NRL club merger's

[docbrown]

Would have thought it'd be pretty obvious really but I'll answer anyway. I can't speak for Roosters supporters but when I was a kid I became an Eels supporter because of the stuff the club did in the local area, like when the players came to my school etc. Stuff like that builds and maintains a supporter base. You take that away by basing a side in another area, especially in a different country. And I know you said in a response to somebody else the club can still do that when they play 'away' games, but please, think about that practically and logically. That's just one point, I could point out many other problems with this but I think most of those points have been covered by other people. It's an out there idea, so I'll give you credit for that, but you've not thought it through at all.

It is an out there idea, I don't deny that. I am against a total relocation for the exact same reason but I think there are probably too many worthwhile expansion locations and not enough space to fit them so the question is likely to come back to Sydney and the limitations of certain clubs.

I admit that it may be harder for players to get out there but it's not like Eastern Sydney or Sutherland Shire are massive areas. What would you say is the typical community engagement schedule for a club like the Eels?

Also, feel free to bring up any of those other points.

 

[adamkungl]

Do you know which club had the most number of sub 10,000 games in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011?

I can guess

Which club had the most piss poor performances in 2007, 2009 and 2011...

Also, in none of those years did we have the lowest crowd or anywhere near the lowest memberships.

And when it comes down to it, our crowds affect our financials. The sooking keyboard heroes in the Crowd Watch thread on LU don't really come into considerations when deciding to throw away our club's history.

 

[unforgiven]

I agree that to enable the introduction of new clubs there needs to be some rationalisation of the sydney market. The ARL had spoken about this in the 90's. The super league war put this process back prob 20 years because it was viewed as teams having to merge, relocate or fold because of news limited.

The only way u can minimise the heamoraging of supporters throught this process is to have the clubs make the decisions themselves and to not force it onto them. Being a Wests Tigers fan I do see mergers as the way forward, but clubs need to make the decision themselves.

There needs to be real incentives given to make clubs decide to merge and these mergers need to be successful to galvanise the supporters into following the merged entity. No bail outs should be given to sides in fiancial trouble, they should be encouraged to take up the incentives to merge.

 

[Eels Dude]

I admit that it may be harder for players to get out there but it's not like Eastern Sydney or Sutherland Shire are massive areas. What would you say is the typical community engagement schedule for a club like the Eels?

Also, feel free to bring up any of those other points.

Daily. And this goes for all clubs I might add as they'd all do similar things. But in regards to the Eels the players can only train for a certain amount of hours every day so they send them to schools etc, do a lot of work with Westmead Children's Hospital. Obviously they don't send the whole team all at once, but split it up so there's a few players doing different promotional things over the course of the week. It's part of the job and it's stuff you don't read about because all the media care about is when high profile players get drunk and thrown out of a nightclub. That's the kind of stuff the clubs can't do if they are based in another city to where their supporter base is.

 

[the dude]

Wow, some dumb ideas in this thread.

 

[the dude]

Fair enough. I'll explain.

The comp would be played from the first week of March till September - a 28 week period period. The finals would still run over 4 weeks and end on the first week of October on the NSW holiday as current.

So over that 28 week period teams would get 3 byes and play 25 matches. 12 home games and 13 away games.

In a 20 team league by extending the comp by 1 week you create 10 new games. 5 could be played at SFS. 5 at Cronulla.

Using the Roosters just an example they'd play -
10 games in Wellington (2 left over)
5 new games at SFS plus take their other 2 home games to SFS = 7 games at SFS total

Then they could work out an arrangement for away ticket membership packages for ANZAC Day and Heritage Round etc at the SFS so they can sell a 10 game SFS membership package.

So in effect they'd play
10 home games in Wellington
7 games at SFS - which if they're based in NZ, for the team is a travelling away game
3 away games at SFS
8 away games elsewhere

Cronulla could have -
7 home games at Cronulla - which if they're based in NZ, for the team is a travelling away game
10 games at Christchurch
1 away game at Kogarah
7 away games elsewhere

All other sides would have -
12 home games (except obviously for games they relocate elsewhere as current)
13 away games

250 games per home and away season (i.e. 25 x 10 but played over 28 weeks)

Ok, lets destroy a club rather than simply expand the competition.

