NRL expansion review process

[papabear]

No we don't, we only officially cover the Northern Beaches, the North Shore is still controlled, bizarrely, by the Bears under the NSWRL rules/borders, Manly isn't allowed in to do development work etc as it's not (officially) our territory. Instead of just allowing the Bears to die and Manly to move in and develop the area, the Bears have been kept alive thanks to the CC pipe dream and their partnership with Souths (which does nothing for the area). So we could be covering the North Shore, and a million+ people, that's our potential, but we can't at the moment thanks to old NSWRL bureaucracy and a CC bid that's dead in the water.

If there is to be one team from northern Sydney blind freddy could see that it should be based out of either chatswood / north Sydney or Hornsby, not friggin manly.

Manlys potential should be to piss off and let the bears back in to grow the game in northern Sydney including both the north shore and the peninsula.

If manly had any potential they would have achieved it after all the GFs and premierships they have won.

 

[reanimate]

If there is to be one team from northern Sydney blind freddy could see that it should be based out of either chatswood / north Sydney or Hornsby, not friggin manly.

Manlys potential should be to piss off and let the bears back in to grow the game in northern Sydney including both the north shore and the peninsula.

If manly had any potential they would have achieved it after all the GFs and premierships they have won.

The Bears aren't going to be brought back in at Manly's expense, that will never happen. The NRL is either going to add a team or work with what they have already. Given that the Bears have little chance of getting back in, and what little chance they did have seems to be getting slimmer and slimmer, as seen by the decision allowing the Roosters to link up with the CC, it'll more than likely be the Sea Eagles covering the entire north once the situation is sorted out. Would it have been better for a Northern Sydney team to have been based out of somewhere like Chatswood? Yeah, it would have, a new ground in a central location like that would have been ideal, but it's doubtful that'll happen.

Manly has potential, it's being heavily stymied at the moment by the awful condition of Brookvale Oval though.

 

[papabear]

Reanimate do you come from the northern beaches?

In your opinion do people from the northern beaches want to be associated with people from other parts of northern Sydney?

 

[reanimate]

Reanimate do you come from the northern beaches?

In your opinion do people from the northern beaches want to be associated with people from other parts of northern Sydney?

Yeah I do, my girlfriend's from the North Shore though and I work there too, so I spend plenty of time there. It depends where on the beaches they're from, you've got some ultra insular spots, e.g. some of the people from Avalon barely emerge from their suburb, let alone the Beaches, but in other places it's really common to go to school on the North Shore, work there, play sport in comps with NS teams, go out there and vice versa. So I'd say the answer is yes, especially amongst younger people.

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

I'm not sure, but there's enough there to have given Manly trouble when trying to do development work on the North Shore in the past- http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/claws-come-out-in-northern-turf-war/story-e6frexni-1225964855717

Thats terrible. If this is still the case, then the Bears need to be killed off...

The other one thats seems a bit off is Campbeltown; Tigers dont seem particularly popular after 15 years there and they arent putting in the effort they could be in the inner-west. Id rather see Campbeltown given over to the Panthers so they can be the team of the entire far-west.

If there is to be one team from northern Sydney blind freddy could see that it should be based out of either chatswood / north Sydney or Hornsby, not friggin manly.

Manlys potential should be to piss off and let the bears back in to grow the game in northern Sydney including both the north shore and the peninsula.

If manly had any potential they would have achieved it after all the GFs and premierships they have won.

Youre right about this, but the Bears wont be brought in at the expense of Manly. If they can have a stdium built in Chatswood or St Ives, the Eagles should move there. But they would be a far more valuable brand than the Bears today.

The Bears aren't going to be brought back in at Manly's expense, that will never happen. The NRL is either going to add a team or work with what they have already. Given that the Bears have little chance of getting back in, and what little chance they did have seems to be getting slimmer and slimmer, as seen by the decision allowing the Roosters to link up with the CC, it'll more than likely be the Sea Eagles covering the entire north once the situation is sorted out. Would it have been better for a Northern Sydney team to have been based out of somewhere like Chatswood? Yeah, it would have, a new ground in a central location like that would have been ideal, but it's doubtful that'll happen.

Manly has potential, it's being heavily stymied at the moment by the awful condition of Brookvale Oval though.

I would just question how hard it could be to bring Chatswood Park (or somewhere like that) up to the standard of BROOKVALE. I mean look at it; 2 run down stands and a hill...

Skoda cost like $40 mil and this wouldnt even need to be that good.

 

[docbrown]

WT is an interesting case. They have such a split in supporter base these days that I wonder if a relocation would disenfranchise their fans. No doubt it would the hardcore fans and I am happy to be set straight but I am just putting it out there.

