NRL Expansion. Ideas and opinions.

[The Great Dane]

A full-time NRL Division 2 (without promotion & relegation) would help here. It would be a fairly decent lineup too:

PNG Hunters
Kaviti Silktails
Pacifique XIII
New Zealand 2
Sunshine Coast Falcons
Redcliffe Dolphins
North Brisbane Devils
East Brisbane Tigers
Logan Magpies
Wynnum-Manly Seagulls
Ipswich Jets
Burleigh Bears
Tweed Seagulls
North Sydney Bears
Newtown Jets
Wyong Roos
WA Pirates
Adelaide (or a slot for them if / when any bidders want to bid to enter a team)

With the international flavour, relatively wide footprint in Australia and the mix of traditional and new clubs it could be a very popular comp that would attract sponsors and rate well enough on TV to get at least an NBL level TV deal to allow it to be a full-time comp that is also affordable for these clubs to play in at the same time (players salaries will be much lower than the NRL).

The NRL then have a pool of potential active clubs to choose from when they want to expand and if they need to make room for that expansion, they have a viable pro comp to demote teams into that won't destroy them.

Example 1: although Manly would prefer to play in the top flight, being demoted to this comp, remaining a full-time outfit and rekindling their rivalry with the bears in that context would be much more palatable than being demoted to the NSW Cup as it currently stands.

Example 2: if the Gold Coast Titans can't manage to turn things around, the NRL have both Burleigh or Tweed operating as pro clubs in NRL 2 that can step in and take the licence.

Clubs like WA, Adelaide, Easts Tigers, Redcliffe, Sunshine Coast, Central Coast and Ipswich (or any other club with top flight ambitions like North Sydney) can all prove their ability to run pro clubs, build ratings, attendances and memberships to push their case for inclusion in the top flight.

Full time professionalism in the second tier is a pipe dream, it'd take years of hard fought growth for that to ever be feasible.

Also if it's going to be feasible chances are that international teams aren't going to be part of it, at least not initially. That's not a bad thing either, as the NRL should be incentivising most of these other nations to invest in their own projects and to diversify their income sources independent of Australia, not making them more an more reliant on the NRL and Australian system for their existence.
However if the NRL is insistent on making them all dependants, then they should totally take them over so they can more directly benefit from it, not string them along as they do now, but I'd argue against that, and this is a separate argument.

 

[The Great Dane]

If the Falcons were promoted though, they would probably get a massive boost in crowd numbers.

Probably, but even with that boost they still wouldn't be as valuable to the NRL as teams in larger markets like Brisbane, Perth, etc.

The point was though that if there was undeniable proven support for the club, like if they were drawing healthy attendances, then it'd make them much more appealing to potential investors, and it'd flush the local grassroots with resources that they don't have, namely money.
By giving the sport exposure and access to more resources on a local level that would fix two of the major issues that the sport has in the bush.

It won't change though because everybody is willing to whinge and whine about how the sport is dying in the bush but most of them aren't willing to get off their arse and do anything about, they all just want the NRL to come and save them, which the NRL couldn't possibly do even if they wanted too.

 

[T-Boon]

I know you love NSO, but it’s a terrible ground for RL, even worse than Brookvale. Manly will need somewhere to play though if Brookvale ever gets the upgrades it needs, maybe we will end up playing out of NSO and the Central Coast for a season.

NSO is a great location with a terrible stadium.
Brookvale is a terrible location with a terrible stadium.
The best location for a Northern Sydney team is without a doubt the NSO area. I understand it is heritage listed but so was/is the SCG and upgrades get done there.

 

[LeagueXIII]

Works well like that on a map, in reality no hope.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Full time professionalism in the second tier is a pipe dream, it'd take years of hard fought growth for that to ever be feasible.

Also if it's going to be feasible chances are that international teams aren't going to be part of it, at least not initially. That's not a bad thing either, as the NRL should be incentivising most of these other nations to invest in their own projects and to diversify their income sources independent of Australia, not making them more an more reliant on the NRL and Australian system for their existence.
However if the NRL is insistent on making them all dependants, then they should totally take them over so they can more directly benefit from it, not string them along as they do now, but I'd argue against that, and this is a separate argument.

You might be right about it being a pipe dream, I'm not sure. All I know is that it would add some sort of value to Fox and / or Nine. How much over and above the existing TV rights deal? I don't know.

