NRL2 Second Division

[The Lounge Lizard]

I'm not sure where the a-league rates in comparison to European leagues, but I would guess it would be equivalent to the third tier in England.

I feel that you are probably correct.

An old boss of mine played Youth Countries in England, moved to Australia and slotted straight into Juventus who were a top tier team in the pre A-League days.

 

[The Lounge Lizard]

Content they getting is probably a steal for what they'd pay for something else like scripted series etc. Not to mention soccerros & Matildas world cup matches

Sam Kerr will be the saviour of the A-League and its women's equivalent in Australia.

 

[The Lounge Lizard]

Cowboys are one of the richest clubs in the league. Cronulla are one of the poorest.

Now that's a head scratcher for sure. At least the Sharkies own their own ground and associated facilities.

 

[The Lounge Lizard]

Instead of having a reserves comp it would be better just increasing the size of the NRL and putting teams in from Perth, Adelaide and Wellington. These teams would then face the same predicament as the Storm in that the local comps are too weak for the players that aren't getting a game. Therefore, they'd all have to place their reserve players in either the NSW or QLD Cup.

No.... never ever. With 17 teams next year and 18 plus down the road, what's the season going to be....10 months long?

 

[Colk]

No.... never ever. With 17 teams next year and 18 plus down the road, what's the season going to be....10 months long?

Just play each other once. Problem solved.

 

[ATOWN2]

No.... never ever. With 17 teams next year and 18 plus down the road, what's the season going to be....10 months long?

Teams only need to play each other once so it would have no impact on the length of the season.

 

[Perth Red]

If we ever get to 20 teams then conferences will make sense. Set them up based on rivalries and equity of travel. Play everyone in your conference home and away and 6 of the 10 from other conference on rotation for a 24 game season.

Unless you can somehow make a second division close in terms of revenue of clubs and salary cap it will never work or P&R. Thats not to say a ten team national NRL2 without P&R couldn't be a way of growing the game.

 

[Colk]

If we ever get to 20 teams then conferences will make sense. Set them up based on rivalries and equity of travel. Play everyone in your conference home and away and 6 of the 10 from other conference on rotation for a 24 game season.

Unless you can somehow make a second division close in terms of revenue of clubs and salary cap it will never work or P&R. Thats not to say a ten team national NRL2 without P&R couldn't be a way of growing the game.

No conferences please. What’s wrong with shortening the season? Seeing the results over the past few weeks, you could make an argument that the season is too long at the moment.

If you shorten the season you could also find more room for the women’s competition to be stand alone or for the SL to be held at a seperate time

 

[ATOWN2]

If we ever get to 20 teams then conferences will make sense. Set them up based on rivalries and equity of travel. Play everyone in your conference home and away and 6 of the 10 from other conference on rotation for a 24 game season.

Unless you can somehow make a second division close in terms of revenue of clubs and salary cap it will never work or P&R. Thats not to say a ten team national NRL2 without P&R couldn't be a way of growing the game.

The NRL should make it to 20 teams, but I'm opposed to conferences. With the increased intensity of the game the season will probably reduce in the amount of games in future. The NRL already plays an extra 2 games compared to AFL.

 

[Perth Red]

Its all about betting and TV for the NRL. It wont shorten the season, ever.
I think when you get to 20 clubs 1 division is too big, especially if you have longer goals to keep growing. I don't see any real problems with conferences as long as they are set up right and aim to maximise attendances and interest. With conferences you can guarantee playing your rivals twice a year, with a 20 club comp you wont get that a lot of years.

 

[MugaB]

The NRL should make it to 20 teams, but I'm opposed to conferences. With the increased intensity of the game the season will probably reduce in the amount of games in future. The NRL already plays an extra 2 games compared to AFL.

Conferences are beneficial for schedule purposes, they dont need to split the ladder tho, only to point out to all stakeholders that team A will play team B twice every year, and only play team C once a year due to them being in another conference...
The rest of the competition will exist as is no changes, just that certain teams will always verse each other morso dependant on how they set up the conference...
My thoughts and hopes on a conference would be that, since sydney is the centre of NRL's existance and homebush's "Accor stadium" is generally the GF that a horizontal line divides thru sydney from homebush and any team above that line is the northern conference, any below it is the southern conference...
Making it a geographical border, puts away any bias on a full sydney conference vs the rest, or any other "derby" must haves that people have thoughts about "which are irrelevant due to in a decades time titans vs redcliffe will be a "derby" ...for example..

