Greenberg wants 2nd Melb team

[Stallion]

I agree with consolidating the NSW coast. I would do it by moving the Roosters to CC and the Dragons to Wollongong. Both teams will still play plenty of matches in Sydney as away teams (with a Sydney based membership options) and both could be allowed one heratige home game in Sydney plus the Anzac match at Allianz. This would ensure that the iconic Dragons and Roosters brands remain in the NRL, still play plenty of matches in Sydney for their Sydney based fans, will reduce the amount of clubs that actually operate in the city to give the Dogs, Souths and Parra room to become super clubs of Australian Sport but won't do damage to the league by kicking a Sydney team out of the comp.

That's not consolidating that's diluting. Why not have St George Illawarra as currently run?! It's working pretty well. An abandonment of either the eastern suburbs or St George area would be disastrous. Locals are big on being local. When they sense abandonment watch them run out the door! As a Roosters fan I would not like the Roosters to relocate as I see it as an abandonment of their area in Sydney. Not good at all. I suggest a reinvigorated Central Coast Bears would gain more for the game than the sure fire disasters that will occur in St George and East Sydney if those relocations occured. I'm not putting more pain and suffering into established fanbases . The tenth club in this massive area of North Sydney and Central Coast will benefit surrounding clubs and the code. Dilution of the code and heartache for locals will be avoided and lost fans with new fans gained . That's what consolidating is. No trace of abandonment or dilution. Genuine growth in sustainable and proven areas that follow rugby-league.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

That's not consolidating that's diluting. Why not have St George Illawarra as currently run?! It's working pretty well. An abandonment of either the eastern suburbs or St George area would be disastrous. Locals are big on being local. When they sense abandonment watch them run out the door! As a Roosters fan I would not like the Roosters to relocate as I see it as an abandonment of their area in Sydney. Not good at all. I suggest a reinvigorated Central Coast Bears would gain more for the game than the sure fire disasters that will occur in St George and East Sydney if those relocations occured. I'm not putting more pain and suffering into established fanbases . The tenth club in this massive area of North Sydney and Central Coast will benefit surrounding clubs and the code. Dilution of the code and heartache for locals will be avoided and lost fans with new fans gained . That's what consolidating is. No trace of abandonment or dilution. Genuine growth in sustainable and proven areas that follow rugby-league.

Not having an NRL team is not abandonment of the area. There is NSW Cup, there is the NRL to do grass-roots and promotional work. The AFL and Union have three clubs combined between them in Sydney, are they abandoning every suburb that they don't maintaina presence in? Because that is a lot of suburbs. Plus the clubs still exist and still will play regularly in Sydney.

How about we go with your vision then. Let's add North Sydney, Glebe, Uni, Newtown back in. Unmerge Balmain, Wests, St George and Illawarra. Kick out Brisbane, NZ, North QLD, Gold Coast and Melbourne and then you will be happy - more space in the league to cover all of those Sydney suburbs that we have missed.

 

[Stallion]

Not having an NRL team is not abandonment of the area. There is NSW Cup, there is the NRL to do grass-roots and promotional work. The AFL and Union have three clubs combined between them in Sydney, are they abandoning every suburb that they don't maintaina presence in? Because that is a lot of suburbs. Plus the clubs still exist and still will play regularly in Sydney.

How about we go with your vision then. Let's add North Sydney, Glebe, Uni, Newtown back in. Unmerge Balmain, Wests, St George and Illawarra. Kick out Brisbane, NZ, North QLD, Gold Coast and Melbourne and then you will be happy - more space in the league to cover all of those Sydney suburbs that we have missed.

Seriously! You tell that to the folk in the area that has lost their generationally supported top flight club? Tell that to the older folk that still follow their club. Tell that to their offspring that have followed the club through thick and thin. Tell that to the fans that have gone elsewhere but still love and follow the club for what they are and their history along with the beauty of their relevance to the local.community. I suggest you revisit the axe wielding approach. It can only hurt the game just as in North Sydney right now!

 

[The Great Dane]

Your a broken record

Kind of hard not to be when people keep making the exact same point over and over, and the only sensible response is the same response over and over...

Bears werent broke - they just couldnt service their loan after being cut due to SL war

Simple

You've got it backwards, they were cut cause they sent themselves broke and couldn't service their loan...

Don't get me wrong what the Bears were attempting to do was noble (even if they were only doing it out of self interest), and in my opinion if given the time they eventually would have bounced back from their investment with a bit of gigging, but it's to late now and there's no turning back now...

