"It’s very realistic to say that we’ll have a second team in Brisbane in 2023": V'landys

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

what about the Sydney Roobitohdragsharkdogs? a super club that represents 57 suburbs across the inner south west

Isn't that the sort of team that you and Dane are pushing for Brisbane?

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

We ARE NOT THE A.F.L!!
constant comparisons because we rival them in veiwerships, don't mean we need to follow their lead, we shouldn't be turfing clubs coz they are struggling, as in a few years they might be one of our biggest assets, you only need to look at souths as an example, they were perennial losers, and culled as a result to the "criteria" and now?
Most nswrl fans aren't fond of the warriors, but they are in another country, something AFL will most probably never have... so every club has something unique, and all together the brand is strong because they all play a part, whether it looks valuable or cost more than others.
Sharks are no different, nor was North Sydney or any if the teams forced to merge back before 2000, yes dragons have seem to make it work, and tigers somewhat when they both were in good form, but now there is still baggage, and throwing clubs out is not the way to treat your customer/fanbase, it breeds resentment, and that will trickle thru to other clubs especially when they fear they might be next, coz you've already done it once.
Relocation should not be a punishment, it should be offered at deaths door, or paid/incentivised to everyone, but not pushed onto any club. The NRL will hurt as a brand if any one club goes thru what souths went thru back in 1999..
Its not worth giving a leg up to rival codes, especially since northern suburbs/sydney has no presence in top flight, thats a possible 500 thousand to 1million people watching other codes, instead of ours, imagine what would happen in the shire, its a rugby league junior nursery there, its very large, but people here keep looking at population of council, not junior players actually playing the game in those areas, under their catchments, Penrith is giganitic.
but using council population as data? thats means shit, if your not playing league, to put it in perspective Melbourne has 5 million population, but no one plays league. We have a team in Melbourne to show we can have a team in Melbourne really, who are they servicing? Victoria, maybe, maybe it will grow into something better, maybe when AFL stops being a thing... you need teams where the game is played, not just for click count crowds, for participation, otherwise we'll be importing players from Nz and the PIs for the next 20 years till the game goes broke

So many double standards and terrible logic.

Sydney needs to have several teams north, south and west of Sydney, but Brisbane should only have one or two according to many of the people who state this line. You don't need 2 teams representinng Southern Sydney's 500k people. That's just plain dumb and the reason why the Sharks are on death's door and always have been.

PVL said no money will be wasted on Perth, yet here is the NRL wasting money on a small club that has never been sustainable and provides nothing but off-field scandals, dodgy on-field tactics and has a limited footprint that cannot grow.

Cronulla should have been sent to Perth. End of story. West Coast Sharks. That way we could bring in Brisbane 2 and NZ 2. PVL f**ked up.

So why don't we have a team in Ipswich and one in Logan if participation is so important?

Double standards. That's why.

There would be far more people playing the game in Logan than there is in Southern Sydney. The combined population of Ipswich and Logan is greater than Southern Sydney. Sutherland and St George produce pathetic footalballers that can't play for peanuts, whereas Logan produces champions like Cam Smith and Corey Parker.

 

[MugaB]

Isn't that the sort of team that you and Dane are pushing for Brisbane?

Dude you just quoted yourself, im debating a moron

 

[MugaB]

So many double standards and terrible logic.

Sydney needs to have several teams north, south and west of Sydney, but Brisbane should only have one or two according to many of the people who state this line. You don't need 2 teams representinng Southern Sydney's 500k people. That's just plain dumb and the reason why the Sharks are on death's door and always have been.

PVL said no money will be wasted on Perth, yet here is the NRL wasting money on a small club that has never been sustainable and provides nothing but off-field scandals, dodgy on-field tactics and has a limited footprint that cannot grow.

Cronulla should have been sent to Perth. End of story. West Coast Sharks. That way we could bring in Brisbane 2 and NZ 2. PVL f**ked up.

So why don't we have a team in Ipswich and one in Logan if participation is so important?

Double standards. That's why.

