Brisbane Tigers make their bid to be 18th team

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Any proof of that?

Yes.

Everything you ever wanted to know about NRL TV ratings but were afraid to ask

The overwhelming majority of fans get their NRL fix through the TV. An average round will attract 124,000 in the stands but 3.6 million, thirty times as many, will tune in via subscription (PTV) or…

pythagonrl.com

 

[mongoose]

Yes.

Everything you ever wanted to know about NRL TV ratings but were afraid to ask

The overwhelming majority of fans get their NRL fix through the TV. An average round will attract 124,000 in the stands but 3.6 million, thirty times as many, will tune in via subscription (PTV) or…

pythagonrl.com

So NQ averaged about 625k on fta and 250k on fox, raiders averaged 550k on fta and about 225k on fox... bit of a gap but not that significant.

Your whole perspective that only fans of big clubs can have an opinion on expansion is childish and pathetic though.

 

[Canard]

I'm singling out the Raiders in this thread because three of their supporters are death riding the Brisbane Tigers.

Remember this narrative is entirely a figment of your imagination.

No offence to Raiders fans, but the idea put forward by you, that they have forecast the impact a 5th team in QLD will have on there financial well being, and therefore are actively campaigning against it is laughable nonsense.

 

[MugaB]

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 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. At times the ACT government is almost hostile to the Raiders by comparison.

The Cowboys have a state of the art stadium with modern facilities. 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stadium in pro football in Australia outside of the suburban grounds in Sydney, with corporate facilities that were outdated when they were installed 30 years ago, and less corporate boxes and sponsorship hoarding to sell in total than the Cowboys as well. 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.

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. 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...

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.

Neither did the Raiders.

It's pretty weird that you hold a grudge because the NSWRL outcompeted the BRL. It's also weird that you single the Raiders out for particular blame for that.

Yeah a lot changed after 2015 lol.

Extremely well said, especially the part about reversing those clubs situation, cowboys would dive hard if they were in canberras shoes

 

[MugaB]

Remember this narrative is entirely a figment of your imagination.

No offence to Raiders fans, but the idea put forward by you, that they have forecast the impact a 5th team in QLD will have on there financial well being, and therefore are actively campaigning against it is laughable nonsense.

It would be cowboys who have been against a 5th qld side, already Todd Payten had mentioned as long as it wasn't on his doorstep he wouldn't care...
Well cairns might be 4 hours away but its definitively not on anyone elses doorstep

 

[Canard]

It would be cowboys who have been against a 5th qld side, already Todd Payten had mentioned as long as it wasn't on his doorstep he wouldn't care...
Well cairns might be 4 hours away but its definitively not on anyone elses doorstep

I call bullshit on this

 

[MugaB]

I call bullshit on this

Hahaha, let me go dig up nrl360 episode where they interview Todd Payten earlier in the year, had those journos ask him about expansion

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Until 2004, the Cowboys had a grand total of 1 live FTA game (their inaugural contest) on C9.

They showed some home games on 2hr delay into NQ, but that was it.

That was between 19 and 28 years ago when the club was a basket case and still in its infancy. The club's best position prior to 2004 was 11th. The Raiders still had a very good team during this period Over the last 19 years things have drastically singed in favour of the Cowboys. We didn't have the luxury of raiding State of Origin players from clubs that didn't have gaming machine revenue, either.

Remember this narrative is entirely a figment of your imagination.

There aren't three Raiders fans in this thread death riding Brisbane 3?

No offence to Raiders fans, but the idea put forward by you, that they have forecast the impact a 5th team in QLD will have on there financial well being, and therefore are actively campaigning against it is laughable nonsense.

Did I say every single Raiders fan in the country is campaigning against a fifth Queensland team?

I said there are three Raiders fans on this forum death riding Brisbane 3.

 

[Colk]

No one said it's illegal to generate revenue from non-football operations.