They are the Cronulla Sutherland Sharks, not the Cronulla Wellington Sharks.

How in god's name can a club represent a beach suburb in southern sydney and the northern island of new zealand.

 

[Pigskin]

the ol' chestnut thread ... doc is really trying to come up with a way to fix the fact that

there are too many clubs in Sydney, drawing low crowds and the game cannot sustain them all ... who'd have thought :shock:

he is trying to fix it by adjusting the draw, adding games, being as gentle as possible, giving them another supporter base and making the entire proposal as pretty as possible

kudos to doc for trying

if it were up to me, I'd just lower the grant from the NRL and let them die one by one until we got down to 4 or 5

Oink !

 

[Pigskin]

can't remember who came up with the idea originally, but don't think it was somebody on this forum ... but I really like the following

put $5 million on the table for any team(s) that are willing to merge or relocate ... add $500,000 to a million a year until somebody takes up the option

and the option WOULD get taken ... nothing surer

how long it would take, who knows ... but if in 5 years the bounty is $10 million, I think it would be gone and one Sydney problem child would be cured

Oink !

 

[the dude]

Make it an 18-team league across Australia and NZ.

9 teams from Sydney and the areas surrounding Sydney.

Rabbitohs, Roosters, Manly, Dragons, Tigers, Sharks, Bulldogs, Eels, Panthers

9 teams from the rest of Australia and NZ.

NZ, Newcastle, Canberra, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Townsville, Perth, Central Coast


The teams in division 1 play eachother twice per year, they play the teams in division 2 once per year (alternating home/away each year. one season it will be 4 away 5 home, the next it will be 5 away, 4 home). Resulting in 25 rounds.

Each team from Sydney will therefore play 20-21 games in Sydney each year and 4-5 games outside of Sydney.



The teams in the 2nd division will play eachother twice and the teams in division 1 once.


Top 4 from each division meet in the finals in a predetermined way to decide 1 premier.

 

[Misanthrope]

Really, St George/Cronulla should have been the merger. I miss the Steelers :-(

Seriously though, it's a damned if you do - damned if you don't situation.

Sydney has too many clubs, but I'd be hard pressed to say who would need to get cut if I put aside biases and dislikes of certain clubs. There are a lot of places outside of Sydney either deserving of teams (Perth, Central QLD, South QLD, Wellington, Central Coast, and Papua New Guinea) or viable spots for teams if we're aiming to boost out footprint (Hobart, Adelaide, Darwin). Hell, long term I wouldn't be opposed to including teams from certain pacific islands or even a South African side.

But the Sydney clubs, like it or not, all have a history and they all have a very distinct supporter base. The only ones that made sense to merge basically did, although I stand by my thought that the merger should have been St George/Sutherland rather than St George/Illawarra.

 

[Teddyboy]

Instead of merging clubs they should decrease stadium sizes, so that every club reaches capacity.

Thats true as well as when Penrith were doing well there crowds were great but then they increased capacity and there crowds went down.
Remember when South's were thinking of making Redfern a 16000 seater and I thought that was a good idea and right sized capacity for a Rugby team.

 

[Eels Dude]

Someone living in S**sville UK doesn't seem to know much about the geography of Sydney. Not surprising really.

 

[Perth Red]

If you take the Broncos out of the equation the reality is that at the moment most NRL clubs attract around 15k fans. Poor seasons see it drop to around 12-13k, good seasons see it rise to 16-17K. The challenge for the ARLC is how to help clubs lift that avg 15k fans base to 20k and beyond so bad seasons see 17-20k and good seasons see 25k+. It will be a long and hard road but we should have faith that our game is good enough and entertaining enough to make it happen. I don't think mergers are the answer.

I doubt we will ever get to AFL or EPL level of attendances but 25k avg should be a realistic goal over the next 20 years.

Crowds have generally been quite static for 6 years now and the ARLC needs to consider how it changes this.

