiders memberships is lower for the same reasons and, to a lesser extent, because the competition in the market forces the Raiders prices down to remain competitive.
Their only competition is from the Brumbies. The Giants play a few games there, but it's hardly competition. The Queensland Reds have taken games to Townsville, but I wouldn't call it competition. Wallabies have also played Tests in Townsville.
If the Raiders have to sell their memberships at a lower price then it means their supporters aren't as committed as those from the Cowboys.
In other words, the Raiders have less to sell and they have to sell it cheaper because the quality of the product is worse, and that's almost totally outside of the Raiders control.
Willows was no better than Bruce Stadium.
Not all of us can get the Federal government to build us new stadiums in one of the most blatant cases of pork barrelling in recent times...
For 25 years the Cowboys played out of a converted race track that they had to build with their own money via a loan.
I'm not having a go at them for this, but frankly the Cowboys would struggle if they were forced to swap positions with the Raiders.
The Cowboys generated more revenue than the Raiders from sponsorship, corporate hospitality, ticketing and membership when they were based out of Willows.
They raided the 1985 Souths Magpies team.
It's pretty weird that you hold a grudge because the NSWRL outcompeted the BRL.
That "grudge" is what makes State of Origin the most lucrative sports product in Australia. The whole concept was created because NSWRL clubs used gaming machine revenue to pillage the BRL from the late 1950s until 1988.. Queensland went from being competitive in the interstate series to having no chance from the 1960s due to the legalisation of gaming machines in NSW in 1956.
It's also weird that you single the Raiders out for particular blame for that.
I'm singling out the Raiders in this thread because three of their supporters are death riding the Brisbane Tigers. We heard it all before in the Dolphins thread back in 2020.
Yeah a lot changed after 2015 lol.
Not really. Cowboys don't have an extra revenue stream to out compete the Raiders. They just make more money from the ones that both clubs have access to.
thetigers.com.au
