Does expansion affect the closeness of the competition?

[docbrown]

Just some interesting statistics to mull over.

The top 7 teams are within 2 points of each other. 1 win or loss and (based on other teams results) they can end up anywhere from 1st to 10th. There are 13 teams within 1 win of the Top 8 and 15 teams within 2. That's a close competition.

But also consider this: there are 10 points - 5 wins - separating 1st and 17th.

Now go back to 2000 & 2001 when the NRL was a 14 team competition. This is the kind of competition that anti-expansionists would like to have and would argue was more competitive. But was it?

Round 11 2001: 12 points - 6 wins - between 1st and 14th.
Round 11 2000: 14 points - 7 wins - between 1st and 14th.

So the margin between 1st and 17th in 2023 (5 wins) is actually smaller than what it was between 1st & 14th (6 & 7 wins) during the 14-team competition.

I'd argue that expansion has not seriously impacted the closeness of the competition. We're closer today to the 'any given Sunday' concept than what we were under the 14 team competition.

 

[firechild]

I'd argue that there are more factors than just number of teams to consider here. It wasn't long ago that we had an incredibly lopsided competition with blowouts across most games each weekend and a chasm between the top and bottom teams. To suggest that part of the fix was adding the Dolphins would be completely naïve. Based on a sample size of 1 (over only 11 rounds), its a fair but flawed conclusion.

 

[some11]

NRL adjusting the 6 again rules and teams adapting to it have more to do with it.

2020 & 2021 were basically touch football for some teams.

 

[docbrown]

I'd argue that there are more factors than just number of teams to consider here. It wasn't long ago that we had an incredibly lopsided competition with blowouts across most games each weekend and a chasm between the top and bottom teams. To suggest that part of the fix was adding the Dolphins would be completely naïve. Based on a sample size of 1 (over only 11 rounds), its a fair but flawed conclusion.

I'm not saying there aren't other factors and I didn't say that adding the Dolphins fixed those problems - that's a strawman argument.

I am saying it hasn't caused any problems, which is what others who are anti-expansion have claimed would happen - that expansion would hurt the closeness of the competition.

11 rounds in is plenty of time to see how the quality of the clubs has separated. I'm happy to revisit this at the end of the season too. My bet is it will still be a closer competition than it was in 2000 & 2001.

 

[docbrown]

NRL adjusting the 6 again rules and teams adapting to it have more to do with it.

2020 & 2021 were basically touch football for some teams.

I agree. My argument would be that culling teams will do nothing to help the closeness of the competition. What's actually important is having the right set of rules.

 

[docbrown]

I have presented data that shows that you can have a close competition and expansion at the same time.

I challenge anyone who is in favour of culling teams to present your data that proves that culling teams improves the closeness of the competition. All I have seen on this front is subjective opinions and no hard data.

 

[Pumpkin]

My issue with expansion is not to do with closeness of the competition, but the dilution of the talent pool. I don't think there's enough quality players to fill more and more teams, which will lead to lower quality matches.

 

[firechild]

I'm not saying there aren't other factors and I didn't say that adding the Dolphins fixed those problems - that's a strawman argument.

I am saying it hasn't caused any problems, which is what others who are anti-expansion have claimed would happen - that expansion would hurt the closeness of the competition.

11 rounds in is plenty of time to see how the quality of the clubs has separated. I'm happy to revisit this at the end of the season too. My bet is it will still be a closer competition than it was in 2000 & 2001.

At the end of the season, the sample size remains at 1. I'm not saying that you're conclusion is wrong, I'm simply saying that we don't have any useable data to make any useful conclusions either way. Just because people make bad arguments based on assumptions doesn't mean they can be countered by bad arguments based on lack of data. You've presented data around 3 seasons, without any context of the normal range of variance between teams over a useable set of data (e.g. over 20-30 years). What you have presented is nothing more than an anecdote, i.e. an example of something happening once, to support a position. Honestly, I've never seen any argument that more teams reduce the closeness of the competition, the more prevailing argument is that more teams mean more talent spread and therefore reduced quality. It's a statement that cannot be quantified but makes sense at first glance but ignores the fact that it creates more opportunities and positions for full time players.

 

[docbrown]

At the end of the season, the sample size remains at 1. I'm not saying that you're conclusion is wrong, I'm simply saying that we don't have any useable data to make any useful conclusions either way. Just because people make bad arguments based on assumptions doesn't mean they can be countered by bad arguments based on lack of data. You've presented data around 3 seasons, without any context of the normal range of variance between teams over a useable set of data (e.g. over 20-30 years). What you have presented is nothing more than an anecdote, i.e. an example of something happening once, to support a position. Honestly, I've never seen any argument that more teams reduce the closeness of the competition, the more prevailing argument is that more teams mean more talent spread and therefore reduced quality. It's a statement that cannot be quantified but makes sense at first glance but ignores the fact that it creates more opportunities and positions for full time players.