The point I was making is the North Queensland Cowboys are a more lucrative sporting brand than the Canberra Raiders. The fact remains that the commercial sector is willing to invest more money in the Cowboys than the Raiders because the former has a larger and more parochial supporter base than the latter. It's why the Cowboys generate significantly more money from football operations than the Raiders. Whether you like it or not, revenue from football operations is the best indicator of a club's standing in the community.

The largest and most lucrative brand in club rugby league is the Brisbane Broncos. Their revenue from football operations dwarfs every other club.

Ch9 don't want to cover Raiders games because they have very little market value across the country.



I never said that Raiders fans have a hope in hell of convincing the ARLC to not introduce any more teams in SEQ. I said Raiders fans are afraid of a third Brisbane team because it would make life harder for their side to compete for sponsors and media coverage.

In this thread -- and several others -- there are three Raiders fans death riding the prospect of a third Brisbane team entering the NRL. The vitriol displayed is embarrassing and tiresome.

You're one of those three fans.

When pressed to explain your position you say it's "irrational" to add another team after the Dolphins and then cite America's sporting landscape for some unknown reason. You haven't come up with a genuine reason to not give the 18th licence to the Brisbane Tigers. What you feel isn't a valid reason. I don't give a f**k what you feel.

The broadcasters and ARLC are not against Brisbane receiving the 18th licence. In fact, of all the potential bids, Brisbane 3 has received the most support from the ARLC and broadcasters.

1. You know what is embarrassing and tiresome? Having every thread polluted by you with the same tropes: NSW has too many sides or it was really unfair that Queensland players were taken from the BRL competition 30 odd years ago et al.

Essentially you need to learn that you can’t change history. History is defined by winners or significant events not by losers or a thousand what ifs. For example annybody arguing for the restoration of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire? Would a Frenchman demand that King Louis not have his head chopped off? You can bitch and moan about it as much as you want but NSW had more money than the QLD competition and their clubs had every right to take QLD’s players if they wanted. They are the facts so get over it.

2. You are probably the most vitriolic and emotive poster on here so it is a little ironic to whinge about other posters doing the same. When other posters correctly point out the above they are called stupid or dumb or ignorant or whatever else. What’s dumb is arguing against history.

3. It’s absolutely risible that you think that the only reason that I and two others are against another Queensland team (I am only arguing against it being the next team as well - you are arguing context remember) is because of some weird argument (that you have made up in your head btw) that we are so worried about the impact that it’ll have on the team that we support.

The only thing you have to justify this position is coincidence that we happen to be against this side and also happen to be Raiders supporters. Oh and the fact that we bought a few great players from QLD in the 1980’s; notwithstanding the fact that most of our rep players (Lazarus, Daley, Clyde, Stuart, Mullins, Furner, Nagas, Jason Croker, Ben Kennedy, Wighton et al) have come from NSW/ACT (although I’ll take that as you conveniently forgetting that for the parameters of your argument). Furthermore, if you want to go personal and throw shade at the Raiders and say that we don’t produce players but the Cowboys do (by inference) then you probably should wait until the Cowboys produce anywhere near that level of talent or maybe inquire about why so many of your players come from NSW or NZ for instance (sorry other fans of the Cowboys for any offence but this guy is taking absolute s*** and needs to be told that)

I’ll give you my perspective; even though you’ll misrepresent it. If my views were only based on me being a Raiders fan, I’d argue for less sides, not more. Secondly, any new team/teams, wherever they are based, will have an impact on every other club. It will make it harder to source talent because there is more demand for it and it will be harder for any side to win it. That’s just common sense.

So no my view isn’t based on some Raiders bias, my view is based on my want for the sport to be bolder, to grow and to think not only of QLD and NSW all the time.

 

[Colk]

Remember this narrative is entirely a figment of your imagination.

No offence to Raiders fans, but the idea put forward by you, that they have forecast the impact a 5th team in QLD will have on there financial well being, and therefore are actively campaigning against it is laughable nonsense.