There would be far more people playing the game in Logan than there is in Southern Sydney. The combined population of Ipswich and Logan is greater than Southern Sydney. Sutherland and St George produce pathetic footalballers that can't play for peanuts, whereas Logan produces champions like Cam Smith and Corey Parker.

Corey parker a champion, now thats debatable, ive never said have less teams in brisbane, im an advocate for more, i think it can sustain 3-4 teams. So get your fact right before shleping me in with losers who want to consolidate the game for business cases.
f**k all that, without folks walking the streets, clubs like souths would have become extinct, you talk of consolidation and relocation on nearly every post, yet you don't think what it would be like if the league would grow and expand with the existing teams, you use recent data on recent form that will change in 5 years and dependant on whos in form and so will their fortunes, and attendances, and tv rating, and better timeslots. Your flipfloping ideas nearly every month, but one thing is certain and similar in every post is culling or merging or forced relocations, and thats not a game i want to be part of, you think it wil benefit the league, when we all have definitive proof that even when it did happen post SL, that it solved nothing and regressed the games 10fold.. and let rivals overtake league in key areas.
You say double standards, im not the one culling teams, your no better than those who did it to the game in the first place

 

[mongoose]

So many double standards and terrible logic.

Sydney needs to have several teams north, south and west of Sydney, but Brisbane should only have one or two according to many of the people who state this line. You don't need 2 teams representinng Southern Sydney's 500k people. That's just plain dumb and the reason why the Sharks are on death's door and always have been.

PVL said no money will be wasted on Perth, yet here is the NRL wasting money on a small club that has never been sustainable and provides nothing but off-field scandals, dodgy on-field tactics and has a limited footprint that cannot grow.

Cronulla should have been sent to Perth. End of story. West Coast Sharks. That way we could bring in Brisbane 2 and NZ 2. PVL f**ked up.

So why don't we have a team in Ipswich and one in Logan if participation is so important?

Double standards. That's why.

There would be far more people playing the game in Logan than there is in Southern Sydney. The combined population of Ipswich and Logan is greater than Southern Sydney. Sutherland and St George produce pathetic footalballers that can't play for peanuts, whereas Logan produces champions like Cam Smith and Corey Parker.

Ideally you would have 5 or 6 Sydney teams and 3 or 4 Brisbane teams but that's not how the comp evolved and it's too late to backtrack now. You can only move forward with the situation you are given and culling a bunch of Sydney teams to add a bunch of suburban Brisbane teams is not going to be good for the NRL.

If the Sharks were on the brink of folding then I agree the NRL should have left them to die and expedited Brisbane 2 or Perth.
I am pretty sure the St George and Sutherland areas of Sydney have produced many players at least as good as Corey Parker over the years as well.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Ideally you would have 5 or 6 Sydney teams and 3 or 4 Brisbane teams but that's not how the comp evolved and it's too late to backtrack now. You can only move forward with the situation you are given and culling a bunch of Sydney teams to add a bunch of suburban Brisbane teams is not going to be good for the NRL.

If the Sharks were on the brink of folding then I agree the NRL should have left them to die and expedited Brisbane 2 or Perth.
I am pretty sure the St George and Sutherland areas of Sydney have produced many players at least as good as Corey Parker over the years as well.

Adding 2 Brisbane clubs isn't the same as having 9 in Sydney. Brisbane 2 ane Brisbane 3 will be self-sustaining clubs that will be strong with or without an annual grant. The Manlys and Cronullas will be the first to fall when the shit hits the fan like it did in the 90s.

I think that the days of broadcasters paying big bucks for TV rights is over, so in 10 years time from now the clubs who rely on the annual grant to tread water will need to merge or relocate when they fall into debt. The only reason Cronulla survived in 2018 was because of revenue from broadcast rights. They've sold their assets and have nothing left to bargain with the next time they're up Shit Creek without a paddle. American streaming services aren't going to pay big bucks for a sports league that is a big fish in a small pond and has limited marketability around the world. Murdoch is getting closer to having a date with the Grim Reaper and there's no one else in line to fill his role. Foxtel is broke.

Doesn't the St George area have a large Chinese population that couldn't give a stuff about RL?

Changing demographics will shape our game over the next 20 years.

