Mass Expansion possible with de- mergers

[Perth Red]

It’s part of their da application of 1200 units but it’s gone quiet

If they get the funding it’s a massive project

Belmore Bankstown Homebush and Liverpool

That would be a huge geographical base

Tigers will still be playing in five home grounds and trying to work out which they should focus on

Crap nrl clubs are going to get left behind even with a salary cap they will get left behind by the mega clubs

Strange argument,
Bulldogs covering 4 areas give them a 'huge geographical base',
Tigers covering 5 areas 'dont know who to focus on'.
Which is it?

 

[Wb1234]

Strange argument,
Bulldogs covering 4 areas give them a 'huge geographical base',
Tigers covering 5 areas 'dont know who to focus on'.
Which is it?

The areas are all connected lmao

Showing your ignorance about Sydney again.

 

[Perth Red]

The areas are all connected lmao

Showing your ignorance about Sydney again.

If Bears can overcome the distance between Perth and North Sydney pretty sure the Tigers can manage the gap between Balmain and Campbeltown lol!

 

[Canard]

Tigers cover to many areas of Sydney.

But if they moved to Brisbane they would be more popular in Sydney.

 

[Pippen94]

The biggest issue with gws is they were based at Blacktown and hated it so moved to Homebush

Campbelltown isn’t too bad plus not hard to get too on the m5 from southern Sydney

Population is booming

Whichever club targets Liverpool and Campbelltown is on a winner down the track

If dogs get Liverpool stadium tigers time in Sydney will be on its last legs

Bulldogs should've moved to Liverpool decades ago. Hate to say it but tigers and magpies should've been let go by league. By 90's were poor on and off field. Game was flying and didn't need them.

 

[Pippen94]

Strange argument,
Bulldogs covering 4 areas give them a 'huge geographical base',
Tigers covering 5 areas 'dont know who to focus on'.
Which is it?

South west corridor

 

[flippikat]

Bulldogs should've moved to Liverpool decades ago. Hate to say it but tigers and magpies should've been let go by league. By 90's were poor on and off field. Game was flying and didn't need them.

The whole idea of that particular joint venture appears to have been "let's take two foundation clubs that are at their lowest ebb, pool all their talent and resources into one club & hope like hell that crap plus crap doesn't equal more crap.."

 

[Marshall_magic]

Seeing what’s happened to the bears and you wouldn’t support a demerger and joining up with easts tigers ? If it included one game at lo and the traditional jersey and colours returning ?

I think he had a point about how unstable joint ventures are as Souths and manly have also shown

Interested in the perspective of a wt fan

This back in the nrl would be crazy

Honestly, a demerger and remerger with some Brisbane club is at best a lateral move for an old Balmain fan. Apart from where the games are played how is that any different from what we have now? Two sides fighting over anything other than the greater good of the current side, except now I can’t attend home games. Comparing it to the Bears, all I would ask is, would Norths fans have taken this option in 2000? 2002? 2007? Or are they accepting it after being starved of a team for over 2 decades?

As for a WT fan’s thought, I am in my mid 30s, the first season I can properly remember following the game is 1998 (when I was 7). Prior to that I would have watched some games and gone out to a few but was constantly distracted. With that in mind my experience following the pre-merged club is all of about 50 games. Not exactly fond memories, I was born after Balmain’s last ever finals appearance. To get a more rounded thought on that you would be better off speaking to fans over 50. For Magpies fans you would potentially need to go older for a fan that had happy days.

 

[Growthegame]

Any crowd above 10k would be an absolute nightmare to get into or out of if it was built near the Gold Coast Highway.

Light rail has a max capacity of 3k passengers per hour. Heavy rail has capacity of up to 12k per hour.

That's why they're looking to build a 50k outdoor festival venue right near CBUS - this is a further project near the stadium - that I didn't include in past post - construction scheduled for 2027. Watch the video in the below link (starts at 2:24) and they literally say that it needed to not be built near the GC Highway.

Robina Greenheart


People tend to also ignore growth when it's not the flashy Warriors and Bulldogs kind, not to undersell what they've achieved.