If it did happen though, the international sides would be perfect additions. They are already self-funded professional setups and TV deals from their local markets (however small) will help fund the comp.

On the NRL taking over the general pacific region, there are positives and negatives. Positives are probably better pathways and therefore more talent flowing through to the NRL (and as an added bonus away from Union). The negatives are the same ones that plague the current international game, nations being reliant on NRL clubs releasing players. I guess at least if the NRL were the regional Governing body, they could make a profit from the internationals and tournaments and madate player release like they do for Origin.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

You're not going to sell it to fox as it is unlikely to add more subscribers who dont already follow RL on Fox. FTA may be interested in it can generate a big enough audience but that would require it to be in TV time slots already filled by NRL?
Whilst it will have its attraction, outside of soccer in UK, I cant think of a second tier professional comp that draws big crowds or sponsorships?
Agree that that the NSw and Wlnd cup money could, not that QRL and NSWRL woudl ever let that happen. I think that is around $30mill a year.

NRL reserve grade does exist in everything but name with a hotch potch of actual reserve grade sides in Sydney and club dual registrations in other places. The NRL clubs without pokies are the ones who cant afford to run their own reserve grade side it seems. Good luck getting NSWRL and QRL to agree to being third tier organisations lol.
Having some of these second division clubs as dual reg clubs for NRL clubs would create massive discrepancies in playing talent in the second division and turn fans off.

Like I said I would love to see it but it looks very unfeasible and lacking viability as an idea.

Best chance of it working would be to have NRL clubs have genuine reserve grade and then top 5 clubs from NSW and Qlnd cups with a sprinkling of expansion areas.
You could then have a P&R situation from third division NSW and Qlnd cup comps to replace the lowest placed nsw and Qlnd clubs in the second division each year. Wont happen due to cost though.

You make some good points, it would be nice to work towards a comp like this that doesn't compete with the NRL, but compliments it. College football in America would be a good example (yes, I understand a completely different market and context).

 

[The Great Dane]

If it did happen though, the international sides would be perfect additions. They are already self-funded professional setups and TV deals from their local markets (however small) will help fund the comp.

If proper lower tier competitions are ever going to possible as products that are independently sustainable from the NRL clubs, then it needs to be at least theoretically possible that a team independent of support from an NRL club can set up anywhere and still be competitive both commercially and on the pitch.

If you don't have that then you'll effectively just be recreating what we have now, a bunch of clubs that act as proxies for the NRL clubs running about in a glorified reserve grade that draws little to no interest independent of it's connection to the NRL, in other words; a waste of time and energy that exists only to serve the needs of the NRL clubs.

The problem with international clubs is that they make it way more expensive to operate a club in the competition because they bloat travel, insurance, and other costs, which is fine when the cost of operating a club isn't much of an issue, but when you are trying to set up a second tier competition which if it is to be feasible will need to be very cheap to operate in, then it's a big issue.

Put simply if you add international teams it'll massively increase the cost of operating in the competition, which will make it too expensive for 99% of the teams you should be targeting to take part unless they partner with an NRL club, which would effectively kill both the interest in the competition locally, and the purpose of the NRL having a second tier competition in the first place.

It's also not really true that the Hunters or Silktails are self funded, but that is an aside.

On the NRL taking over the general pacific region, there are positives and negatives. Positives are probably better pathways and therefore more talent flowing through to the NRL (and as an added bonus away from Union). The negatives are the same ones that plague the current international game, nations being reliant on NRL clubs releasing players. I guess at least if the NRL were the regional Governing body, they could make a profit from the internationals and tournaments and madate player release like they do for Origin.

All of those things you claim are positives or negatives are already happening without the NRL taking over the governing bodies in the pacific. . .

The positives of the NRL taking them over is that they (the NRL) would be forced to invest back into the sport locally in those places they've taken over, which, broadly speaking, isn't happening currently, and they'd have power over their international teams to force the clubs to release players for them and the incentive to do so because they'd keep all the profits made from those matches instead of them going to a third party as currently happens.

The negatives are are too many to count, and this post is already too long, so suffice it to say that the NRL should exist exclusively for the interest of the sport locally, i.e. in Australia, not anywhere else, and it's work overseas (particularly in player development) are already having extremely negative long term impacts both here and abroad.

 

[Pippen94]

If proper lower tier competitions are ever going to possible as products that are independently sustainable from the NRL clubs, then it needs to be at least theoretically possible that a team independent of support from an NRL club can set up anywhere and still be competitive both commercially and on the pitch.

