If you don't know why SL failed .I can't help you.Try lack of public support for starters.I attended the first game at the SFS BTW.The Newcastle example is a classic Knights and Mariners,never going to succeed.
When SL reared its head, SL crowds in particular dropped off in 1996.
Public support had nothing to do with... The SL concept had failed 6 months before the public even really knew what it was, it had failed before News and Ribot started signing clubs and players in 95.
Do you even know what the original plan for SL was? If not I'll give you the short version-
The initial plan for SL was to create a 14 team national competition that would exist on top of the ARL/NSWRL, all the ARL clubs would own shares in one of the 14 clubs, which would be one city clubs with the exception of Sydney that would have 4 clubs, the "super clubs" would be focused on the corporate side of the business and would basically be run like the Broncos. So in effect the idea was to create an American style 'franchise' based competition that used the ARL as a feeder comp.
It would be backed and completely underwritten by News but it'd be administered in tandem with the ARL, in other words they'd work together to create an all new competition (that was how News would get the rights for it legally, they'd create an all new product of a higher standard and the ARL would continue as intended underneath fulfilling the leagues agreements with Packer, for the sake of brevity I'll leave the detail at that.
The idea was presented to Arko and Quayle and they were obliged to allow News to present it to the clubs, they did this at a meeting a short time afterwards where Arko and Quayle lead the agenda, they rubbished the idea before it was even presented, made out that it threatened the existence of some of the clubs (take a guess at which ones) when in fact they (Arko and Quayle) planned to reduce the numbers in Sydney and not SL who planned to make them all partners in SL, then they allowed the News representatives to make their case, which by News' own admission didn't turnout to be the best presentation they'd ever given with all sorts of things going wrong and them completely misjudging what would interest most of the clubs (they presented the business plan instead of selling them with pomp and circumstance), after News made their presentation they were shuffled out and Kerry Packer was shuffled in, which is not normal practice, and he fear mongered and threaten to "sue the pants" off everybody in the room if they agreed to News proposal even though it had no impact on any of his dealings with the ARL or the clubs at the time.
That all happened in late 94!
That was the original SL plan and the old guard in Sydney didn't even give it a fair hearing, they completely disregarded it as soon as they heard that they wouldn't have complete control over the administration of the game and that their clubs wouldn't necessarily be at the top, they didn't consider the positives and negatives at all and completely threw it out through self interest...
What became Sl wasn't the SL plan, it was News seeing an opportunity to still get what they wanted and a backlash from a group of clubs that felt that they were being completely ignored and treated like second class citizens (which they were) who were also desperate cause due to ARLs' business practices and double standards was sending them broke...
Well they(the Sydney"mafia" )didn't succeed the extent as you suggested ,as News owned half until recently.The same News that brought in the Storm,financially backed the Broncos.The same News that accepted the removal of the Reds,Mariners and Rams in exchange for Crushers and eventually ,not directly the Bears and eventually joint ventures.The same News that screwed the code on TV deals, despite any Sydney Mafia.The Sydney Mafia were hardly world beaters with their efforts.The traditional clubs 4 of them ,became joint ventures.
See now you are talking about two different things, you are conflating the success of the SL to the success of News, those are two very different things.
News' goals in RL was always the same, to have an owning share in the sport and to get the pay tv rights and they succeeded in getting them, initially it was going to be cheaper and easier to do that through SL, but when that didn't workout they got it in other ways, namely the NRL.
SL's goals were very different, they were to change the way that the sport was administer and presented and to make it a more marketable and ultimately more profitable product, in theory anyway.
Both SL and News were using each other as a means to an end.
BTW, the ARL agreed to all of the things you presented above as well (had a bigger hand in a lot of them too), and the peace deals and the NRL were still a better outcome then pushing ahead with the ARL as it was, if we'd pushed ahead with the ARL as it was then it's almost certain that apart from the Broncos every club outside of Sydney would have gone broke before 2005, the Knights, Raiders, Reds, Cowboys and Warriors would definitely be gone the rest would almost certainly have followed, and a good chunk of the Sydney clubs (including yours) would have followed...
BS .if one brings in the BBL as PR did ,to prove a point,then the comparison is apt.
One a complete new comp/game involving no traditional clubs, and one with.There is SFA tradition with the BBL.It is obviously a great new concept.
Uh huh, but it's still a massive false equivalency to compare the BBL to SL cause A: SL ended up as an attempt at a hostile takeover of the administration of the sport and the BBL is and always was a CA backed competition that is run and administered by CA, B: BBL wasn't created by a group of disenfranchised stakeholders within it's system with the assistance of a huge media company financially backing it, and C: the BBL had no interference by media companies in it's creation and hasn't been and probably never will become a pawn in a bigger struggle between two large media companies.
The situations aren't even close to equivalent, not in the slightest.
SL is brought up often, as that episode had a big impact on the code for many years, as well as assisting other codes ATT.To ignore the fact ,is to ignore reality.Or living on another planet.
I'm not ignoring SL, just saying that the BBL is't equivalent to it...