Look at 2014/15 vs 2022/2023 - Both periods where the Titans came ~14th, 2 years in a row. In 2015 they averaged 11,236. In 2023 they average 17,054 - This is solely based on CBus games too. This is baseline growth of core support. The people who will turn up week in, week out. I'd suggest this is much more impressive and important than a temporary boost in crowd averages due to ladder position. It would usually be quite hard to measure, but the Titans have been consistently below average for so long, it's actually fairly easy to plot.


View attachment 103905
Data for the Titans plotted in a Spreadsheet and Chart above.
* Omitted 2020 & 2021
* Expressed ladder position as a percent, as differing amount of teams during the period - which changes the denominator. 100% being first - 0% being last.
* Solid black line is approximately where 8th place is.
* This is solely based off Gold Coast based games (Cbus or Carrara) - 2007 had two big crowds at Suncorp - not included - No Magic Rounds included either.
-------------------------------------------------
Anyone who genuinely thinks on field performance should be used as the only metric for the viability of a team in the NRL should really think about it.

As a Sports admin would you prefer a team that's done poorly that is still growing? Or a team that's relatively successful, but isn't growing support. It's a moot point anyway. I can't see any teams being removed, relocated or merged in the next 15-20 years.

The only situation I could see this potentially happening. In 20-30 years time, we've reached maximum capacity for expansion in terms of valuable broadcast timeslots. Theres a lucrative area without a team. And theres a team that is severely underperforming all other teams - crowdwise and financially. That's the only merge/relocation situation I could potentially see happening.

Great post mate. Love this type of thoughtful content.

I agree with the last post. The club with the most potential of this happened at this stage would have to be Cronulla. Although that lucrative area doesn’t exist at this stage. A lot can change between now and then.

 

[Growthegame]

Used car dealer would be a step down.

used car dealer would be a step down from a new car dealer but definitely a big step up from a pawn broker.

 

[Vlad59]

Great post mate. Love this type of thoughtful content.

I agree with the last post. The club with the most potential of this happened at this stage would have to be Cronulla. Although that lucrative area doesn’t exist at this stage. A lot can change between now and then.

Yep it was a great post. NKO11 is easily one of the best here.
And you are correct. The lucrative area doesn’t exist at this time. That’s why this talk of club relocation is utter BS. And anybody who seriously suggests Adelaide needs to see a psychiatrist.
Adelaide is a rugby league desert. Its junior comps are tiny. It’s just recovering from ten years of going backwards (which wasn’t easy as there was feck all footy there beforehand anyway).
As for my club the sharks. We are one of two or three clubs who might be ripe for major location one day for a multitude of reasons. But now or the next decade? Not even a small chance.

 

[Pippen94]

used car dealer would be a step down from a new car dealer but definitely a big step up from a pawn broker.

NRL shows it doesn't work with pawn brokers

 

[AdelaideSharky]

Yep it was a great post. NKO11 is easily one of the best here.
And you are correct. The lucrative area doesn’t exist at this time. That’s why this talk of club relocation is utter BS. And anybody who seriously suggests Adelaide needs to see a psychiatrist.
Adelaide is a rugby league desert. Its junior comps are tiny. It’s just recovering from ten years of going backwards (which wasn’t easy as there was feck all footy there beforehand anyway).
As for my club the sharks. We are one of two or three clubs who might be ripe for major location one day for a multitude of reasons. But now or the next decade? Not even a small chance.

You are bang on the money on all points.

I've lived here for a decade and the NRLSA comp is tiny as.

Nobody I know bar about 8 are remotely interested in rugby league in this city.

People turned up to Origin and the Roosters vs Storm games but generally have no idea.

 

[Vlad59]

You are bang on the money on all points.

I've lived here for a decade and the NRLSA comp is tiny as.

Nobody I know bar about 8 are remotely interested in rugby league in this city.

People turned up to Origin and the Roosters vs Storm games but generally have no idea.

Yep. I had a bit to do with them a few years ago. A hardy bunch in a rugby league wasteland.