If you don't have that then you'll effectively just be recreating what we have now, a bunch of clubs that act as proxies for the NRL clubs running about in a glorified reserve grade that draws little to no interest independent of it's connection to the NRL, in other words; a waste of time and energy that exists only to serve the needs of the NRL clubs.

The problem with international clubs is that they make it way more expensive to operate a club in the competition because they bloat travel, insurance, and other costs, which is fine when the cost of operating a club isn't much of an issue, but when you are trying to set up a second tier competition which if it is to be feasible will need to be very cheap to operate in, then it's a big issue.

Put simply if you add international teams it'll massively increase the cost of operating in the competition, which will make it too expensive for 99% of the teams you should be targeting to take part unless they partner with an NRL club, which would effectively kill both the interest in the competition locally, and the purpose of the NRL having a second tier competition in the first place.

It's also not really true that the Hunters or Silktails are self funded, but that is an aside.

All of those things you claim are positives or negatives are already happening without the NRL taking over the governing bodies in the pacific. . .

The positives of the NRL taking them over is that they (the NRL) would be forced to invest back into the sport locally in those places they've taken over, which, broadly speaking, isn't happening currently, and they'd have power over their international teams to force the clubs to release players for them and the incentive to do so because they'd keep all the profits made from those matches instead of them going to a third party as currently happens.

The negatives are are too many to count, and this post is already too long, so suffice it to say that the NRL should exist exclusively for the interest of the sport locally, i.e. in Australia, not anywhere else, and it's work overseas (particularly in player development) are already having extremely negative long term impacts both here and abroad.

Sounds like you making case against Perth & Adelaide

 

[The Great Dane]

Sounds like you making case against Perth & Adelaide

Not unless WA and SA suddenly leave the Commonwealth and become third world countries lol.

We weren’t even talking about the NRL, and I think that few people would disagree that trying to run NSW/QLD cup teams out of Perth or Adelaide would be an expensive waste of time unless it was as a direct pathway to the NRL.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

QLD NRL expansion study set for off-season
Scott Bailey 1 day ago

The NRL will launch a case study into Brisbane this summer to decide if and when the competition can expand to include a second team in the city.

Expansion will again be at the forefront of the next chapter of the NRL, with Andrew Abdo appointed as the game's full-time chief executive on Thursday.

It comes amid a turf war between the NRL and AFL, after the latter announced this year's grand final for Queensland and ongoing state government support.

The notion of a second Brisbane team has long been discussed at NRL HQ, becoming the preferred option for a 17th side under Peter V'landys chairmanship.

But V'landys said the league would not be rushed into a timeline, with a new free-to-air TV deal set for 2023.

"Even though I'm a very strong supporter of a second team in Brisbane, it's got to be a strong business case," V'landys said.

"It has to stack up and have value to the game. It can't cannibalise the Broncos or the Titans. So there's a lot of work to do in analysing that situation.

"There's no time set as to when we introduce a second Brisbane team. It might be a year away, two years away, three years away.

"But I stress again, the business case has to stack up."

Under former CEO Todd Greenberg and chairman Peter Beattie, the NRL launched a footprint study at the end of 2018 to consider the future expansion of the game.

Perth, the Central Coast, Central Queensland and a second New Zealand team have all featured alongside Brisbane as possible options in the past.

But Brisbane is now by far and away the most popular option, given high ratings in the region and the potential of having a game at Suncorp Stadium each week.

The conversation comes as the NRL desperately tries to stabilise its accounts under Abdo, cutting $50 million a year from head office.

The NRL has not expanded since the introduction of Gold Coast in 2007.

"Peter's always said that we'll look at expansion so far as it's feasible and so far as it's going to generate value for the game," Abdo said.

"Our job is to add value for all the stakeholders. If the business case stacks up then why wouldn't we look at it?"

Meanwhile the NRL remain in negotiations with the NSW Government around this year's grand final, given the changes to the state's stadium policy.

However it will almost certainly be played at ANZ Stadium on October 25, with as large of a crowd as possible.

Abdo also said the priority was for the NRLW competition to be played in double-headers with the men when it starts next month under a looser bubble scenario.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/qld-nrl-expansion-study-set-for-off-season/ar-BB18EKoS

I've been stating for ages that Bris 2 and 3 are more valuable than Adelaide and Perth because Brisbane brings money into the game. The other two don't. David Gyngell put the value of Bris 2 at $30 million. Looks like we will soon see if he was right.

