Expansion, where and when??

[elevenstraight]

As a St. GI fan (since the embryonic stage of life), it is my duty to hate the sharks. But I reckon as far as them relocating and dying and whatever, They are sitting in a pretty good situation with the development getting approval etc...

They have a massive opportunity to become a force (ouch, that hurt) in the comp re support, members, sponsorship and $$ in general but it wont happen if they remain shire centric. Even the development wont help (any investors yet sharks fans?? its been months since the approval)

heres how I see it for them to be a hit:

* The name "sharks" is a beaut marketing tool, all they have to do is drop the Cronulla - Sutherland and replace it with something like "East Coast". Get others outside the bubble interested.

*Muscle in on the Sunshine Coast or maybe even a little further up. Take the whole Admin/operations up there as a partial relocation to win over the locals.

Its really the best of both worlds, all the benefits of relocation, more support etc and still keeping there Id in their heartland.

 

[Bro Bear]

I am going from the media ( Should know better) that the Storm have lost 6 million per season for the last few years. I am not begrudging them but the state is an AFL one and they are up against alot of competition from the VIC AFL sides. Channel Nine do them no favours and it is good to see after 10 seasons all their lower grades sides will be based from Melbourne in 2010. Lets hope the game continues to grow in Victoria and at a faster rate. In ten years they maybe pushing for a second team in the top tier of rugby league in Australia.

Few people are pushing for a team in Adelaide. I doubt a team based there fulltime would be successfull.

A second QLD team preferably from Brisbane West will be a hit. Many Brisbane people still do not like the Broncos after the demise of BRL sides Valleys, Brothers and Wests. The western area is a fast growing area and will be a successfull area to have a NRL team.

Vice versa the Central Coast are dying for a team of thier own which will be the Central Coast Bears.

 

[siv]

So I see you aren't a big fan of the Roosters or the Sharks?

This is what all these "expansion" threads come down to. "As long as it doesn't affect my team, move this mob, cut this team.......

Feej - Souths have already absorbed the Roosters at the junior level

So they are ready to align with a region to develop a junior base

Cronulla fall into the same issue now they are surrounded by St Merge

A alignment with Adelaide is a win win situation, even if only 2 games

 

[Smiley]

Papua New Guinea Hunters have been unsuccessful in there attempt to gain entry into the 2010 QLD Cup competition.

 

[Perth Red]

PR, I fully appreciate your passion and desire for Perth's return to the NRL. I'd like it too.

My wife's from Perth so I go there once a year and am amazed how many rectangular fields you have there. So there's obviously some interest.

There's no way in hell that Storm could've taken off/survived without News Ltd's considerable and long term investment. Given your city has two much followed AFL sides, I can't seeing you getting a team without someone being prepared put up the cash to fund it for the long hall. The NRL has nothing and Bondy is quiet these days.

Thing is that Perth supports many prof teams outside of AFL already, we supposedly have one, if not, the biggest game in the country yet you don't think it is big enough to go where every other code has gone before?

We will be starting from where Storm have taken 10+ years to get to in terms of popularity of the game, fan base, jnrs etc

Way I see it we would need, at most, $2mill tops to subsidise us in the first few years, if that. Wether that comes from a sugar daddy, a TV company or the NRL is to be seen. The long term gain is certainly worth the short term pain.

 

[Jankuloski]

Papua New Guinea Hunters have been unsuccessful in there attempt to gain entry into the 2010 QLD Cup competition.

link?

 

[Smiley]

2010 Queensland Cup Draw

Twelve teams – Burleigh, Central, Easts, Ipswich, Mackay, Norths, Redcliffe, Souths Logan, Sunshine Coast, Tweed Heads, Wynnum Manly and the Northern Pride – will again be striving for premiership glory in September.

The Papua New Guinea Hunters applied for entry into the Competition but the submission failed to meet all criteria.

The League is hopeful that the PNG Hunters will successfully re-apply for entry in 2011.

link

Here you go.

 

[Lockyer4President!]

PR, I fully appreciate your passion and desire for Perth's return to the NRL. I'd like it too.

My wife's from Perth so I go there once a year and am amazed how many rectangular fields you have there. So there's obviously some interest.

There's no way in hell that Storm could've taken off/survived without News Ltd's considerable and long term investment. Given your city has two much followed AFL sides, I can't seeing you getting a team without someone being prepared put up the cash to fund it for the long hall. The NRL has nothing and Bondy is quiet these days.

Perth has 1.5M people divided between 2 AFL teams (and a S14 team for half a season).
Melbourne has 4M people divided between 10 AFL teams.