 

[Wb1234]

NRL shows it doesn't work with pawn brokers

He’s on the board now for Perth bears

Wa govt appointee

 

[Wb1234]

You are bang on the money on all points.

I've lived here for a decade and the NRLSA comp is tiny as.

Nobody I know bar about 8 are remotely interested in rugby league in this city.

People turned up to Origin and the Roosters vs Storm games but generally have no idea.

Once Perth is established nrl will have to go to Adelaide to tick that final box

Apparently the rams were one of the few clubs who have good finances back then

All depends on how successful Perth are

Issue would be is who would they link with if they aren’t standalone

 

[AdelaideSharky]

Once Perth is established nrl will have to go to Adelaide to tick that final box

Apparently the rams were one of the few clubs who have good finances back then

All depends on how successful Perth are

Issue would be is who would they link with if they aren’t standalone

It's all well and good to look at here to tick boxes but there's f**k all interest here.

Besides the handful of ex-interstaters like myself nobody is remotely interested in rugby league here in Adelaide.

It's Aussie Rules first and daylight second down here.

Soccer and basketball have a following but even that's tiny compared to the behemoth that is AFL here.

We simply don't have the interstate and overseas expat community for it to work.

The death of the Rams in 1998 destroyed rugby league here.

 

[nko11]

Great post mate. Love this type of thoughtful content.

I agree with the last post. The club with the most potential of this happened at this stage would have to be Cronulla. Although that lucrative area doesn’t exist at this stage. A lot can change between now and then.

Specifically for Cronulla, they are moving in the right direction, albeit slowly.
Especially with the recent developments with the Leagues club. From a solely business perspective, ignoring any moral qualms people may have, I hope the delay in construction doesn't impact profitability of the investment. It would be just Cronullas luck for them to finally open the leagues club and then state-wide poker machine bans come in. Kareela seems to be have been quite successful.
No doubt they already have goals set. But hopefully in 15 years we'll see Cronulla with plenty diversified revenue generating assets. Along with staged upgrades to Shark Park - to get capacity back up and over 20k.

If they can manage that, I'd say they're safe. A 3rd Brisbane team would probably be the most likely to be commercially viable, unless a bucketload of investment goes into Adelaide. Who knows with Perth coming in. It could actually happen if they feel they are missing out. Saying all of that:

* Brisbane 3 - Dolphins still need time to bed in and get a solidified fanbase (realistically another 15 years minimum)
* Adelaide - Needs investment and time for that investment to work (again realistically another 15 years minimum if started now).
* NZ2 - I would say are most realistic short-term to actually get in. Still need to demonstrate they are financially capable - doesn't really fit the descriptor of lucrative market just yet, so can't see them forcing their way in via a relocation of an existing club.

That's without mentioning that we'll be at 19 teams. So there's still room for 1 more team before I think we reach one of the major bottlenecks for further expansion.

The circumstances will definitely change for Brisbane3, potentially Adelaide and possibly NZ2 in the next 15-20 years.

Job of existing clubs is to focus on growth, so that they're not the lowest rung/are currently more valuable than the potential value of a relocated version of their team. I think the goal of an average attendance of 25k by 2045 for example would be a safe zone - attendance-wise.

NRL is in a growth phase. So clubs can't rest on their laurels like many did in the 2005-2019 period.

 

[Wb1234]

It's all well and good to look at here to tick boxes but there's f**k all interest here.

Besides the handful of ex-interstaters like myself nobody is remotely interested in rugby league here in Adelaide.

It's Aussie Rules first and daylight second down here.

Soccer and basketball have a following but even that's tiny compared to the behemoth that is AFL here.

We simply don't have the interstate and overseas expat community for it to work.

The death of the Rams in 1998 destroyed rugby league here.

Wasn’t much interest in afl in western Sydney or Gold Coast really

League isn’t trying to pretend it can take over

Just capture a part of the market

Origin got around 90k yesterday that would probably be what the local afl sides get

Again this is probably 15 years away

By then the nrl will have so much money it won’t know what to do with it

 

[BuffaloRules]

.

Origin got around 90k yesterday that would probably be what the local afl sides get

What does an NRL game get ? That’s the competition they will be playing in