 

[Jamberoo]

Ok, fair point that he was clearly turfed.. but my point is that the NRL had a clear opportunity to relocate a struggling club and V'Landys effectively vetoed it.

It wouldn't necessarily have been culling or merging - in fact, I can understand those two options being unpalatable, given the experience of the late 1990s-early 2000s.. BUT we've never tried relocation - something the AFL has done successfully.. and from what this says, the door was slammed on it by V'Landys.. despite other officials *at least* considering it.

I'm not sure why you dragged in the Covid-19 stuff.. as it's a) something that happened after this situation with Cronulla, and b) something that every code had to adapt to & endure.. and every major code HAS found a way to endure it.

Only one AFL club was ever relocated - 40 years ago. It took the Swans a long, long time to be a genuine success. Relocation is marginally better than folding, expulsion, or merging. There are very few old South Melbourne Swans fans left in Melbourne.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Only one AFL club was ever relocated - 40 years ago. It took the Swans a long, long time to be a genuine success. Relocation is marginally better than folding, expulsion, or merging. There are very few old South Melbourne Swans fans left in Melbourne.

Fitzroy relocated to Brisbane in 1997. No one remembers the Brisbane Bears.

 

[flippikat]

Only one AFL club was ever relocated - 40 years ago. It took the Swans a long, long time to be a genuine success. Relocation is marginally better than folding, expulsion, or merging. There are very few old South Melbourne Swans fans left in Melbourne.

Strictly speaking, yeah just one relocation.. however the Lions merger with Brisbane Bears rates a mention too - although it was technically a merger, it ticked a two boxes that relocation does - preserving a heritage brand, but putting it in a different market.

As for the "long long time for the Swans to be a success", hey at least the AFL stuck with them instead of ditching the non-heartland team at the soonest convenience like the NRL did with Perth Reds & Adelaide Rams.

 

[Perth Red]

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but could V'Landys saving the Sharks with no strings attached have been one of the reasons Greenberg left?

unlikely though I’m sure there were a number of points of disagreement between the two. Greenberg not wanting to back down to ch9 and give them a big discount seems to have been the key tipping point for his demise.

 

[Perth Red]

1. We ARE NOT THE A.F.L!!

2. we shouldn't be turfing clubs coz they are struggling, as in a few years they might be one of our biggest assets, you only need to look at souths as an example, they were perennial losers, and culled as a result to the "criteria" and now?

3.Relocation should not be a punishment, it should be offered at deaths door, or paid/incentivised to everyone, but not pushed onto any club. The NRL will hurt as a brand if any one club goes thru what souths went thru back in 1999..

4. Its not worth giving a leg up to rival codes, especially since northern suburbs/sydney has no presence in top flight, thats a possible 500 thousand to 1million people watching other codes, instead of ours,

1. no we aren’t but they are our main competitor and the most successful code in the country, it makes sense to use them as a bar to measure ourselves against

2. Souths are an anomaly, the got super lucky having a Hollywood a lister with a billionaire mate to take over. No other club has really managed to turn around its failures so far, manly still have a sht ground and no fans, sharks are still losing millions every year and haven’t increase their fanbase, Newcastle only survived going bust by having a pokie den bailing them out. Im struggling to think of another nsw club that’s significantly grown it’s fanbase and revenue from football operations other than souths?

3. Ideally yes but can you ever see the nrl going to 20 clubs? I can’t which means we will never get the geographic spread the game needs long term.

4. That’s rubbish, there’s still a stack of people playing and watching RL in northern Sydney. The real failure was not the booting of north Sydney bears but the failure of nswrl and nrl to make sure the area was reallocated to another top flight club.

 

[mongoose]

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but could V'Landys saving the Sharks with no strings attached have been one of the reasons Greenberg left?

nahhh who cares about the Sharks?

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

1. no we aren’t but they are our main competitor and the most successful code in the country, it makes sense to use them as a bar to measure ourselves against

2. Souths are an anomaly, the got super lucky having a Hollywood a lister with a billionaire mate to take over. No other club has really managed to turn around its failures so far, manly still have a sht ground and no fans, sharks are still losing millions every year and haven’t increase their fanbase, Newcastle only survived going bust by having a pokie den bailing them out. Im struggling to think of another nsw club that’s significantly grown it’s fanbase and revenue from football operations other than souths?