Of course it is. It is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[The_Wookie]

Wookie said the Raiders made $3m from "rugby league operations". I took his word.

To be fair when i tweeted that out I didnt really look any further into it, but fair enough.

The other problem with the Raiders accounts is that this isnt the overall parent - I just couldnt get reports for Queenbeyan Leagues.

However, this "if its not football generated its not relevant" tangent you run around here is still bloody funny,

Ch9 don't want to cover Raiders games because they have very little market value across the country.

There wouldnt be much in that at all.

2023 Season	Cowboys	Raiders
Members	20,006	23,550
Total Crowd Ave	18,714	15,534
Home Crowd Ave	18,800	15,086
Away Crowd Ave	20,412	16,775
FTA Ave	518,000	467,000
Metro Ave	283,000	252,000
Reg Ave	196,000	182,000
Fox Ave	292,000	288,000
Strm Ave	221,000	219,000
Total Ave	675,000	578,000
* to round 14

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

1. You know what is embarrassing and tiresome? Having every thread polluted by you with the same tropes: NSW has too many sides or it was really unfair that Queensland players were taken from the BRL competition 30 odd years ago et al.

Essentially you need to learn that you can’t change history. History is defined by winners or significant events not by losers or a thousand what ifs. For example annybody arguing for the restoration of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire? Would a Frenchman demand that King Louis not have his head chopped off? You can bitch and moan about it as much as you want but NSW had more money than the QLD competition and their clubs had every right to take QLD’s players if they wanted. They are the facts so get over it.

2. You are probably the most vitriolic and emotive poster on here so it is a little ironic to whinge about other posters doing the same. When other posters correctly point out the above they are called stupid or dumb or ignorant or whatever else. What’s dumb is arguing against history.

3. It’s absolutely risible that you think that the only reason that I and two others are against another Queensland team (I am only arguing against it being the next team as well - you are arguing context remember) is because of some weird argument (that you have made up in your head btw) that we are so worried about the impact that it’ll have on the team that we support.

The only thing you have to justify this position is coincidence that we happen to be against this side and also happen to be Raiders supporters. Oh and the fact that we bought a few great players from QLD in the 1980’s; notwithstanding the fact that most of our rep players (Lazarus, Daley, Clyde, Stuart, Mullins, Furner, Nagas, Jason Croker, Ben Kennedy, Wighton et al) have come from NSW/ACT (although I’ll take that as you conveniently forgetting that for the parameters of your argument). Furthermore, if you want to go personal and throw shade at the Raiders and say that we don’t produce players but the Cowboys do (by inference) then you probably should wait until the Cowboys produce anywhere near that level of talent or maybe inquire about why so many of your players come from NSW or NZ for instance (sorry other fans of the Cowboys for any offence but this guy is taking absolute s*** and needs to be told that)

I’ll give you my perspective; even though you’ll misrepresent it. If my views were only based on me being a Raiders fan, I’d argue for less sides, not more. Secondly, any new team/teams, wherever they are based, will have an impact on every other club. It will make it harder to source talent because there is more demand for it and it will be harder for any side to win it. That’s just common sense.

So no my view isn’t based on some Raiders bias, my view is based on my want for the sport to be bolder, to grow and to think not only of QLD and NSW all the time.

My stance is give the 18th licence to the bid that puts forward the best case for inclusion. I don't give a f**k where it comes from. You're willing to ignore the best bid if it comes from Brisbane. That's biased no matter how you try to dress it up. You can be peo-expansion without being anti-Brisbane.

What pisses me off is the absurd comparisons between a third team in Brisbane and the nine that exist in Sydney. It's just not the same.

You cannot expect BRL fans to accept second-class status behind everyone else when they've done that since 1908.

Three years ago there were people on here telling them to do exactly that before V'landys mentioned Brisbane will be the destination for the 17th licence. They whined when V'landys accepted a traditional BRL club. I remember @The Great Dane saying it should have been a "neutral brand" and suggested it be called the Brisbane Swordfish. He and @mongoose were two of the biggest whingers. I'd take them more seriously if they were willing to sacrifice the Raiders for the sake of expansion. We both know they'll never do that.