Anyway - why cant Canberra run their own lical RG and U20s team

Cause the club sees that they can get the same results in player development from going into partnership with another club to run their reserve grade and U20s in tandem cheaper then if they ran those programs themselves.

In other words they save themselves money without any significant impact to the outcome, so why wouldn't you do it that way if you can pull it off?

They should be flush with left over News Ltd money

They are flushed, they're ridiculously rich (by NRL standards at least), and largely that is because they invested every cent of the money from News Ltd back into their business, but you don't stay rich by spending that money willy-nilly when it's unnecessary.

Trust me there are a lot of things to criticise the Raiders about, hundreds and hundreds of things, but this isn't one of them. They are one of only a handful (if that) of the SL clubs that took the money that they got from News and used it to make themselves sustainable in the long term instead of pissing it up against the wall on new gym equipment and the such, and yeah they can be a bit tight sometimes (often frustratingly so), but if all the clubs treated money the way the Raiders do we'd be a lot better off as a sport and as a competition...

 

[The Great Dane]

? I understood it. You don't subscribe to more than nine top flight teams out of the three regions being discussed. Its as simple as that . No placating side talk of divisions. We are discussing the top flight which the Aussie sports psyche only take note of.

Lol, outside of maybe E-sports a tiered system has never seriously been attempted in Australia so how could you possibly know that!?

And just by the way, everywhere that it has been attempted by a sport of any reasonable popularity in the country at hand and a league that could actually afford the start up costs it's been wildly successful. You do know that there're literally second and third tier soccer clubs in Europe and South America that hold larger percentages of their markets and have bigger cultural impacts on their nations then many NRL and AFL clubs do in Australia right?

Hell, if I was given the option to own any sports team in the world I'd take a Fullham (Championship, second tier) a St. Pauli (2. Bundesliga, second tier), or any number of other clubs from across multiple tiers and from plenty of different countries, over any of the NRL clubs, namely cause I'd make money instead of lose it hand over fist...

Thats it! No compromises. It's far too damaging for the code. The decline of the code in North Sydney is fact and it will be replicated again if dilution occurs. Another team is mathematically and culturally wise.

By what mathematics would it be wise!?

Not one of the Sydney NRL clubs is profitable, not one, if you took away their grants from the NRL (which the NRL can't really afford as it is, even they'll tell you that) three quarters of them would fold almost straight away, and the other quarter would become completely reliant on grants from their leagues clubs or increased monetary support from their owners and/or backers...

Just for the record with the exception of the Broncos and Cowboys, the above is true of all the NRL clubs!

So how could it possibly make any sense at all to place even more pressure on the market for NRL in Sydney by placing more clubs into the market and further stretching the already stretched resources across more and more clubs!?

When all but two of your clubs are running at a loss you are doing something very, very wrong, and changes desperately need to be made as to how your competition is run and structured, but adding more pressure to your already most over-saturated market at the expense of other opportunities that are going to bring new money into your business (instead of spreading old money even more thinly) makes no god damn sense whats so ever, if anything you should be relieving pressure on that over saturated market!

Let alone a solid business savvy approach which engenders more local rivalries. Like it or not these top flight rivalries are popular. I emphasise TOP FLIGHT. NOT SECOND GRADE STATUS! In OZ that's the way we roll!

Yeah very business savvy aren't you... Lets invest millions more into a market that we're already investing millions into at a loss and at the expense of new opportunities... Maybe if we just throw more and more money at it the problem will solve it's self...

 

[The Great Dane]

Double.

 

[Stallion]

Lol, outside of maybe E-sports a tiered system has never seriously been attempted in Australia so how could you possibly know that!?

And just by the way, everywhere that it has been attempted by a sport of any reasonable popularity in the country at hand and a league that could actually afford the start up costs it's been wildly successful. You do know that there're literally second and third tier soccer clubs in Europe and South America that hold larger percentages of their markets and have bigger cultural impacts on their nations then many NRL and AFL clubs do in Australia right?

Hell, if I was given the option to own any sports team in the world I'd take a Fullham (Championship, second tier) a St. Pauli (2. Bundesliga, second tier), or any number of other clubs from across multiple tiers and from plenty of different countries, over any of the NRL clubs, namely cause I'd make money instead of lose it hand over fist...



By what mathematics would it be wise!?