3. Ideally yes but can you ever see the nrl going to 20 clubs? I can’t which means we will never get the geographic spread the game needs long term.

4. That’s rubbish, there’s still a stack of people playing and watching RL in northern Sydney. The real failure was not the booting of north Sydney bears but the failure of nswrl and nrl to make sure the area was reallocated to another top flight club.

You and @flippikat are the only ones talking sense in this thread.

I hate to say it, but Sydney RL fans have an entitlement complex and it is the reason AwFuL goes from strength to strength while our game stagnates.

Our game is in a very perilous position. Our FTA broadcaster prioritises AwFuL over our game, despite their main rival having broadcast rights. They just bought up the rights to RU. Ch7 won't choose us over AwFuL and it's obvious Ch9 want to poach the rights to AwFuL. Ch10 isn't going to get in a bidding war and will only put in an offer that suits them. This is 25 years of NSWRL insularity starting to show its effects. Pokies and cigarette sponsorship kept the NSWRL strong from the 50s through to Super League War. Pay TV combined with pokies kept the Sydney clubs on life support since the mid 90s.

What happens when Pay TV is no longer in a position to keep the game strong?

Foxtel is in debt and Optus Sport/STAN won't pay $1B over 5 years for content. There are Sydney clubs struggling to get by with the annual grant and pokies revenue. Imagine what will happen if pokies are banned, which is a real possibility now that cancel culture is in full swing.

European rugby is getting stronger, so any drop in revenue will hit the salary cap if the game keeps on spending $48M a year bailing clubs out. Players will jump to play French rugby if the money is there.

American streaming companies aren't going to step in and pay what Foxtel does for NRL.

Some really tough decisions will need to be made over the next 10 years, and by then it might be too late as we've given our main competitor a huge headstart. By 2030 the fumblers will have a 35 year headstart over us as being a truly national competition. AwFuL has been able to make inroads in SEQ due to NSWRL's deliberate sabotaging of the game in Queensland so that the Sydney clubs can be at the centre of the RL universe.

 

[MugaB]

You and @flippikat are the only ones talking sense in this thread.

I hate to say it, but Sydney RL fans have an entitlement complex and it is the reason AwFuL goes from strength to strength while our game stagnates.

Our game is in a very perilous position. Our FTA broadcaster prioritises AwFuL over our game, despite their main rival having broadcast rights. They just bought up the rights to RU. Ch7 won't choose us over AwFuL and it's obvious Ch9 want to poach the rights to AwFuL. Ch10 isn't going to get in a bidding war and will only put in an offer that suits them. This is 25 years of NSWRL insularity starting to show its effects. Pokies and cigarette sponsorship kept the NSWRL strong from the 50s through to Super League War. Pay TV combined with pokies kept the Sydney clubs on life support since the mid 90s.

What happens when Pay TV is no longer in a position to keep the game strong?

Foxtel is in debt and Optus Sport/STAN won't pay $1B over 5 years for content. There are Sydney clubs struggling to get by with the annual grant and pokies revenue. Imagine what will happen if pokies are banned, which is a real possibility now that cancel culture is in full swing.

European rugby is getting stronger, so any drop in revenue will hit the salary cap if the game keeps on spending $48M a year bailing clubs out. Players will jump to play French rugby if the money is there.

American streaming companies aren't going to step in and pay what Foxtel does for NRL.

Some really tough decisions will need to be made over the next 10 years, and by then it might be too late as we've given our main competitor a huge headstart. By 2030 the fumblers will have a 35 year headstart over us as being a truly national competition. AwFuL has been able to make inroads in SEQ due to NSWRL's deliberate sabotaging of the game in Queensland so that the Sydney clubs can be at the centre of the RL universe.

