Gold Coast Bears/Nth Sydney/Gosford

[Ourimbah Magpies]

I fear expansion will never happen in my lifetime.
I helped Flo and David Fairleigh with the Central Coast Bears bid.
Between 2010-2013 no bid got close to the CCBears.
Then in 2014 the NRL said that they would not look at expansion until all of their existing clubs were financially secure.
Pffttt like that is ever going to happen.
Before 2014-present the Perth bid then became favourites until recently with the Redcliffe/Brisbane/anorher Qld side taking favourtism.

 

[MugaB]

Whats this im hearing of a Brisbane Bears now

 

[flippikat]

Whats this im hearing of a Brisbane Bears now

Aww gees. So not only are the NRL bypassing true expansion to double-up Brisbane, and give the game an awkward bye every week, but they want to foist an old Sydney brand on Brisbane too?

Un-freaking-believable.

 

[The Great Dane]

Whats this im hearing of a Brisbane Bears now

Just your typical Sydney centric nonsense.

 

[mongoose]

Aww gees. So not only are the NRL bypassing true expansion to double-up Brisbane, and give the game an awkward bye every week, but they want to foist an old Sydney brand on Brisbane too?

Un-freaking-believable.

Well Brisbane Bears has a different connotation up here....

 

[MugaB]

Aww gees. So not only are the NRL bypassing true expansion to double-up Brisbane, and give the game an awkward bye every week, but they want to foist an old Sydney brand on Brisbane too?

Un-freaking-believable.

Im sure its just the annual bring back the bears in another city column, next year its darwin, Norths "territory" Bears, then its Wellington"Humphrey B" Bears the year after that

Personally if bears did come back, it should be in Auckland as a 2nd NZ team, and move the Warriors to Wellington
Or bears in at Central Coast

 

[T-Boon]

I think Brisbane Bears could work. Good colours etc. Great name.
They would need to field a bunch of Queenslander's so as to make it abundantly clear it is not a relocated NSW team but why not?...lets go.

 

[T-Boon]

What the Bears need is for the Central Coast to get over them and tell them to go jump. That is a toxic combo that is not going to work because if Gosford ever gets a team it will be via an existing Sydney team relocating there. There are already way too many teams around Sydney. We aren't having 11 teams.

 

[MugaB]

What the Bears need is for the Central Coast to get over them and tell them to go jump. That is a toxic combo that is not going to work because if Gosford ever gets a team it will be via an existing Sydney team relocating there. There are already way too many teams around Sydney. We aren't having 11 teams.

We're at 8.5 sydney teams, stgeorge is the 0.5, Wollongong is Wollongong,
Newcastle is Newcastle, not sure where 11 teams have come from

 

[T-Boon]

Well Brisbane Bears has a different connotation up here....

For real? I know there was some dopey AFL team by that name for a week or two but that was before Brisbane even knew AFL existed.

 

[MugaB]

For real? I know there was some dopey AFL team by that name for a week or two but that was before Brisbane even knew AFL existed.

Koala Bears before merging with Fitzroy Lions

 

[T-Boon]

They became the Drop Bears.

 

[T-Boon]

They became the Drop Bears.

The Drop is because they drop so much football in that game.

 

[flippikat]

I think Brisbane Bears could work. Good colours etc. Great name.
They would need to field a bunch of Queenslander's so as to make it abundantly clear it is not a relocated NSW team but why not?...lets go.

I'm skeptical. I think the AFL made the right choice by moving the Swans & Lions to non-AFL locations (Sydney & Brisbane).. Brisbane have a rich enough league history of their own to come up with something.

If the Bears - or any Sydney club in the NRL currently - relocates, it should be to Central Coast, Adelaide or Perth. Perth being a bit of a stretch as they've put a lot into developing a really good Pirates brand.

Central Coast is probably the one NSW/Qld location that could accept it.

 

[mongoose]

For real? I know there was some dopey AFL team by that name for a week or two but that was before Brisbane even knew AFL existed.

the Christopher Skase bears

 

[The Great Dane]

For real? I know there was some dopey AFL team by that name for a week or two but that was before Brisbane even knew AFL existed.

Considering that they still own and use the Brisbane Bears brand, they (the AFL and Brisbane Lions) would still be liable to sue the shit out of any professional sports team that tried to use the name Brisbane Bears.

Hypothetically you could still have a relocated NS Bears team in Brisbane, but realistically they'd have to change their name to something like Grizzlies, Bruins, Ursus, etc.

 

[The Great Dane]

I'm skeptical. I think the AFL made the right choice by moving the Swans & Lions to non-AFL locations (Sydney & Brisbane).. Brisbane have a rich enough league history of their own to come up with something.

Yeah if you were going to resurrect a brand in Brisbane it'd be a BRL brand.

 

[steeden.]

Considering that they still own and use the Brisbane Bears brand, they (the AFL and Brisbane Lions) would still be liable to sue the shit out of any professional sports team that tried to use the name Brisbane Bears.

Hypothetically you could still have a relocated NS Bears team in Brisbane, but realistically they'd have to change their name to something like Grizzlies, Bruins, Ursus, etc.

I wonder if they could call it “Brisbane Football Club” or something similar (given the AFL does not have exclusive ownership of that name), and the media and everyone casually refers to them as the Bears?

Somewhat like that period where the Bulldogs and Sharks dropped their location, but we all called them Canterbury and Cronulla still.

 

[flippikat]

Yeah if you were going to resurrect a brand in Brisbane it'd be a BRL brand.

Looking in from the outside, that would be MY preferred outcome if Brisbane 2 is what we're getting.

Use something that's got BRL history, but not a current club as that could easily become a sort of Manly or Cronulla style suburban enclave if we're not careful (hello Redcliffe, and to a degree Ipswich too).

I'm no BRL historian.. does anyone know what names are there that fit that "revive something old" idea?

 

[Perth Red]

Using a brl brand is just going to put offside the grassroots support for a second club that isn’t keen on the broncos. Unless the new club is going to be largely reliant on pokie revenue from a LC then it has to have a broad enough appeal to get 25k members and 20k plus crowds if it has any hope of competing against the biggest club in RL on its doorstep. It’s best, and probably only hope is to either be a broncos city wide clone or a strong regional population identity. Calling it North Brisbane something’s but owned by Redcliffe playing out of Suncorp or a South Queensland something owned by Ipswich etc.

this requirement to still be reliant on LC’s rather than the nrl supporting the growth remains the biggest difference to afl expansion model and why we will always struggle to move beyond our traditional boundaries.