Not one of the Sydney NRL clubs is profitable, not one, if you took away their grants from the NRL (which the NRL can't really afford as it is, even they'll tell you that) three quarters of them would fold almost straight away, and the other quarter would become completely reliant on grants from their leagues clubs or increased monetary support from their owners and/or backers...

Just for the record with the exception of the Broncos and Cowboys, the above is true of all the NRL clubs!

So how could it possibly make any sense at all to place even more pressure on the market for NRL in Sydney by placing more clubs into the market and further stretching the already stretched resources across more and more clubs!?

When all but two of your clubs are running at a loss you are doing something very, very wrong, and changes desperately need to be made as to how your competition is run and structured, but adding more pressure to your already most over-saturated market at the expense of other opportunities that are going to bring new money into your business (instead of spreading old money even more thinly) makes no god damn sense whats so ever, if anything you should be relieving pressure on that over saturated market!



Yeah very business savvy aren't you... Lets invest millions more into a market that we're already investing millions into at a loss and at the expense of new opportunities... Maybe if we just throw more and more money at it the problem will solve it's self...

You have absolutely no idea on the way sport works. Most sports ,even most of the EPL clubs do not run at a profit! You also seem to think that Australia wide is as densely populated as Europe? Australia has the issue of the tyrrany of distance! Most of the population is in two city areas and the rest is in other cities that are long distances apart. When you work these major considerations out start to muse over Promotion and relegation. Perhaps when Australia has 40 or 50million over this massive land then sport can entertainment promotion and relegation . But till then savvy business people will stick to established and popular fanbases not fanciful pin the tail on the donkey plotting with no regard for existing and established support/fan cultures. You are a special piece of destructive work "the great dane". Absolutely ignorant and diabolical to the nth degree!

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Seriously! You tell that to the folk in the area that has lost their generationally supported top flight club? Tell that to the older folk that still follow their club. Tell that to their offspring that have followed the club through thick and thin. Tell that to the fans that have gone elsewhere but still love and follow the club for what they are and their history along with the beauty of their relevance to the local.community. I suggest you revisit the axe wielding approach. It can only hurt the game just as in North Sydney right now!

Norths averaged around 11 - 12k in the late 80's and early 90's when the game was on a high just before the SL war. In their best seasons the Bears averaged only went as high as 16k - this was pretty much their ceiling, they weren't a super-club like Parra or the Dogs.

The bears no longer exist but we have been able grow the game in Melbourne (much bigger than a Suburb or group of suburbs in the north of Sydney). Melbourne's presence adds significantly more to the TV rights value, and their Membership and attendances have slowly grown to greater than what the Bears' ever was - and there is more growth to come, Melbourne is in it's infancy. It has more than offset the loss of the bears - and that is an understatement.

So, no, losing the Bears has not held the game back or has not sent it backwards at all, the opposite has happened and we can't allow consistently underperforming clubs to hold back growth in places like Perth in the future.

In terms of the state of North Sydney Rugby League right now, that is the responsibility of the NRL, the NSWRL (the Bears have a role here as they are in the NSW Cup) and Manly. Neither AFL, RU nor the A-League have clubs in North Sydney so that is clearly not a requirement for a sport to flourish in the area.

I'm not anti-Sydney, Sydney is and always will be the heart of the NRL but dropping under-performing clubs back to NSW Cup allows for growth into other big city markets in Australia and New Zealand and allows for the larger Sydney clubs room in Sydney to grow and become the powerhouse clubs of Australian sport that they should be.

 

[Stallion]

Norths averaged around 11 - 12k in the late 80's and early 90's when the game was on a high just before the SL war. In their best seasons the Bears averaged only went as high as 16k - this was pretty much their ceiling, they weren't a super-club like Parra or the Dogs.

The bears no longer exist but we have been able grow the game in Melbourne (much bigger than a Suburb or group of suburbs in the north of Sydney). Melbourne's presence adds significantly more to the TV rights value, and their Membership and attendances have slowly grown to greater than what the Bears' ever was - and there is more growth to come, Melbourne is in it's infancy. It has more than offset the loss of the bears - and that is an understatement.

So, no, losing the Bears has not held the game back or has not sent it backwards at all, the opposite has happened and we can't allow consistently underperforming clubs to hold back growth in places like Perth in the future.

In terms of the state of North Sydney Rugby League right now, that is the responsibility of the NRL, the NSWRL (the Bears have a role here as they are in the NSW Cup) and Manly. Neither AFL, RU nor the A-League have clubs in North Sydney so that is clearly not a requirement for a sport to flourish in the area.