The Tigers' future are the 1 million+ people that are going to be living in Liverpool-Camden-Campbelltown corridor. This is what I mean about existing clubs relocating/shifting their focus to the growth population areas.

Re-brand as Western Sydney Tigers to throw the net wider. If that Bulldogs Liverpool development had gone through (or if something else similar does) then they could start to reflect their popularity in the stands.

Again the thing to keep in mind with all this crowd talk is that overall the NRL is TERRIBLE at getting club fans to go to games. They really are a tiny percentage of the fan base.

What evidence do you have for 1/2millon fans a club? I can see no measurable that would prove this to be anything more than a made up number. If that was true TV audiences would be 2-4 million a game as you would have 1million for the 2 clubs plus casual viewers.

Really? You really think that every possible club fan and every possible casual fan are going to be tuning in every time for every match? :lol:

The numbers are from independent polls by Roy Morgan and others. Let me guess - you'll have a whinge about polling now :crazy: These are polls that are used to drive advertising revenue for the NRL, I assure they're taking pretty f**king seriously.

In fact I'll throw this at you - the fan bases for NRL clubs are on par with AFL clubs based on the exact same profiles I'll go one step further and say that the support for the two leagues over all is pretty much neck and neck - around 5.5 million nationally, so yeah even when a grand final or origin is on there's around 1 million no shows. S

o why are AFL crowds so much higher? Because they have a better attendance culture, not because they have millions of more followers. So really, stop looking at crowds and using it death ride clubs.

What a load of nonsense! They already cover the North Shore and a million people. Their crowds are appalling.

No we don't, we only officially cover the Northern Beaches, the North Shore is still controlled, bizarrely, by the Bears under the NSWRL rules/borders

I find it bizarre that Sea Eagles fans keep blaming a pretty much defunct former rival for their current woes. Sorry Sea Eagles fans but the Bears aren't responsible for all your woes.

I grant you it has an affect at grassroots but how does that physically stop the Sea Eagles from signing new adult members on the North Shore? If you say go to a shopping mall to sell memberships, do the Bears supporters turn up and start fighting you? Are the Sea Eagles physically restricting in any way from doing these things?

How does any of that physically prevent adults on the North Shore from going to Brookvale for matches?

A major part of the problem is that the Sea Eagles attempts to appeal to that market has been poor.

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

The Tigers' future are the 1 million+ people that are going to be living in Liverpool-Camden-Campbelltown corridor. This is what I mean about existing clubs relocating/shifting their focus to the growth population areas.

Re-brand as Western Sydney Tigers to throw the net wider. If that Bulldogs Liverpool development had gone through (or if something else similar does) then they could start to reflect their popularity in the stands.

Again the thing to keep in mind with all this crowd talk is that overall the NRL is TERRIBLE at getting club fans to go to games. They really are a tiny percentage of the fan base.

The biggest problem with the South-West is that there is no centralised CBD to bring all fans to. Its just a massive suburb, with no single dense area for businesses to attract people. The only way to draw large crowds from the area would be to convince them to travel to Liverpool or Blacktown...

THEREFORE, i would argue that the tigers would be better off leaving the SW to a large degree (just doing development work in the area and playing NRL games to the East). Then the Panthers can be given a degree of space to work in down there to develop support.

The rivalry of the area would be "do you suppor the Tigers or the Panthers?!?!?". Fans would be encouraged to travel either to ANZ/Liverpool for the tigers or Penrith/Blacktown for the Panthers (easy once the airport is built).

The South-West is a hopeless for sustaining a team, but the membership potential of the area is massive and largely untapped.

Still, long term at best...

 

[Perth Red]

The Tigers' future are the 1 million+ people that are going to be living in Liverpool-Camden-Campbelltown corridor. This is what I mean about existing clubs relocating/shifting their focus to the growth population areas.

Re-brand as Western Sydney Tigers to throw the net wider. If that Bulldogs Liverpool development had gone through (or if something else similar does) then they could start to reflect their popularity in the stands.

Again the thing to keep in mind with all this crowd talk is that overall the NRL is TERRIBLE at getting club fans to go to games. They really are a tiny percentage of the fan base.



Really? You really think that every possible club fan and every possible casual fan are going to be tuning in every time for every match? :lol:

The numbers are from independent polls by Roy Morgan and others. Let me guess - you'll have a whinge about polling now :crazy: These are polls that are used to drive advertising revenue for the NRL, I assure they're taking pretty f**king seriously.