I agree that a larger data set presents for a stronger argument. Nobody would argue against that. But we don't have 20 seasons of 14 teams vs 20 seasons of 17 team data. We have what we have and anything before 2000 starts to become skewed by the Super League war. But any data is better than no data, which is all the anti-expansionists have i.e. "more teams bad because... um...".

However, this is not anecdotal data at all. I didn't know what the results would be when I looked it up. I just presented what I found. I compared a few other rounds in these seasons and the result was the same. The reason for picking those seasons is that they represent the lowest (14 teams) and biggest (17 teams) sizes of the modern competition. 14 teams was always the goal of the NRL and close to Super League's goal.

If the assertion - that more teams always means that the competition isn't as close - were always true, you would have seen that be fulfilled already after only just a few rounds. But it hasn't, so it's not always true. There are other, more important factors at play.

As for no one making the argument about expansion vs closeness of the competition, Matty Johns made it again on his show the other day. That's what the 'any given Sunday' line is in reference too because he said by culling teams more teams could win on any given Sunday. But clearly, you don't have to cull teams to achieve that. We're achieve that now with 17 teams.

As for quality of the competition, I think the strongest argument for that is attendance and ratings. If something is poor quality, fewer people watch and pay money for it. I'd argue on those metrics, the quality of the NRL has been unaffected due to expansion.

 

[Perth Red]

Dolphins raping the Storm of their pack has certainly brought them back to the rest of the teams!
Its one of those unanswerable questions. More teams means more opportunities for players to make 1st grade. More development pathways and more investment in talent creation.
The first few years of a team coming in is where the pain for to other clubs is felt and the NRL could do something about that if it chose to but it refuses to do so, so the other teams lose talent to furnish the new club.

I always consider origin in this argument. In theory its a two team comp made up of the many of the best players in league. By rights every game should be close and every series tight with no domination. But as we see thats not the case which suggests theres a lot more to winning and losing than just the talent available. Bennet has proven this with the Dolphins in their first year and a pretty avg squad.

 

[nko11]

I don't really buy the lack of talent argument against expansion. It definitely makes sense in terms of the AFL. Where most of their sources of players are at saturation (apart from NSW and QLD, which is why they're throwing so much money into junior development here). The NRL has many sources to find talent outside of the competition. Be that Super League, Rugby 7's, Union Juniors or untapped bases - for example Papua New Guinea, realistically with its population and saturation of Rugby League there should be 40+ PNG players in the NRL, just needs a bit more funding (no where near what the AFL spends in NSW and QLD).

 

[yakstorm]

Usually one of the biggest arguments against expansion is what happened to the quality of the competition between 95 - 98 where I think most can agree that there were some very weak teams and players who were either too young or too old for the premier competition.

That window, and the years leading up to it saw some ridiculous expansion in a very short window, with the Knights, Seagulls and Broncos added in 88, Cowboys, Warriors, Reds and Crushers in 95 and then Rams, Mariners in 97. Adding 9 teams in just 10 seasons would always dilute the player base.

Taking out that window most of the other times expansion has occurred it has had a minimal impact on the overall competition. When the Titans joined in 07, the competition was very similar to what was seen in 06, with the Storm still dominating, however there were actually more teams in the running for the top 8 coming into the final round.

Even Souths re-joining back in 02, didn't drastically change things for the competition overall, even though they were arguably an 'easy beat'

 

[firechild]

I agree that a larger data set presents for a stronger argument. Nobody would argue against that. But we don't have 20 seasons of 14 teams vs 20 seasons of 17 team data. We have what we have and anything before 2000 starts to become skewed by the Super League war. But any data is better than no data, which is all the anti-expansionists have i.e. "more teams bad because... um...".

However, this is not anecdotal data at all. I didn't know what the results would be when I looked it up. I just presented what I found. I compared a few other rounds in these seasons and the result was the same. The reason for picking those seasons is that they represent the lowest (14 teams) and biggest (17 teams) sizes of the modern competition. 14 teams was always the goal of the NRL and close to Super League's goal.

There is no strength to the argument at all. Rule changes have arguably had much more impact on the closeness of the competition, even just accounting for the last few seasons. You've excluded pre-200 where there was 20 teams because of other factors but you ignore that there are other factors between the years you have resented data for. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying your data is completely invalid and no conclusion can be made.

If the assertion - that more teams always means that the competition isn't as close - were always true, you would have seen that be fulfilled already after only just a few rounds. But it hasn't, so it's not always true. There are other, more important factors at play.

But that's not the assertion, you posted about the effect on the closeness of the competition. It could have an effect on the closeness of the competition without always making the competition closer.

As for no one making the argument about expansion vs closeness of the competition, Matty Johns made it again on his show the other day. That's what the 'any given Sunday' line is in reference too because he said by culling teams more teams could win on any given Sunday. But clearly, you don't have to cull teams to achieve that. We're achieve that now with 17 teams.

As for quality of the competition, I think the strongest argument for that is attendance and ratings. If something is poor quality, fewer people watch and pay money for it. I'd argue on those metrics, the quality of the NRL has been unaffected due to expansion.

