A key assumption of yours is very doubtful . Every Bears fan I have met over the past decade or so has indicated a support for a Central Coast Bears. In fact I've met younger people from Gosford that were part of the Central Coast Bears membership drive. They tell me they were gathering great interest and momentum despite being killed off by a 'sitting on its hands' administration of the NRL. You can try to debunk the Bears popularity as much as you like. They have support and it would very successful. It's all there waiting to make money but procrastination and lack of strategic thinking is dominating this rugby league currently. The Bears fans would and do openly welcome some place in the sun of the top flight competition. You are not reflecting the reality of what a Bears fan wants. They want to see a Bears team in black and red playing in the NRL. You won't accept this. Others do.
I'm hoping a vibrant new ARLC chairman will have such a win/win scenario a reality for the next TV deal.Throw in Brisbane2 & it's a win/ win for the competition and code. From this the NRL aims toward WA and another ambitious area as time goes on.
Stallion what would you do if the Roosters (they're your team right?) were relocated?
Also remember those conversations with some of my old Bears supporter friends I was talking about before?
Well I've literally had conversations with a lot of them where they have said things like 'the CC Bears is only what the club has to do to get back into the comp, they'll be called the CC Bears and play one or two games on the CC, but they'll play the rest at NS oval and really they'll just be the NS Bears, otherwise I won't support them', and other utterly delusional stuff like that.
That's not to say that there aren't Bears fans that are behind the CC Bears, because there definitely are, but roughly speaking the above reflects most old Bears supporters opinions in my experience (of which I assure you I have way more then you do in this regard).
So every time you're talking to 'an old Bears fan' that desperately wants the Bears back in the comp you're hearing 'I'd love and support the CC Bears' and most of the time they're thinking 'I'd love and support the CC Bears so long as they are really just the NS Bears that I remember from the glory days posing as a CC team'.
Another thing that would shock you is if you were to ask them how much they think tickets to the Bears games would or should cost if they were in the comp, because when you tell them that roughly speaking $200 is the going rate for season tickets in the worst seats they will look at you slack-jawed and say that is extortion and that they'd never pay that much for tickets to the footy.
I reckon that roughly three quarters of the old Bears supporters would drop off actively supporting the club straight away if they understood how much it's actually going to cost them now days.
On top of that their aren't as many of them left as a lot of people (including you) like to make out. Back in the 90s before the merger there was maybe 10-15k active Bears supporters in Sydney, now days you'd be lucky if there were 8-10k of those people left, and the majority of them would be over 50.
Once you subtract from that 8-10k the ones that will refuse to support them unless they're based out of NS, then subtract the ones who can't afford/will refuse to pay the amount it cost for tickets these days, you'll be lucky if you are left with 1-2k of the old support base activally supporting the club, which isn't exactly the 'tens of thousands' of old Bears supporters just champing at the bit for the Bears to come back that are always promised is it.