It's the opposite fúkwit, you and those who think like you, if anything it you who should be more appreciative, the comp didn't have to expand, it had 80 years of remaining in NSW. If anything your entitled view is showing as you are demanding a brand new team for your area as if you yourself deserve it, if you want to follow a team you can, you can also move to Townsville or Melbourne or Sydney or Auckland etc.
i am from Sydney and i don't think my team is better than anyone else's (not off field anyways).
but you'd want to cull as much fat as you can as if licences are that limited, and that it should go to others who aren't set up to use it. There's NO limit for clubs in the competition, ALF is currently at 18 teams, NFL are at 32, we can go past 20, but they all have be set up properly and not be brought in all together,(ala 1995) which they had balls to do it, but realistically should have just done 2 at a time.
I was listening to a tripleM podcast a few days ago, they interviewed PVL, about why they are going to 17, and not straight to 18 for the extra game to sell.
His answer was simply "participation"
They want more juniors in heartland areas getting a chance to stay local, hence why they are deadset on Brisbane, and probably NZ after that.

My honest opinion is that we'll see 2 brisbane franchises, before NZ2 and a possible Perth or PNG/cairns based to round upto 20, but thay wont all happen for another decade at least. Then they can see whats happening if there's a need to push past that, which i can see easily, its just a matter of how much money the game can afford, and how much its recieving in revenue

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

It's the opposite fúkwit, you and those who think like you, if anything it you who should be more appreciative, the comp didn't have to expand, it had 80 years of remaining in NSW. If anything your entitled view is showing as you are demanding a brand new team for your area as if you yourself deserve it, if you want to follow a team you can, you can also move to Townsville or Melbourne or Sydney or Auckland etc.
i am from Sydney and i don't think my team is better than anyone else's (not off field anyways).
but you'd want to cull as much fat as you can as if licences are that limited, and that it should go to others who aren't set up to use it. There's NO limit for clubs in the competition, ALF is currently at 18 teams, NFL are at 32, we can go past 20, but they all have be set up properly and not be brought in all together,(ala 1995) which they had balls to do it, but realistically should have just done 2 at a time.
I was listening to a tripleM podcast a few days ago, they interviewed PVL, about why they are going to 17, and not straight to 18 for the extra game to sell.
His answer was simply "participation"
They want more juniors in heartland areas getting a chance to stay local, hence why they are deadset on Brisbane, and probably NZ after that.

My honest opinion is that we'll see 2 brisbane franchises, before NZ2 and a possible Perth or PNG/cairns based to round upto 20, but thay wont all happen for another decade at least. Then they can see whats happening if there's a need to push past that, which i can see easily, its just a matter of how much money the game can afford, and how much its recieving in revenue

Do you have any evidence that the competition will expand to 20 or more teams, or is this wishful thinking on your behalf?

Abdo said there will be a 17th and 18th team. Nothing was said about a 19th and 20th team.

Australia has a population of 25m people, most of whom are based in 6 moderately sized metropolitan areas. There are 4 professional codes of football competing for market share, making it the most congested sporting market in the world. There just isn't enough money or people in our economy to support 20 or more teams. If we could support 24 or more teams then Sydney could have 9 of them, but that's not feasible so we're going to have to rationalise if we want the game to grow as big as it can.

If we're to have only 18 teams then NZ 2 or Perth should be the 18th franchise. As much as I would love a 3rd team up here I am not going to advocate for it when other important areas have none.

NSWRL weren't being charitable when they expanded their competition to the detriment of everyone else. They did it as a dick measuring exercise to say they conquered the landscape and because it made their competition more prestigious that it was when it was a 12 team suburban Sydney league. The expansion teams were treated as 2nd class citizens and were there to make up the numbers, with the governing body doing everything it could to give the Sydney teams a massive onfield advantage. This has bred a great deal of resentment outside of Sydney and turns people off the game. No one likes being treated like a 2nd class citizen.

NSWRL has effectively killed the game's chances of developing a foothold in SA/WA. 35 years of treating these markets like lepers has led to them not wanting to invest any of their precious money or time on our game, and I don't blame them one bit. Our game is a laughing stock outside of its heartland and is viewed as a minor sport. Non-rusted on fans in the heartland are gravitating to AwFuL because it is viewed as the classier, more popular game due to its national spread. Thanks a lot NSWRL, you've just relegated The Greatest Game of All to being a shrinking business when it could have been the NFL of Australia. Even people in Sydney are turning to AwFuL because they view our game as an unpopular minor sport. Swans are the biggest pro sports team in the city and are growing every year. Let that sink in. 35 years of limiting the game's development outside of Sydney so that we can have 9 teams in Australia's largest metro area is now leading to non-rusted on fans in Sydney abandoning the game. Way to run a business into the ground!