I think it's fair to say I was right about Adelaide and Perth never getting a team. The reasons I gave were that Adelaide and Perth offer no financial value to the broadcasters or NRL. The comments from PVL and Abdo pretty much confirm any expansion team will need to bring money into the game. Perth and Adelaide will never be in a position to bring money into the game, so we can rule them out as an option for the 18th licence.

 

[T-Boon]

What's the big deal about it having a strong business case? The game doesn't make any money anyway. None of the clubs make money. There are surely much more important considerations.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

What's the big deal about it having a strong business case? The game doesn't make any money anyway. None of the clubs make money. There are surely much more important considerations.

The RLPA and 16 clubs will want the salary cap and annual grant for each team to remain the same. The salary cap is about $10 million and the annual grant is 130% of it, so an additional $13 million, making the total spend on each club $23 million. The only way they can do that is if the 17th team brings in an extra $23 million revenue to cover it, because the clubs will not accept a reduction in their grant and thr RLPA will not accept a lower salary cap. That money will need to come from the broadcasters. Ch9 have said in the past that Bris 2 will bring in an extra $30 million from the return they get on advertising revenue. Gyngell said Ch9 get a 100 cent return on the dollar when the Broncos play, and just 40 cents for everyone else. We all know that Adelaide and Perth will not bring in anything because their matches will draw shit ratings. COVID-19 and Ch9's financial problems might make it difficult for them to find that money in 2021.

 

[ACE88]

I've been stating for ages that Bris 2 and 3 are more valuable than Adelaide and Perth because Brisbane brings money into the game. The other two don't. David Gyngell put the value of Bris 2 at $30 million. Looks like we will soon see if he was right.

A second team in Brisbane will be great for the game in Brisbane!, but in order for the game to thrive you need to expand into new territories. The AFL and Soccer are nation wide and are Thriving every year! the NRL are in a little pocket on the East Coast of Australia with a Team in NZ.

In my view SA & WA need a NRL team! League mad PNG should have an NRL Team!

The Current Clubs in QLD & NSW don’t give a flying Hoot about expansion, because it means less money for them.

 

[Perth Red]

Lol, so we’re not looking at one, two, maybe three years away. Got to stack up, got to add value. Weve commissioned another study, what happened to the last one? This has got the last ten years of expansion talk but no action written all over it.

 

[Perth Red]

I see no one has yet answered my question. If Brisbane 2 is so valuable to Ch9 why have they not insisted on the club entering during the last three tv deals where they have paid more each deal?
Surely if Gygnell thinks they are worth $30mill he would have demanded their entry when he was signing previous tv deals?
so come on someone explain to me why Ch9 have not insisted on Brisbane2 over the last 15 years if they genuinely consider them such a boost to their ROI in nrl.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

A second team in Brisbane will be great for the game in Brisbane!, but in order for the game to thrive you need to expand into new territories. The AFL and Soccer are nation wide and are Thriving every year! the NRL are in a little pocket on the East Coast of Australia with a Team in NZ.

In my view SA & WA need a NRL team! League mad PNG should have an NRL Team!

The Current Clubs in QLD & NSW don’t give a flying Hoot about expansion, because it means less money for them.

PNG is becoming more industrialised. Gire it 20 years and there might be a large enough middle class to make it feasible.

NZ needs to have 3 teams. One isn't enough and it has so much more to offer the game than Adelaide and Perth.

Brisbane needs 3 teams. The TV ratings in Brisbane show the locals only want to watch local teams.

173k ave for Broncos on Ch9 Brisbane.
157k ave for Cowboys and Titans on Ch9 Brisbane.
150k ave for Storm on Ch9 Brisbane.
107k ave for everyone else on Ch9 Brisbane.

More local derbies for Brisbane will lead to more bumper crowds at Lang Park. Will help ease travel for all Queensland teams.

Three teams in NZ will make the NZ TV rights more valuable and allow the 6pm Fri game to be played in NZ, where the local time will be 8pm. If there are 3 clubs they could play 8 games each on a Fri at 8pm NZ time. Having an NZ team playing an Aussie team at this time slot will make it more valuable to the bookies.

I think Adelaide and Perth will only work if a couple of Sydney clubs relocate, at least partially. Wests could take six games to Perth and rename themselves the Western Tigers.