David Gallop says second NRL team in south-east Queensland on cards
Article from: The Courier-Mail
By Paul Malone
April 04, 2009 12:00am
RUGBY league boss David Gallop has made his strongest tip yet on the NRL's expansion plans, saying a team in the growing Ipswich-Logan corridor is "on the cards".
The success of Queensland's NRL teams as the competition's crowd-drawing heartland leaves a team to Brisbane city's southwest and south well placed to win a prized licence also being chased by contenders including NSW's Central Coast, New Zealand and Perth.
Gallop, the NRL chief executive, this week calculatedly fanned the fires of speculation of expansion when the AFL was able to finally commit to sustained multimillion-dollar investment in a Gold Coast team.
Elsewhere, the AFL is all but married to the idea of going next to Sydney's west with an 18th team, possibly in 2012, while determined Tasmanians have built an alternative case for that licence limited by population numbers.
Australian rugby union is expected to take its 15th Super team to Melbourne, content in being the biggest player among Australia's football competitions not to have a team on the Gold Coast.
And all the machinations in the past 12 months, including the AFL's conditional invitation to a Gold Coast team to join in 2011, are aimed at providing extra product to increase, or at least consolidate, television revenue in challenging financial times.
An 18-team AFL competition would critically provide one more game a round, nine, for its television rights deal.
In July 2007, The Courier-Mail revealed that Gallop was eyeing a team to Brisbane's west as ideal expansion territory, giving Queensland a fourth NRL team.
Gallop then favoured an expansion window to open within 10 years, but not within five years - that is, by 2012.
Asked yesterday if an NRL team from the Ipswich-Logan corridor was more important to league now the AFL had charged into the Gold Coast, Gallop said: "We have said for some time that the corridor west of Brisbane is an area we are very interested in.
"We got a team up at the Gold Coast (in 2007) before the other codes and the same sort of strategic move in the area you suggested has got to be on the cards."
A team there would stake out another growth area for league while admittedly preaching to the converted, rather than Perth or Wellington.
The NRL would most likely expand from 16 to 18 clubs, to avoid a weekly bye, in time for the NRL's new television deal, which is up for grabs for the 2013 season.
"Our current project is looking at the optimal competition structure to maximise our rights deal. I would be surprised if the strength of the game in southeast Queensland doesn't come out as a major plus for the game," Gallop said.
Gallop's words feed ambitions which have been there for years. A Logan City bid to enter Australia's main league competition was first tabled to the ARL in 1993, even before the Crushers' short-lived life.
A third team in southeast Queensland could give Suncorp Stadium an NRL game every weekend of the NRL season, unless the management of a new Ipswich-Logan team could exert the pressure to persuade Queensland's stadium-loving politicians to stump up millions for yet another venue on their own patch.
Asked this week by Big League about a 17th team, the first area Gallop named was Gosford, on NSW's Central Coast.
The Central Coast's cause has been championed for years by a Sydney media which could not find Ipswich or Logan with a cut lunch and a compass, nor care. It has kept on a low flame the issue of a relocation by a Sydney team in now more trying economic conditions.
"Any relocation would have to be one where the club made a full blown commitment to the area, with players living and training there, with a plan to engage the local community. Our offer is still on the table for Gosford, in particular," Gallop told The Courier-Mail.
The Sunshine Coast, which fields a Queensland Cup team helped by the placements of reserve players from NRL premiers Manly, is an area with similar attractions and limitations to the NSW Central Coast, but does not have a suitable stadium already.
"The Sunshine Coast can only get bigger with families who love our game so a team located there is also a possibility down the track," Gallop said.
Of Australia's four football codes, rugby union is next to sign a new television rights deal. The Super 14 competition's deal expires at the end of next year, with the AFL's $780 million, five-year television agreement ending in 2011. Football Australia's contract with Fox Sports is until 2013.
Two extra NRL teams would give Gallop and his board more product with which to improve on the current television deal, worth a reported $500 million over six years.
AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan said this week he would like to think the AFL's next set of broadcast rights would net a billion dollars.
"We certainly think they are worth significantly more than we are currently receiving," McLachlan told Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper.