I'm not anti-Sydney, Sydney is and always will be the heart of the NRL but dropping under-performing clubs back to NSW Cup allows for growth into other big city markets in Australia and New Zealand and allows for the larger Sydney clubs room in Sydney to grow and become the powerhouse clubs of Australian sport that they should be.

Their is no disputing Melbourne! ? The Bears cimment is purely aimed at a much needed consolidation after wuite a dilution of clubs in the Sydney and surrounds areas.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Their is no disputing Melbourne! ? The Bears cimment is purely aimed at a much needed consolidation after wuite a dilution of clubs in the Sydney and surrounds areas.

There is no need for the Bears - there time has passed and the game has grown without them. If you add the Bears now, even on the Central Coast, that is one less spot available for Perth, a Brisbane derby and then later on down the line a New Zealand derby and Adelaide. There are limits to how many teams can play in the NRL, the bears have had their time. Their place is now in the NSW Cup - which BTW is a comp that is growing in stature every year - as is the QLD Cup.

 

[Stallion]

There is no need for the Bears - there time has passed and the game has grown without them. If you add the Bears now, even on the Central Coast, that is one less spot available for Perth, a Brisbane derby and then later on down the line a New Zealand derby and Adelaide. There are limits to how many teams can play in the NRL, the bears have had their time. Their place is now in the NSW Cup - which BTW is a comp that is growing in stature every year - as is the QLD Cup.

Perhaps their can be more than the numbers you suggest or seem to think? Im talking over time, a good period of time at that.

 

[Perth Red]

If we need 10 clubs for 6 million people in this imaginary Sydney region I cant wait to see the three perth clubs, four more Brisbane clubs and the five more Melbourne clubs join the nrl to ensure we have a reasonable population spread for the game in these under represented cities lol

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Perhaps their can be more than the numbers you suggest or seem to think? Im talking over time, a good period of time at that.

What more is there? The numbers don't lie:

• TV ratings are as high as ever, if not higher
• TV revenue as a result is at record highs
• Membership numbers are at record highs
• Participation is up (even if it includes Touch Football numbers - but if that is a way to include more people then great)

If we bring back the bears tomorrow they will do nothing to change this over the next 10 to 20 years. If you give Perth the spot instead the comp will have another TV slot to sell meaning that TV revenue rises, you will begin to grow a very solid TV viewership in the West like we have in Melbourne the Perth club will bring at least as many if not more members in as the Bears and their average attendances will outstrip what the bears can possibly get after about 10 - 15 years.

Giving the bears a spot back in the NRL (in NSW) does nothing for the game and it just takes a spot away from potential future lucritive expansion spots in Perth, Brisbane (2), New Zealand and Adelaide. We need to move on - time for the game to grow or die as Peter Beattie says.

 

[Perth Red]

In Stallions delusional world the NRL is going to be 22 teams and can have more NSW clubs and all the expansion wish list.

In the real world we cant get the NRl to expand by two new teams despite having had 3 opportunities in 15 years to do so.

 

[Stallion]

What more is there? The numbers don't lie:

• TV ratings are as high as ever, if not higher
• TV revenue as a result is at record highs
• Membership numbers are at record highs
• Participation is up (even if it includes Touch Football numbers - but if that is a way to include more people then great)

If we bring back the bears tomorrow they will do nothing to change this over the next 10 to 20 years. If you give Perth the spot instead the comp will have another TV slot to sell meaning that TV revenue rises, you will begin to grow a very solid TV viewership in the West like we have in Melbourne the Perth club will bring at least as many if not more members in as the Bears and their average attendances will outstrip what the bears can possibly get after about 10 - 15 years.

Giving the bears a spot back in the NRL (in NSW) does nothing for the game and it just takes a spot away from potential future lucritive expansion spots in Perth, Brisbane (2), New Zealand and Adelaide. We need to move on - time for the game to grow or die as Peter Beattie says.

Participation is not up! How bad are you . It's way down! Keep up the bullshit and floss over the detail. The game is nowhere near as relevant as it was prior to the super league farce! You are a garbage informant glossing over genuine issues for this very fragile code.

 

[Stallion]

If we need 10 clubs for 6 million people in this imaginary Sydney region I cant wait to see the three perth clubs, four more Brisbane clubs and the five more Melbourne clubs join the nrl to ensure we have a reasonable population spread for the game in these under represented cities lol

For a start its three regions that are inexplicably involved in the equation!

