It'd alienate bears fans? Anyone realistic must understand there's literally no other route back. I think most bears fans that haven't moved on to other clubs would be fine with it.
Unfortunately most old footy fans aren't rational. They are completely emotional beings when it comes to their footy clubs.
In my experience most old Bears fans who haven't moved on by now never will, and unless it's the Bears as they understand them (as in the NS or CC Bears) then most will consider them to not be the Bears but a cheap imitation! And yes there is a contingent of NS Bears fans who consider even the idea of Bears playing home games in Sydney outside of NSO as sacrilege, and another that consider anything outside of North Sydney or the CC to be sacrilege and so on, I imagine that once you get to the idea of the Bears being based on the GC that the numbers willing to keep supporting would be pretty thin.
A doubling of the fan base is easily achievable given the low numbers the have currently. Not just talking crowds here but the general wider support.
I don't see any evidence to suggest that a doubling of fans is reasonable, and the only fans that really matter are the paying customers, the people that if pressed say they are a Titans fan, or whoevers fan, but haven't watched a game or attended a game in 5 years, and don't purchase merchandise, etc, add nothing to the club in real terms so we really shouldn't worry about them when it comes to discussions like these.
I can understand some titans fans could be alienated but I think that can be managed with good PR. I mean we're talking a 10 year old club, how deep do the roots really go?
It took me (and most of the other footy fans in Canberra/Queanbeyan of the time) less then ten year to become a rusted on Raiders fan, it takes most kids much less then ten years to build a connection with a footy club once they've started the process.
The problem that the Titans have had is that they have consistently failed to inspire that connection with their target audience, manly due to terrible management, which doesn't seem to be a problem with that the Titans have anymore, or at least for the moment as every club goes through those periods of utter hopelessness from time to time.
BTW, I hope you have a bloody good PR team in mind to spin 'the NS Bears and proceeding with a hostile takeover of your club' into a good thing.
It'll significantly increase from where there away support in Sydney is at the moment. I mean I'd guess most GC games in Sydney would bring in a very small number of people, I could easily see this increase by a large margin.
Frankly no club should be reliant on away support to survive, so I don't really care that the Bears will grow the GC away support from a figure in the Hundreds to a few thousand, so I grant you that they'll grow away support in Sydney, however they'll probably drop it in Brisbane and Townsville, but it's a moot point because it shouldn't even factor into the discussion.
Arguably the brand has a connection with the Gold Coast already. There has been a professional club based there called the bears.
Lol, I don't think there's a single Norths or Burleigh fan that would agree with you, but ok.
I grant you it's subjective but I'd wager general rugby league fans would consider 'bears' a stronger brand than 'titans'
To me the Gold Coast is screaming out for tradition not Mickey Mouse monikers. Giants, chargers & Titans all have shared a plastic image in my view. Seagulls was just plain shite.
You know back when the Raiders, Steelers, and Brisbane started people used to say that they were soulless too, I'm sure that the older fans of the time used to say similar things about the Panthers back in the day as well, nobody would say that now because all the brands have established themselves in the market and have built up lore and history around themselves.
The Giants, Seagulls, Gladiators, and Chargers were never given the chance to establish themselves, because those brands were all punted before they had enough time to do that, and the constant poor performance of the Titans on and of the field (particularly off it) has made it impossible for them to establish themselves.
I've thought for a few years now that the Titans brand is so synonymous with failure and misfortune that the Titans might be better dumping the brand and going with a 'we're returning to our roots' marketing scheme and going back to the Chargers brand.
The Chargers because Giants is taken in the Australian sporting market now, the Seagulls brand is owned by another club (ironically I think the Bears own it now), nobody remembers the Gladiators, so that leaves the Chargers who at this point have an interesting little story to tell that could be sold, it's also a very unique brand for the sports landscape in Australia. Just a thought though.
We don't, I grant you. But I do know we have a very dodgy history with private ownership in recent times. I have very serious concerns that private buyers will become bored & frustrated with the losses.
Yeah we've had terrible luck with the Broncos, Storm, Rabbitohs, Warriors, effectively the Raiders and Roosters as well, I'm probably forgetting a few others as well.
Even so this Bears bid is supposed to be back by a consortium and not the Bears themselves, I'm sure that the leagues club will have some sort of input but it's supposed to be financially backed by the consortium and not the leagues club it's self.
I think all things being equal having the backing of a leagues club is a much safer long term option. Obviously if the bears bid comes up short in regards to leagues club support that's another matter.
But you can see with the NRL's pursuit of Wests Newcastle that they're much more interested in long term viability than a high sale number. The goal here isn't to make money but have a long term viable club.
There're plenty of clubs with leagues clubs backing that have got themselves into financial strife over the years, including the Gold Coast Seagulls...
I'd hope if the NRL do sell to a private buyer they can secure some type of bank guarantee like happened at Newcastle. The NRL shouldn't have to bail out the club once again.
I think that there're some clubs that the NRL should bail out and others that they shouldn't for strategic reasons (for example losing the Broncos or the Storm would be disastrous for the sport at the moment, but we could eat the loss of a Sydney club or two, in fact we'd probably be better off losing a couple Sydney clubs) , the GC is one of the ones they probably should bail out where it's necessary for the time being.
So I'm not totally against the NRL bailing out clubs where necessary, but I agree that they should be trying to make sure that the Titans are as self sustainable as possible going forward, and if the best option to make them self sustainable is to sell them to the Bears then that's fine, however I still think there're possibly better outcomes for the sport on the GC then the Bears buying them out, whether or not those options will come to fruition is the real problem.
double the fan base