I said I hadn't heard the argument, not that it hasn't been made. If you want to find stupid ideas, listening to Matty Johns is a fantastic starting point.

I'd agree with the last point. I think more games and more viewers can only be considered a good thing.

 

[Perth Red]

Thats the other point. Tv revenue has become such a major piece of the games total revenue, and content drives up price, that a change in quality, arguable as it is, may still be acceptable in order to realise more revenue. NRL is in a very strong position with numerous genuine expansion options on the table that it would be a great shame to hold the games growth back due to an unmeasurable hypothesis like player talent.

What NRL needs to do is have a long term expansion strategy alongside a long term player development strategy. Wishful thinking for a game that goes from year to year making decisions on the hop I know!

If thered been genuine reasonable investment in the grassroots in WA for the last ten years since expansion began to be talked about we would be producing much more talent and a Perth NRL team would be much better placed to enter without draining the existing talent pool.

 

[docbrown]

I don't really buy the lack of talent argument against expansion. It definitely makes sense in terms of the AFL. Where most of their sources of players are at saturation (apart from NSW and QLD, which is why they're throwing so much money into junior development here). The NRL has many sources to find talent outside of the competition. Be that Super League, Rugby 7's, Union Juniors or untapped bases - for example Papua New Guinea, realistically with its population and saturation of Rugby League there should be 40+ PNG players in the NRL, just needs a bit more funding (no where near what the AFL spends in NSW and QLD).

Neither do I. Globally speaking, we're really only competing with French Top 14 for league/union playing talent. NRL clubs can outbid everybody else if they so choose. That player pool is essentially over a dozen countries.

 

[Éamonn an Chnoic]

My issue with expansion is not to do with closeness of the competition, but the dilution of the talent pool. I don't think there's enough quality players to fill more and more teams, which will lead to lower quality matches.

The question here is how do you define “quality” of a match?

Closeness of the game? Entertainment for the crowd? Physical power of the athletes?

Which one are we losing?

 

[docbrown]

There is no strength to the argument at all. Rule changes have arguably had much more impact on the closeness of the competition, even just accounting for the last few seasons. You've excluded pre-200 where there was 20 teams because of other factors but you ignore that there are other factors between the years you have resented data for. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying your data is completely invalid and no conclusion can be made.



But that's not the assertion, you posted about the effect on the closeness of the competition. It could have an effect on the closeness of the competition without always making the competition closer.



I said I hadn't heard the argument, not that it hasn't been made. If you want to find stupid ideas, listening to Matty Johns is a fantastic starting point.

I'd agree with the last point. I think more games and more viewers can only be considered a good thing.

I haven't ignored the other factors at all. I've agreed multiple times that rule changes are the biggest factor. I don't know how many more times I need to repeat it before you let this one go. As for not making conclusions, you do you. I've said my peace on it.

Regarding the closeness of the competition, you seem to keep arguing that I'm saying expansion will make it closer. I'm not. I said "I'd argue that expansion has not seriously impacted the closeness of the competition. We're closer today to the 'any given Sunday' concept than what we were under the 14 team competition." And I stand by that. Any impact expansion might have had has been mitigated by the rule changes.

I'm only saying that expansion hasn't affected the closeness in a negative way. Not that it guarantees a closeness in the competition. So please, stop pretending otherwise. Let's leave it at that.

 

[firechild]

I haven't ignored the other factors at all. I've agreed multiple times that rule changes are the biggest factor. I don't know how many more times I need to repeat it before you let this one go. As for not making conclusions, you do you. I've said my peace on it.

Regarding the closeness of the competition, you seem to keep arguing that I'm saying expansion will make it closer. I'm not. I said "I'd argue that expansion has not seriously impacted the closeness of the competition. We're closer today to the 'any given Sunday' concept than what we were under the 14 team competition." And I stand by that. Any impact expansion might have had has been mitigated by the rule changes.

I'm only saying that expansion hasn't affected the closeness in a negative way. Not that it guarantees a closeness in the competition. So please, stop pretending otherwise. Let's leave it at that.

Lets just say that nobody would put you within a million miles of data analytics.

 

[docbrown]

Lets just say that nobody would put you within a million miles of data analytics.

You say you can't make judgements based on small data sets yet you just made this stupid broad sweeping statement about me based on a couple of posts. It's stupid because I literally started out in market research analytics lol.

 

[Yosemite Sam]

My issue with expansion is not to do with closeness of the competition, but the dilution of the talent pool. I don't think there's enough quality players to fill more and more teams, which will lead to lower quality matches.

There is plenty of talent to fill 20 teams. Poor roster management does not equal a shortage of talent.

Even so you could easily argue a low quality Rugby League match is still very entertaining - the Dragons Tigers match in Magic Round is a good example of this.

This is something you can't say about AFL. A low quality match is an absolute dogs breakfast. Heck most times I can't even tell the difference between a 'good' match and a terrible one.