 

[Stallion]

If we need 10 clubs for 6 million people in this imaginary Sydney region I cant wait to see the three perth clubs, four more Brisbane clubs and the five more Melbourne clubs join the nrl to ensure we have a reasonable population spread for the game in these under represented cities lol

Once again the disrespect for historical and cultural locality relevance of the Sydney based NRL clubs escapes your ignorant mind!

 

[Stallion]

In Stallions delusional world the NRL is going to be 22 teams and can have more NSW clubs and all the expansion wish list.

In the real world we cant get the NRl to expand by two new teams despite having had 3 opportunities in 15 years to do so.

The "real world " you purport /advocate involves unnecessary dilution of the code in its original heartland areas. So progress will not occur as confidence in the code will decline. Just like it did when they carved up the Sydney clubs from the Super league fiasco. Its clear we have people whom have not identified or even realised the damage done by the carve up of Sydney clubs! These clubs had history, relevance, notoriety and gave the code credibility but some dudes havent worked this out! SHAME!

 

[Perth Red]

Hey you've convinced me. I have woken up to the realisation that with only nine clubs a city can not possibly fend off attacks from other sports. I'm on the bring back the NS Bears, bring back the jets, lets have a team in Gosford and Illawarra bandwagon. There is no way the game can possibly prosper without at least 13 clubs in NSW. Start a petition Stallion, I'm right in there with you mate!

 

[The Great Dane]

You have absolutely no idea on the way sport works. Most sports ,even most of the EPL clubs do not run at a profit!

Wrong again bub..

In 15-16 and 16-17 12 of the 20 EPL clubs made a profit, and with a few notable exceptions of the ones who didn't make a profit it was normally because of an investment into something that they are slowly making the difference back from over the next decade or so, or because the club was/is living outside their means to stay competitive and with some relatively minor belt tightening they could be profitable too.

The EPLs' notable exceptions are the NRLs' rule...

You also seem to think that Australia wide is as densely populated as Europe?

Pfft, don't patronise me. You know damn well that I don't think that there is a similar population density in Australia as there is in Europe, and that I never even slightly suggested that I did.

Why it's even an issue I don't know...

Australia has the issue of the tyrrany of distance! Most of the population is in two city areas and the rest is in other cities that are long distances apart.

You don't even seem to understand what the saying the tyranny of distance means, largely speaking the tyranny of distance isn't an issue anymore as it refers to Australia and NZ's (and their cities) isolation from the rest of the British empire (and the rest of the world really) as a historical problem cause it made communication between the colonies and London very slow and at times quite unreliable and it meant that if anything went wrong Australia and NZ were effectively by themselves and help was a very long way away.

In modern times with fast relatively cheap global travel, and the internet with almost instant communication worldwide I don't see how the tyranny of distance is an issue at all unless you are hyper focused on getting massive crowds, but it's not like the most densely populated RL market in the country is drawing massive crowds regularly as it stands is it...

When you work these major considerations out start to muse over Promotion and relegation. Perhaps when Australia has 40 or 50million over this massive land then sport can entertainment promotion and relegation .

I've never suggested a P&R system and nor would I (well at least not in the foreseeable future), and I made that abundantly clear in the post we are referring too... I told you either didn't read or didn't understand what Id written before...

Besides with my plan (though calling it mine or a plan is probably pushing it) you'd almost certainly see a massive increase in the numbers of clubs from NSW and QLD (particularly from Sydney and Brisbane) the most densely populated RL areas in the country, you're problem is that it wouldn't be at the expense of other regions and those clubs from Sydney in particular wouldn't be sanctified as divine entities that cannot be touched and must be given every concession at the expense of others...

But till then savvy business people will stick to established and popular fanbases not fanciful pin the tail on the donkey plotting with no regard for existing and established support/fan cultures. You are a special piece of destructive work "the great dane". Absolutely ignorant and diabolical to the nth degree!

Yeah cause turning your most successful product and premier national competition with international appeal into the RL equivalent of the Shute f##king Shield is a greeeaaat idea... Very "savvy"...

Why isn't the NSW cup a huge success? I mean it's basically everything that you personally want for the NRL, so why isn't it a much bigger competition then it is if that is the formula for success, and why don't you f##k off and go watch your never ending Sydney circle jerk and leave the rest of us alone?