Melbourne was by far the hardest market in Australia to crack, and it has only taken the Storm 10 years to do so. Perth will be nowhere near as hard.

 

[matt]

I have never read so much bullsh*t in one thread,Can i have my 10 minutes back.

And BTW to all the news LTD employees that posted.CROCK OF sh*t.

 

[Loudstrat]

we should open up teams in PNG, Wellington and christchurch, perth and adelaide in the next 10 years. cull half the sydney teams while your at it so our NRL will be the international comp

It already is an international comp you twat. :roll:

League in SA is virtually non extistent. The game is slowly growing in VIC after ten years with the Storm. But they are losing huge amounts of money - why because most of the business world in VIC supports AFL and Channel Nine is an useless channel to broadcast the NRL in VIC.

SA would be a death wish. A current NRL club could play 3 games there to see if it would be worthwell. I have serious doubts.

Totally agree. Cronulla's Adelaide experiment was a dismal failure - Parkes has provided bigger crowds FFS

The game needs to go to where the fans are.

Halleluyah! This is EXACTLY the point!

 

[Lockyer4President!]

Here you go.

Is the 'hoping they re-apply' comment just an off the cuff comment or does the QRL want them in the comp I wonder?

PNG and T'ba in a 14 team QLD Cup, now that'd be nice. Be nice if they could find a place for Wests in there too.

 

[Smiley]

I can't see why the QRL wouldn't want PNG, the government is going to back them money wise.

QLD Cup is almost perfect in terms of placement of teams. I'd like T'ba to return and in the future a Darwin based team.

I've heard that Mt. Isa want a team as well.

 

[Fraser]

It already is an international comp you twat. :roll:

Yeah, 1 NZ team makes it a huge international comp loudtwat

time is ripe to cull some sydney teams. this isnt a sydney comp anymore, im ashamed to say the city im from is destroying the game with too many teams. move roosters to wellington, sharks to adelaide and tigers to Perth (keep the Wests Tigers name though).. possibly the seagles to sunny coast and panthers to christchurch. set up a brand new PNG team

national and international game, AFL will be begging to be in our position. the above format would mean teams in 15 cities in 3 countries, everyone will flock to watch our great game

 

[Loudstrat]

No one said anything about a HUGE international comp. You stated that the current NRL had to be changed dramatically before it could be international.

And moving half of Sydney to unsustainable places will suddenly make people flock to the game to see the same players we have currently? Especially when you piss off half of Sydney - which is bigger than Adelaide and Christchurch combined?

Well thought out brainless. :roll:

 

[matt]

it's hip for all these News ltd fanbois to state big business like phrases such as ...Expand,move forward,synergy to conceal their failings.

 

[Noa]

I keep saying it but Perth is a must.

 

[bobbis]

I wouldn't cut any Sydney teams or force any Sydney teams to move. While there are too many of them you'll piss too many people off. What I would do is not let the game be held back by the lowest revenue teams, if Sydney clubs financially can't keep pace offer them inducements to move and or let them die by natural selection.

1st off in about 5 years I'd introduce Perth, 4th largest Aus/NZ market, largest market with no RL team and Brisbane 2, probably based in West Brisbane though the NRL should conduct serious research to find out where in the regoin demand is strongest and whether a traditional QRL team's image might help the new team.

Phased 5-10 years later CC the next largest RL heartland area with no team and following this Adelaide would be introduced, 5th largest market.

5-10 years later a Sunshine Coast team, a rapidly growing city in RL heatland and a 2nd NZ team would be introduced, I'd go for Wellington over Chirstchurch.

Potentially after this Chirstchurch, Brisbane 3 and PNG would be other entrants. Confining yourself to a set number ei 16 or 18 teams means either killing expansion or killing traditional Sydney clubs either way you damage the game. I'd also like to see a 2nd division through which expansion teams would establish themselves and traditional QRL and NSWRL clubs which aren't big enough play. Eventually if successful this 2nd division could feature promotion/ relegation.

 

[jasonstevenswedgie]