 

[The Great Dane]

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.

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.

Why do you think that is?

The ACT swings to the radical left. That segment hates rugby league.

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.

Willows was no better than Bruce Stadium.

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.

Willows was no better than Bruce Stadium.

For 25 years the Cowboys played out of a converted race track that they had to build with their own money via a loan.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There's so much BS in here that it's impossible to address it all.

Firstly, there're 4 professional teams other than the Raiders active in Canberra, and there's a very well developed semi-pro scene here as well, with roughly half a dozen significant semi-pro sides residing here.
It's also as close to a fait accompli as it can be without actually being one that Canberra will have an A-league side within the next couple years, and we're also a reasonable chance of getting an NBL and/or AFL side within the next decade. We also have a much more developed entertainment industry in general. But that's all beside the point, as there's much more to competition in a market than just the presence of the professional teams in it.

Simplifying for the sake of brevity, RL holds a much smaller share of the ACT market than it does of the Townsville or NQ market, and that has a significant impact on the local teams. Put simply, the Raiders have to work harder for their success in most regards, just like it's harder for the Storm in Melbourne than e.g. Broncos or Rabbitoh in QLD and NSW respectively.

BTW, the AFL is by far the largest competitor to RL in the ACT market ATM, and the Giants are significant competition as a result of that. If Canberra got it's own AFL team it'd be as big as, if not slightly bigger than, the Raiders from day one.

The Cowboy's getting strong institutional support has absolutely nothing to do with whatever fanbase they have in SEQ. It's because the Qld government and media A. has more power and reach than the ACT equivalents, and B. is more blindly supportive of RL than the institutions in Canberra. Canberra is also largely overlooked and taken for granted by the NRL compared to North Queensland, and Qld has more institutional power within RL than the ACT as well, which has basically zero.

IDK, or care really, whether or not the Cowboys got more corporate and sponsorship money when they were at their old stadium, but if they did it's largely because of the mechanisms I've already described.

The Raiders signed like 2 players of any significance from the 1985 Souths Magpies team (Meninga and Belcher) and Wayne Bennett a year later. So yeah, not much of a "raid", and another NSWRL team would have eventually signed them if the Raiders hadn't, or they would have ended up at the Broncos with Bennett.

Finally, nobody is death riding Easts, simply saying that a 3rd Brisbane side isn't/shouldn't be a top priority, and you say that Raiders members aren't as committed, I say the Cowboys wouldn't have any members if roles were reversed, at least not with the way they do business at the moment anyway.

 

[The Great Dane]

I remember @The Great Dane saying it should have been a "neutral brand" and suggested it be called the Brisbane Swordfish.

I never suggested that a team should be called the Brisbane Swordfish.

That's such a random thing to make up lol.

He and @mongoose were two of the biggest whingers. I'd take them more seriously if they were willing to sacrifice the Raiders for the sake of expansion. We both know they'll never do that.

The NRL and RL wouldn't benefit from relocating the Raiders, especially not when there're 4/5 clubs in Sydney that are better placed for that if the league was willing to go down that route. So I don't know how we'd go about "sacrificing" the Raiders to expansion even if we wanted to.

You don't really care about expansion anyway, only in growing the number of traditional Qld's sides participating in the NRL.

BTW, the NRL would never genuinely expand if it only gave licenses 'to the bid that puts forward the best case for inclusion' using your standards.

 

[Canard]

The Raiders getting a handful of players from QLD over there 40 years of existence is just such an nonsense in respect of this topic.

Are the Cowboys wrong for signing Hamiso, Luki and Nanai from the Cairns and District RL?

 

[Canard]

You cannot expect BRL fans to accept second-class status behind everyone else when they've done that since 1908.

