Mate, you think the storm are going to go bust and the broncos should be booted out, like it or not they are the 2 safest clubs in the whole competition
Melbourne are far from being the 2nd safest club in the competition.
Their whole operation is dependent upon finishing in the top 4 each year with a one of a kind coach on the back of the exploits of 4 immortals from Queensland and retaining a strong brand in the Brisbane metro market. Smith is the only immortal still running around and he's also the best player you've ever had. When he and Bellamy go, and it looks like 2021 will be their swansong, the club is in for some hard times.
Don't think the next generation of Queenslanders will adopt the Storm as their team when Brisbane 2 enter the big league and Storm are sliding down the ladder with a team that has no future immortals from Queensland. Take away those strong ratings from Brisbane and Storm are not left with much.
The Cowboys are a more successful operation off the field than the Storm, despite the club having to scrape tooth and nail for everything it has ever gotten in a small regional city. It regularly turns a profit and is an icon throughout the north of the state.The same cannot be said about Melbourne.
Noone has tried to argue expansion would be easy, it most definately wont be, but sometimes you need to have the balls to try something every now and then, but the NRL has continued to show it has no balls what so ever. "Expanding" into heartland areas already represented is not balsy nor true expansion, its the easy move (Brisbane 2 being the exception as the RL city should have a local derby, and should have a LONG time ago).
The constant theme on this sub-forum is Sydney needs to be rationalised and Brisbane kept to a maximum of 2 clubs. It's in every thread and has been going on for years. Anyone who dares to go against the group think is ostracised.
Look at what you all did to Stallion, just because you didn't like his ideas.
You're being disingenuous by saying it's just a matter of having "balls". Expansion is funded by capital. Lot's of it. From 1998 until 2018 the Storm were given $101,500,000 in funds from News Ltd and the ARLC to keep them from going belly up. Add on inflation and that amount would be far higher for any club starting out today. It's why an ARL Commissioner said it will require $200 million from an investor to bankroll a Perth team. No one in Australia who has the kind of dough lying around is willing to spend it on the West Coast Pirates. Perth Red and his mates can jump up and down about the NRL having no vision or whatever it is he says when his fantasy is publicly knocked back by the ARLC, but at the end of the day if the money isn't there then it cannot be done.
Brisbane 2 and Brisbane 3 have a long list of investors lining up to fund them should they be admitted into the NRL. They will also have no trouble developing a strong core of supporters in a true RL city. The audience is already here waiting for them to come into the NRL. In Perth and Adelaide that audience will need to be created from scratch while a much larger and better funded beast (AwFuL) constantly tells them to only look at their game.
Local derbies in Brisbane will generate crowds at Lang Park of over 40,000. possibly even 52,500 sellouts. That's guaranteed money for both clubs participating in the game. We know that Brisbane metro tune in to watch the Queensland clubs and the one they've adopted from Melbourne, so there will be a spike in TV ratings in this market. Ch9 and Foxtel both want more teams in Brisbane. They don't want Perth or Adelaide. They pay the bills.
AwFuL generates more income than the NRL through its superior attendances. Adding teams into Brisbane will improve the NRL's attendances, bridging the gap between us and them.
The only way the game grows its revenue through expansion is by adding 2 or 3 teams to Brisbane. Any team added to Perth or Adelaide will cost it a fortune that it does not have.
Despite all the school clinics and media attention the Storm have gotten in Melbourne, only 3,500 Victorians play the game and less than 50,000 watch regularly on FTA and PayTV. That's a poor return on the $101,500,000 that was spent keeping them afloat. Without Queensland's strong ratings they would probably have been wound up by now.
I noticed you failed to make any comment about this? you act like Melbourne are the only team to ever need money (and news were the clubs owners at the time, its no different to every clubs owners funding them). The NRL has bailed out countless clubs over the years, and many continue to be insolvent, especially without the millions of pokie money wasted away on them. What are those clubs excuses? they are in almost the exact opposite scenario to the one Melbourne are in but yet Melbourne are solvent.
How many clubs have required $101,500,000 in funds to keep them solvent since 1998?
Only Melbourne Storm.
The Titans were bailed out after the Centre for Excellence mismanagement by Michael Searle. The current consortium that own them wanted to buy the licence long before the NRL put it up for tender, which would have saved the ARLC a lot of money. That club has survived despite being run like a public toilet that's never cleaned. Until recently, the Storm bleed money like a haemophiliac despite being at the top of the ladder every bloody year for the bulk of their existence. Let's wait until the Storm have a few years like the Titans before we declare them a success. If they can survive a period of 5 or 10 lean years then they've made it, but we cannot say that yet as it's never happened.
Dragons ran into some trouble but it was sorted out.
Wests had some trouble due to the Balmain side of the venture falling through, but the Magpies are strong. The NRL wouldn't let the Magpies buy out the licence as they wanted it to remain a merged entity.
Newcastle's problems began and ended with Nathan Tinkler.
Cronulla has always found a way to survive.
