Expansion looming in A-League - The Contrast with the NRL

[Pommy]

They avg around 9k-10k which isnt great but isn’t terrible for Aleague. There is a massive soccer following here, mostly due to the 200k plus poms here. Most don’t support glory, largely due to the owner being a winker and the clubs continued poor form.

I reckon if you created a perth utd, played in a pseudo English kit, promoted it as an English fans club, you’d easily get 15k plus to games. Some rivallary for glory would benefit both clubs as well.

The A league has specifically banned ethnic connotations I believe.

 

[taipan]

How much did the knights and titans sell for? Did the nrl ever release the figures? It’s kind of weird that someone would pay $19mill for an Aleague license but we dont think an nrl license would be worth anything like that?

I have never seen an official figure ,except advised that the figures for both were well under what the press indicated or estimated.
Reason apparently in the Titan's case, the people who bought the club,have a long history in the area and association with the club.Even though another individual offered more, he did not have the history or experience.
Knights, my understanding ,the West Group got it for less (correct me if I'm wrong) so they will spend on grassroots. and have a long term commitment to invest further within the club
Any case in both instances far less than $19m or even $15m.

My gut feeling under $10m.

 

[The Great Dane]

How much did the knights and titans sell for? Did the nrl ever release the figures?

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that the actual figures were never released to the public.

But from memory the Knights license was never put out to tender, Wests were offered the license then after some back and fourth terms were agreed. And as Taipan says the Titans license wasn't sold to the highest bidder anyway, so even if we knew the actual number that was payed for the license we still wouldn't know the actual value of the license cause from memory there were multiple bids for it that were offering more then what it was actually sold for.

It’s kind of weird that someone would pay $19mill for an Aleague license but we dont think an nrl license would be worth anything like that?

I reckon that if like the FFA the NRL was primarily looking to get the most money possible from selling licenses that they could easily surpass the numbers that the FFA got, but I don't think that it really matters cause in my opinion I'd much prefer that the NRL picked the best bids rather than the ones willing to part with the most money for the license, cause the best bids and the ones who are willing to spend the most on the license aren't necessarily the same bids...

The FFA has been bitten by this before multiple times (GC united and Tinkler buying the Jets come to mind), but does anybody remember the Western Sydney Rovers? Roughly a decade ago they got the license over the Canberra bid of the time, even though by basically every metric that the FFA had publicly claimed to be measuring the Canberra bid was better, except for how much they were offering for the license and the fact that the Rovers were from Western Sydney and everybody and their dog knew that the FFA were targeting another club in Sydney (and specifically in WS or South Sydney), anyway the Rovers got the license but before they could even enter the league a year or so later they went broke and handed the license back to the FFA, then the FFA set up the Wanders to fill the void left by the Rovers. So yeah I definitely wouldn't want the NRL to copy the FFA's way of choosing the best bids...

 

[The Great Dane]

The A league has specifically banned ethnic connotations I believe.

I don't know weather it's an official rule or just an unspoken rule, but yeah to distance themselves from the bad old days of the NSL with it's ethnic clubs the FFA have effectively banned ethnic clubs.

It's why South Melbourne have effectively been black listed by the FFA and their bids for a license are always ignored.