2011 16,273
2005 16,478
1999 13,937

 

[Eels Dude]

If you take the Broncos out of the equation the reality is that at the moment most NRL clubs attract around 15k fans. Poor seasons see it drop to around 12-13k, good seasons see it rise to 16-17K. The challenge for the ARLC is how to help clubs lift that avg 15k fans base to 20k and beyond so bad seasons see 17-20k and good seasons see 25k+. It will be a long and hard road but we should have faith that our game is good enough and entertaining enough to make it happen. I don't think mergers are the answer.

I doubt we will ever get to AFL or EPL level os attendances but 25k avg shoukd be a realitic goal over the next 20 years.

Crowds have generally been quite static for 6 years now and the ARLC needs to consider how it changes this.

2011 16,273
2005 16,478
1999 13,937

Well with the push for season memberships that makes it difficult. You can't sell more season tickets than you have seats. And you can't sell tickets to seats at home games which have already been purchased by season ticket holders.

In regards to the Eels, it's hard to purchase reserved seating as a casual fan or non ticketed member if you want more than 3 or 4 tickets seated together because of what I mentioned above.

 

[Perth Red]

That's why 25k stadiums hsould be the NRL min imo. Also having a scheme were members can return unused seats for games can help when capacity is being reached, some AFL clubs do this. You get a credit for returning your seat the week before the game so it can be onsold.

Quick graph of how overall NRL avg attendance is tracking over last 20 years. The avg attendance has plateaued around the 16k mark for the last 6 seasons.

 

[Dogs Of War]

can't remember who came up with the idea originally, but don't think it was somebody on this forum ... but I really like the following

put $5 million on the table for any team(s) that are willing to merge or relocate ... add $500,000 to a million a year until somebody takes up the option

and the option WOULD get taken ... nothing surer

how long it would take, who knows ... but if in 5 years the bounty is $10 million, I think it would be gone and one Sydney problem child would be cured

Oink !

I am all for this, but it would have to start higher. Say $15mil, going up $1mil a year. By year 5 I think you would have some very interested teams.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

Well with the push for season memberships that makes it difficult. You can't sell more season tickets than you have seats. And you can't sell tickets to seats at home games which have already been purchased by season ticket holders.

In regards to the Eels, it's hard to purchase reserved seating as a casual fan or non ticketed member if you want more than 3 or 4 tickets seated together because of what I mentioned above.

Maybe I'm slow and missing something, but if season ticket holders are buying up all the seats what is the problem? I can understand that casual fans wouldn't be able to get into the game, but a casual fan wouldn't be able to get into any game if all of the seats had been bought up by any means.

If season ticket holders are buying tickets that they don't use, it does look bad but that is really their right to waste their money like that. If all the seats are being sold, then it sounds like the ground is already reaching capacity, but I was under the impression that is not the case for a lot of teams.

What am I missing?

 

[TheDalek079]

My suggestion is a bit to radical for some people but I'll repeat it.

Relocate the Sharks to Christchurch, Roosters to Wellington but extend the comp by 1 week so the Roosters can still play 10 games in NZ and 7 games at the SFS and the Sharks can play 10 games in NZ and 7 games at Endeavour.

Tigers, Rabbitohs & Dragons have played games at Moore Park. Set up a 3 match away game membership arrangement and that's 10 games a season the Roosters still get out of their traditional Eastern Sydney base. As all the players etc would be based in New Zealand it would only feel like a "home game" to the fans as everyone else is travelling.

All teams still get a maximum of 12 out of the 25 games as home games. Sharks/Roosters have to travel for those 7 games in Sydney. Let the two clubs make money of the Sydney memberships but any extra gate receipts could be divided amongst the other 18 clubs as compensation.

It leaves 4 spots in a 20 team comp for expansion - Central Coast, SEQ, Perth & Central Qld - in conjunction to the 2 extra NZ locations.

Both the original fans, and the fans in the new city will not accept partial relocation. 10 games new venue, 2 at old may be fine, but a 10/7 split will not work

 

[adamkungl]

Sydney doesn't have too many teams.

 

[Perth Red]

too few fans?