In fact I'll throw this at you - the fan bases for NRL clubs are on par with AFL clubs based on the exact same profiles I'll go one step further and say that the support for the two leagues over all is pretty much neck and neck - around 5.5 million nationally, so yeah even when a grand final or origin is on there's around 1 million no shows. S

So out of a supposed 5.5million NRL fans,:
250,000 go to games
190,000 become members
Around 1 mill watch on fta on a good day
4.5mill tune in four times a year

Yep sounds logical lol. I watch the melbourne cup, only horse race I watch in a year, must make me a horse racing fan.

Some bloke in the street in parramatta saying he is an Eels fan even though he never goes to a game, isn't a member, owns no merch and only watches them on TV if they are in a final hardly qualifies as a fan. You got a link to the polls that you are talking about? interested to see their definition of a fan and their methodology for determining numbers.

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

So out of a supposed 5.5million NRL fans,:
250,000 go to games
190,000 become members
Around 1 mill watch on fta on a good day
4.5mill tune in four times a year

Yep sounds logical lol. I watch the melbourne cup, only horse race I watch in a year, must make me a horse racing fan.

Some bloke in the street in parramatta saying he is an Eels fan even though he never goes to a game, isn't a member, owns no merch and only watches them on TV if they are in a final hardly qualifies as a fan. You got a link to the polls that you are talking about? interested to see their definition of a fan and their methodology for determining numbers.

This is EXACTLY the kind of person DSmith was talking about...

Someone that has a strong or at least passing interest that currently doesnt engage with the game. The polls found that there are millions of people like this (that arent members, dont go to games, dont own merchandise, but still identify as NRL fans), people that can be connected with and turned into regular attendees.

 

[reanimate]

I would just question how hard it could be to bring Chatswood Park (or somewhere like that) up to the standard of BROOKVALE. I mean look at it; 2 run down stands and a hill...

Skoda cost like $40 mil and this wouldnt even need to be that good.

No one's going to spend money building a place like Brookvale, if a new stadium was made it would need to be significantly bigger and better than Brookvale. Chatswood could be used, but how well it would work is doubtful, unfortunately. The streets around it are tiny and congested. The public transport available is great though.

That Showgrounds deal was obscene, the money spent on that could have gone to far more popular sports in Sydney.

I find it bizarre that Sea Eagles fans keep blaming a pretty much defunct former rival for their current woes. Sorry Sea Eagles fans but the Bears aren't responsible for all your woes.

Of course not, but we could be, right now, actively recruiting a new generation of RL fans on the North Shore, but the nearest NRL club runs into trouble when they try and involve themselves in development there, it's stupidity.

I grant you it has an affect at grassroots but how does that physically stop the Sea Eagles from signing new adult members on the North Shore? If you say go to a shopping mall to sell memberships, do the Bears supporters turn up and start fighting you? Are the Sea Eagles physically restricting in any way from doing these things?

How does any of that physically prevent adults on the North Shore from going to Brookvale for matches?

A major part of the problem is that the Sea Eagles attempts to appeal to that market has been poor.

It doesn't, but our opportunities to target the youth, i.e. the most easily gained support, are limited. Older people are those who are most likely to not care, or to be antagonistic towards Manly (in the case of former hardcore Bears fans), but if their kids had been brought up seeing Manly players come to their schools, development clinics etc, and if their kids had grown to love the Sea Eagles, then it might be a different story. Without that base to build on though, it's tougher for Manly to build more support in the region. As it is, a lot of NS kids go to school/work with kids from the Northern Beaches, so Manly support has built that way amongst some NS kids, but there's so many missed opportunities in the way of development clinics etc.

Manly, post 2002, has also been on extremely shaky financial ground until very recently, the club hasn't really had the cash to burn on pushing into the NS when they haven't had any support from the NRL on the matter (and the Bears effectively had Gallop encouraging them in their bid for reintroduction), and have been met with resistance based on territory arguments etc from the Bears/NSWRL. If a call had been made on the Bears by now, it'd be far easier to justify spending the money on doing so, but without knowing whether their investment will be invalidated with the reintroduction of the Bears into that territory or not, it's a pretty hard ask for a cash-strapped club to do so.

 

[supercharger]

If you really think that's the number then you've got no idea. The people who attend matches or who become members represent only a tiny fraction of the rugby league support base. Some of these clubs have followings approaching half a million nationwide, on par with AFL teams. Hence why they can take matches to Perth and have local supporters. You're not just killing some made up 20k :lol:

The concept of your key fan being the season-ticket holder who attends every home game is an outdated one. Season-ticket holders are obviously important, and teams do need them (and do need to work on building their season-ticket holder bases). However, there are other fans who follow the team closely and maybe go to a big game or two a year, while there are yet others who may watch the whole season from their couch, but buy team merchandise, drive up the TV ratings and promote the sport. These fans are awfully important to your franchise's success too.