NSWRL didn't even think about expanding into Brisbane until the BRL produced a generation of superstars who made the NSWRL look weak. Years of thrashings at the hands of a Queensland team made up mostly of little known BRL players made a mockery of the NSWRL. Combined Brisbane winning the National Knock-Out competition in Sydney was the final insult that made Sydney RL fans realise the world didn't begin and end in Sydney, so they set about dismantling the game up here so they could pretend that it did. Your post oozes of entitlement and a superiority complex that lies under the surface of most Sydney RL fans. Your mob were so insular and out of touch with reality you mocked the very concept of Origin, saying Queenslanders were crazy for wanting it and boasting that it wouldn't last more than a year. How bloody stupid has that belief been shown to be? And you lot think you're fit to run the game after failing to see how big Origin would be? Pull another one.

Quayle and Arthurson put financial and logistical hardships on expansion teams that made survival impossible in 1995. They weren't meant to have a chance of competing. That's just dumb business. All 12 suburban Sydney teams would still be around if those 2 idiots didn't force them to generate the funds required to survive in a national competition. Most of the remaining teams still can't generate the funds and are reliant on funding that should be going to the grassroots. Is it any wonder clubs across the country are dying and AwFuL is winning the public relations war? They spend far more on promotion and development, which is giving them access to kids who would be playing RL if we were able to match them in these areas.

 

[MugaB]

Do you have any evidence that the competition will expand to 20 or more teams, or is this wishful thinking on your behalf?

Abdo said there will be a 17th and 18th team. Nothing was said about a 19th and 20th team.

Australia has a population of 25m people, most of whom are based in 6 moderately sized metropolitan areas. There are 4 professional codes of football competing for market share, making it the most congested sporting market in the world. There just isn't enough money or people in our economy to support 20 or more teams. If we could support 24 or more teams then Sydney could have 9 of them, but that's not feasible so we're going to have to rationalise if we want the game to grow as big as it can.

If we're to have only 18 teams then NZ 2 or Perth should be the 18th franchise. As much as I would love a 3rd team up here I am not going to advocate for it when other important areas have none.

NSWRL weren't being charitable when they expanded their competition to the detriment of everyone else. They did it as a dick measuring exercise to say they conquered the landscape and because it made their competition more prestigious that it was when it was a 12 team suburban Sydney league. The expansion teams were treated as 2nd class citizens and were there to make up the numbers, with the governing body doing everything it could to give the Sydney teams a massive onfield advantage. This has bred a great deal of resentment outside of Sydney and turns people off the game. No one likes being treated like a 2nd class citizen.

NSWRL has effectively killed the game's chances of developing a foothold in SA/WA. 35 years of treating these markets like lepers has led to them not wanting to invest any of their precious money or time on our game, and I don't blame them one bit. Our game is a laughing stock outside of its heartland and is viewed as a minor sport. Non-rusted on fans in the heartland are gravitating to AwFuL because it is viewed as the classier, more popular game due to its national spread. Thanks a lot NSWRL, you've just relegated The Greatest Game of All to being a shrinking business when it could have been the NFL of Australia. Even people in Sydney are turning to AwFuL because they view our game as an unpopular minor sport. Swans are the biggest pro sports team in the city and are growing every year. Let that sink in. 35 years of limiting the game's development outside of Sydney so that we can have 9 teams in Australia's largest metro area is now leading to non-rusted on fans in Sydney abandoning the game. Way to run a business into the ground!