This is also a figment of your imagination, in 2023 there isn't some huge groundswell of support in Brisbane or QLD that demands that demands that Brisbane must have 3 teams because of some 2nd class status.

 

[mongoose]

My stance is give the 18th licence to the bid that puts forward the best case for inclusion. I don't give a f**k where it comes from. You're willing to ignore the best bid if it comes from Brisbane. That's biased no matter how you try to dress it up. You can be peo-expansion without being anti-Brisbane.

What pisses me off is the absurd comparisons between a third team in Brisbane and the nine that exist in Sydney. It's just not the same.

You cannot expect BRL fans to accept second-class status behind everyone else when they've done that since 1908.

Three years ago there were people on here telling them to do exactly that before V'landys mentioned Brisbane will be the destination for the 17th licence. They whined when V'landys accepted a traditional BRL club. I remember @The Great Dane saying it should have been a "neutral brand" and suggested it be called the Brisbane Swordfish. He and @mongoose were two of the biggest whingers. I'd take them more seriously if they were willing to sacrifice the Raiders for the sake of expansion. We both know they'll never do that.

I'm not that against the Dolphins. My parents live walking distance to Kayo stadium so I'll take advantage of it and go watch them if tickets are available.

 

[The Great Dane]

The Raiders getting a handful of players from QLD over there 40 years of existence is just such an nonsense in respect of this topic.

Are the Cowboys wrong for signing Hamiso, Luki and Nanai from the Cairns and District RL?

A better question is if they were wrong for poaching Taumalolo from NZ as a teenager, or any other player from NSW, NZ, ACT, etc, that they've signed over the years.

 

[Canard]

The point that seems to be missed, is that some of us think that the next expansion should be ambitious and show that the game has a vision to be a truly national sport.

If after 30 years of doing nothing, if all RL expansion amounted to was 3 new teams in SEQ, then that's hardly going to sell the game as anything more then insular and a regional two state sport.

This view is not an attempt at 'death riding' nor some slight on Boomers who long for the days of 5000 blokes sinking cans at Davies Park.

 

[Colk]

My stance is give the 18th licence to the bid that puts forward the best case for inclusion. I don't give a f**k where it comes from. You're willing to ignore the best bid if it comes from Brisbane. That's biased no matter how you try to dress it up. You can be peo-expansion without being anti-Brisbane.

What pisses me off is the absurd comparisons between a third team in Brisbane and the nine that exist in Sydney. It's just not the same.

You cannot expect BRL fans to accept second-class status behind everyone else when they've done that since 1908.

Three years ago there were people on here telling them to do exactly that before V'landys mentioned Brisbane will be the destination for the 17th licence. They whined when V'landys accepted a traditional BRL club. I remember @The Great Dane saying it should have been a "neutral brand" and suggested it be called the Brisbane Swordfish. He and @mongoose were two of the biggest whingers. I'd take them more seriously if they were willing to sacrifice the Raiders for the sake of expansion. We both know they'll never do that.

Really? Hypothetically let’s say that the best bid came from NSW. Would you be in favour of it? Based on your previous posts, I would very much doubt it. Location has some relevance.

I’m also not against Brisbane (whatever that hell that means), I’m just against a side being placed in NSW or QLD as the next one. It is simply the principle of it. It would be an eminently conservative decision and would suggest to me that we have no ambition at all.

How many BRL fans are there? A couple of thousand. Also how old are they? In their 50’s and 60’s. It is now a secondary competition, same as the NSW Cup. I wouldn’t be considering their feelings when making a business decision for the future, same as I wouldn’t be considering the feelings of old Bears or Jets fans. Move on.

Nobody wants their team to die so I don’t really understand your attempts at gotcha. I wouldn’t be against a relocation if it had to happen. In any case, if it happens, it happens and we’ll move on. Also, as a last note, I don’t think a team has to be ‘sacrificed’ for the purposes of expansion. There are a few good areas without a side that would be beneficial - just pick them.