 

[papabear]

I wonder where the review is at?

Surely we will see Perth with a team. Should be interesting to see what happens otherwise.

 

[RoosTah]

Sydney seriously does have too many teams... Although I'd hate if it happened to my team, I personally think a couple should either be amalgamated/absorbed by closer and more successful clubs (St George to absorb Cronulla for instance), or moved to new markets.

Personally I'm more for absorption over relocation, as it would allow the winning region to develop a genuine identity.

Ideally, Sydney shouldn't have any more than 5 teams and there ought to be new teams in Perth, Adelaide, and NZ (Wellington or Christchurch - although leaning toward Christchurch because the Caketin is a crap stadium for footy).

 

[papabear]

In Sydney the 5 best supported clubs are
Souths
Parramatta
Canterbury
St George
Tigers


If you are going to cut down to 5 clubs on Sydney, who would you want easts to be absorbed by? Souths?? tigers?? St George??

Manly Penrith Easts and Cronulla would all go.

IMO the 9 clubs in Sydney is ok, but incentives should be left on the table in case they want to relocate, and emergency funds should not be given.

IE if a club dies in its own region without relocating it should be left to die.

 

[RoosTah]

In Sydney the 5 best supported clubs are
Souths
Parramatta
Canterbury
St George
Tigers


If you are going to cut down to 5 clubs on Sydney, who would you want easts to be absorbed by? Souths?? tigers?? St George??

Manly Penrith Easts and Cronulla would all go.

IMO the 9 clubs in Sydney is ok, but incentives should be left on the table in case they want to relocate, and emergency funds should not be given.

IE if a club dies in its own region without relocating it should be left to die.

I agree with your last point about incentives to relocate, but there is still a problem with Sydney's setup.

Also, how do you measure "best supported"? Both Penrith and Easts have more members (around 16k) than either Canturbury or the Tigers this year, and aren't far off Parramatta (18k). Not sure about Manly because they don't list their figures. So there's definitely an argument against your rankings.

That said, in terms of long term strategy the NRL should be looking to apply several criteria in making the decision. Ranking in terms of priority it ought to look like this:
1. Financial stability
2. Level of support
3. Geographical location

Basically you want to have teams in major population centres with decent stadiums and solid financials. At the moment there's too many overlapping areas.

 

[papabear]

I agree with your last point about incentives to relocate, but there is still a problem with Sydney's setup.

Also, how do you measure "best supported"? Both Penrith and Easts have more members (around 16k) than either Canturbury or the Tigers this year, and aren't far off Parramatta (18k). Not sure about Manly because they don't list their figures. So there's definitely an argument against your rankings.

That said, in terms of long term strategy the NRL should be looking to apply several criteria in making the decision. Ranking in terms of priority it ought to look like this:
1. Financial stability
2. Level of support
3. Geographical location

Basically you want to have teams in major population centres with decent stadiums and solid financials. At the moment there's too many overlapping areas.

Theres an argument and a counter argument to anything.

But broadly speaking I am happy with my summation of the top 5 most supported teams.

The thing is Rugby League did this before and they completely f**ked it up, that in itself isn't a reason to not try again but it should atleast be enough that people proceed with caution.

 

[BunniesMan]

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...plans-20140804-100611.html?rand=1407129758825

Very good rational article stating the argument for applying a handbrake to expansion. The bulk of the money is in tv. Tv has said a 9th game adds no value. Half a dozen clubs are struggling. Expansion is 5+ years away.

 

[soc123_au]

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...plans-20140804-100611.html?rand=1407129758825

Very good rational article stating the argument for applying a handbrake to expansion. The bulk of the money is in tv. Tv has said a 9th game adds no value. Half a dozen clubs are struggling. Expansion is 5+ years away.

But I thought it was all about crowd numbers...

 

[AlwaysGreen]

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...plans-20140804-100611.html?rand=1407129758825

Very good rational article stating the argument for applying a handbrake to expansion. The bulk of the money is in tv. Tv has said a 9th game adds no value. Half a dozen clubs are struggling. Expansion is 5+ years away.

A load of shit. The afl is making minimal inroads into Canberra, the crowds are down there because people are fed up with a team that has no pride in its performance and an administration that takes its fans for granted. The same can be said for the titans.

Once, hopefully, the raiders lose their horrific attitude and put on performances that the people of Canberra and it's wide surrounding support base (including Goulburn, Wagga, Albury, Orange etc) can be proud of the fans and members will return.

 

[Edwahu]

As much as we suck at the moment and some intervention is needed, the Raiders are financially viable and make huge investments in junior football. I don't think booting us out is going to help address the games anemic talent pool long term.