NSWRL didn't even think about expanding into Brisbane until the BRL produced a generation of superstars who made the NSWRL look weak. Years of thrashings at the hands of a Queensland team made up mostly of little known BRL players made a mockery of the NSWRL. Combined Brisbane winning the National Knock-Out competition in Sydney was the final insult that made Sydney RL fans realise the world didn't begin and end in Sydney, so they set about dismantling the game up here so they could pretend that it did. Your post oozes of entitlement and a superiority complex that lies under the surface of most Sydney RL fans. Your mob were so insular and out of touch with reality you mocked the very concept of Origin, saying Queenslanders were crazy for wanting it and boasting that it wouldn't last more than a year. How bloody stupid has that belief been shown to be? And you lot think you're fit to run the game after failing to see how big Origin would be? Pull another one.

Quayle and Arthurson put financial and logistical hardships on expansion teams that made survival impossible in 1995. They weren't meant to have a chance of competing. That's just dumb business. All 12 suburban Sydney teams would still be around if those 2 idiots didn't force them to generate the funds required to survive in a national competition. Most of the remaining teams still can't generate the funds and are reliant on funding that should be going to the grassroots. Is it any wonder clubs across the country are dying and AwFuL is winning the public relations war? They spend far more on promotion and development, which is giving them access to kids who would be playing RL if we were able to match them in these areas.

And??? Enough Büllshít donkey you obviously are enjoying texting in a forum to put out your mental demons, none of this matters, you cannot surpass a rival code if your not playing it, you can only do the best you can do with what you've got, and keeping locals local and adding to participation is why brisbane 2 is coming, not to go reaching at AFLs trophies, to be better than them, we are an already superior game, not a game of fumbleball, and all the metrics in the world won't change that, nor point out what we should change, the game has already evolved with its new rules, they are on track to give one of the 3 bids a chance to participate, so be happy f**kwit, stop knitpicking at the arseholes that ruined the game 30 years ago, look at the past few years since Abdo and Apollo had begun implementing change

 

[Jamberoo]

Fitzroy relocated to Brisbane in 1997. No one remembers the Brisbane Bears.

Incorrect. Brisbane took just eight players and changed their nickname and song. There was never an actual merger, despite how the AFL sold it. It was handled appallingly. Fitzroy remained in Melbourne and still exists in a local league.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Incorrect. Brisbane took just eight players and changed their nickname and song. There was never an actual merger, despite how the AFL sold it. It was handled appallingly. Fitzroy remained in Melbourne and still exists in a local league.

A new Fitzroy team was created a few years ago, but it's not the Lions.

Brisbane adopted the Lions brand, which included thre guernsey and logo. The only thing they changed was the colour red to maroon, but they seem to be going back to red.

There's nothing left of the Bears, except for a brief mention of them and Fitzroy in their song.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

And??? Enough Büllshít donkey you obviously are enjoying texting in a forum to put out your mental demons, none of this matters, you cannot surpass a rival code if your not playing it, you can only do the best you can do with what you've got, and keeping locals local and adding to participation is why brisbane 2 is coming, not to go reaching at AFLs trophies, to be better than them, we are an already superior game, not a game of fumbleball, and all the metrics in the world won't change that, nor point out what we should change, the game has already evolved with its new rules, they are on track to give one of the 3 bids a chance to participate, so be happy f**kwit, stop knitpicking at the arseholes that ruined the game 30 years ago, look at the past few years since Abdo and Apollo had begun implementing change

You might be worth talking to when you grow up and get over your anger problems. You're going on ignore.

 

[Jamberoo]

A new Fitzroy team was created a few years ago, but it's not the Lions.

Brisbane adopted the Lions brand, which included thre guernsey and logo. The only thing they changed was the colour red to maroon, but they seem to be goinf back to red.

There's nothing left of the Bears, except for a brief mention of them and Fitzroy in their song.

So Brisbane just got to keep their entire playing list, the same board, all home games in Brisbane. Fitzroy did not approve or want the ‘merger’. There was no votes and technically, no merger. The AFL on behalf of Brisbane simply bought eight players and a new mascot.
After 1997, Fitzroy partnered with a Coburg in the VFL, then with Uni Reds to become the Fitzroy Red. It is legally and morally the same club that was formed in the 19th century.
Brisbane gained around a third of Fitzroy supporters, a third changed to other clubs and a third were lost to the game. Perhaps they became Storm fans.