When: 2012 in conjuction with the new tv deal (game shown in primetime nationally)
Where: Teams in Perth and SE Queensland
Adelaide 6 games, Christchurch 3 Games, Wellington 3 Games (all against the warriors) Central coast 6 Games (mainly against the knights) 3 games Sunshine Coast.
Why: As of today Australia is a country of around 22m people by 2035 some predictions have us at 35m people. We currently reach 11.4m on a regular basis on tv( i do not count melbourne as it is not shown till after midnight) this equates to just over 50% of our population.
Being live around the country opens up new opportunites for sponsorships which help increase revenue for the game and clubs.
If you use the figure of 35m and a figure of 1% participation rate, you would have average home crowds of 25k in perth and 18k in adelaide and increase our market by some 6 million customers. Both of these cities are currently at or not far below this 1% participation rate. So with 20-25 years worth of having a team in these cities you would envisage some growth on these figures.
The central coast has a current particpation rate of 4.3% for the life time of the stadium there (avg 13k) This option delivers little in the way of potentional new customers and no new customers to existing sponsors as the game is already televised there. It could be used as a balance for expansion into Adelaide in around 2016-17.
For us to expand the amount of dollars we get from outside sources eg television and sponsors we need to reach more people. Do you think Gerry Harvey sat back after he had one successful store and said "oh thats nice, im comfortable here in my one shop in sydney" The more potential customers you have the more money you make, as of today half of australia are potential customers waiting to experience our wonderful product.
One are of expansion that is not talked up enough is our overseas tv rights, other countries dont have to play the game to like it but the more people that watch out game means the more we can charge for our sponsorship.
Global companies will be more interested in sponsorships as we reach more of there markets. Hopefully we can continue our deal with spike and get better deals in europe. We have one of the best products in the world, now lets act like we do.

 

[Slackboy72]

I keep saying it but Perth is a must.

I'd like to hear a reasoned rationale as to why it's a must.

The arguments for the 'NRL' to expand beyond it's fan base of QLD/NSW I've seen here are as follows:
- Not enough talent in NSW/QLD and we need more juniors.
- Need to expand territory to get more money from TV revenue.
- The 'N' in 'NRL' stands for 'National'.
- We need to 'stick it' to AFL and ARU.

I would say only the idea of more TV revenue has any shred of credibility yet it's still highly dubious if the Storm or a team in Perth would add any significant positive value to any future TV contract. This is in consideration that the Storm are hardly ever shown on TV in Melbourne before the graveyard shift and Perth is relatively small and a predominantly AFL market anyway.

In fact it's dubious as to what value teams outside of Sydney and SE QLD add to the product of NRL. And lets not beat around the bush, the NRL is a product that is predominantly sold to NSW and QLD where the main source of revenue will have to come indirectly from the advertising markets of Sydney and Brisbane (i.e the value of NRL to TV networks comes from the value of advertising time they can sell). If you disagree with this please give an explanation of why.

Lets just do some sums here (I'll be using the following figures http://www.freetv.com.au/media/News-Media_Release/PR12_Revenue_figures-Jan-Jun_09.pdf):

Sydney and Brisbane combined have 54% of the Metro TV advertising market.
Regional NSW and QLD have 68% of Regional market.

Perth has 10.5% of the Metro market and Regional WA has 5.2% of the regional market.
Together they get less advertising revenue than regional NSW.



Okay now we are clear on where the value lies in terms of getting money into the game which is what we are about here. The game needs to pay its own way and turn a profit for clubs as they are to survive.

So how many teams?

Well one of the things we saw with twenty teams was that we were stretching the talent a bit thin. Not just in players but also in coaching staff and officials. The quality of games suffered and the value to spectators, viewers and advertisers diminished.

I personally think that 18 teams is the limit but that relies on us bringing in talent from NZ and the UK. That requires profitability first and only two clubs are profitable now so lets think about 16. If we look at where the revenue is coming from QLD provides 34% of that.

That 34% is represented by 19% of the current teams. Why?
Brisbane alone should account for 4 clubs yet the current administration has let the Broncos cherry pick that market.
Meanwhile QLD has shown it has shown it has the appetite, money and most importantly culture to support league at the highest level with the massively succesful introduction of the Titans. Has anyone seen the ridiculously exorbitant cost of tickets at the Broncos and Titans? Yet they are the two best supported clubs through the gates.

So my question is why should we introduce clubs whose value to the end product is small and questionable in the first place when we have an under-represented heartland where league is flourishing?

 

[jasonstevenswedgie]

I would say only the idea of more TV revenue has any shred of credibility yet it's still highly dubious if the Storm or a team in Perth would add any significant positive value to any future TV contract. This is in consideration that the Storm are hardly ever shown on TV in Melbourne before the graveyard shift and Perth is relatively small and a predominantly AFL market anyway.

In fact it's dubious as to what value teams outside of Sydney and SE QLD add to the product of NRL. And lets not beat around the bush, the NRL is a product that is predominantly sold to NSW and QLD where the main source of revenue will have to come indirectly from the advertising markets of Sydney and Brisbane (i.e the value of NRL to TV networks comes from the value of advertising time they can sell). If you disagree with this please give an explanation of why.

im sure the same thing was once said about afl and their expansion into sydney and brisbane