So if you have certain teams playing each other more often every season, there will be more animosity between those two teams = derby

Northern Conference
cows, bronx, phins, tits, nites, eagles, eels, riff, add perth(bears?)
Southern Conference
soufs, rorter, tigpie, shark, dog, stmerge, raider, strom, worrya

Then you can add another team to each conference to get to 20 teams,

 

[Perth Red]

Id have it based on rivalry, crowds and travel:

Conf1
Broncos, Phins, Cowboys, Titans, Warriors, NZ2, Dragons, Sharks, Souths, Roosters,

Conf 2
Panthers, Eels, Bulldogs, Tigers, Pirates, Raiders, Manly, Newcastle, Storm, Adelaide

 

[MugaB]

Id have it based on rivalry and travel:

Conf1
Broncos, Phins, Cowboys, Titans, Warriors, NZ2, Dragons, Sharks, Souths, Roosters,

Conf 2
Panthers, Eels, Bulldogs, Tigers, Pirates, Raiders, Manly, Newcastle, Storm, Manly,

Thats exactly the point i made before of what NOT to do... you cannot make it about bias on current "rivalries" needs to be geographically understandable, and non bias due to sydney teams not needing t o travel as far as other teams... so you need to make sure there is a split of destinations far away in each conference, having a perth vs warriors game twice a year would be unfair for example

Btw 2 manlys dont make a rivalry... unless rainbow jerseys are involved

 

[Perth Red]

Thats exactly the point i made before of what NOT to do... you cannot make it about bias on current "rivalries"

Btw 2 manlys dont make a rivalry... unless rainbow jerseys are involved

but tribalism?
Why wouldn't you want to build on what exists?
And like I said it was as much about equity of travel as much as possible as rivalries. Some clubs playing each other draw big crowds, silly not to build on that, and then as you say new rivalries will develop as clubs fight for their conference championship.
You'd want to keep NZ and perth away from each other, Perth playing more in sydney than qlnd, playing in Melbourne etc for travel reduction impact.

 

[MugaB]

but tribalism?
Why wouldn't you want to build on what exists?
And like I said it was as much about equity of travel as much as possible as rivalries. Some clubs playing each other draw big crowds, silly not to build on that, and then as you say new rivalries will develop as clubs fight for their conference championship.

There wouldn't be a conference championship, it would only exist to justify the draws uneven club count vs rounds a season, a true season would for every club to play each other home and away, but 38 rounds is way too many for the year, then add finals etc
A border solves any bickering between all parties involved, some folk think manly vs storm is a rivalry, or penrith vs raiders, titans vs warriors.... none of that matters if there's a north and south divide.... they'll still be rivalries once a year anyways, best to cultivate the local derbies more often, qld sides play each other home and away, dogs vs tigers, parra vs riff, soufs vs rorter, dragon on shark, nite v manly.
Storm on raider, these are the games that are local enough that fans can travel twice a year to attend....

 

[Perth Red]

I see no advantage to your arbitrary geographical line split, and three big disadvantages.
Unequitable travel (as far as is posible)
Clubs who traditionally draw big crowds against each other not playing each other a guaranteed twice
If not proper conferences new rivalries and more hype around each conference title is a missed opportunity
Missed sponsorship opportunities for distinct conferences

I'd have two distinct conference with top 3 from each conference going into finals and 2 wild card spots for best record clubs out of either conference.

 

[Colk]

Its all about betting and TV for the NRL. It wont shorten the season, ever.
I think when you get to 20 clubs 1 division is too big, especially if you have longer goals to keep growing. I don't see any real problems with conferences as long as they are set up right and aim to maximise attendances and interest. With conferences you can guarantee playing your rivals twice a year, with a 20 club comp you wont get that a lot of years.

How are you going to fit in SOO, Internationals and whatever else in if you don’t?

Also, by adding sides up to 20 you wouldn’t be decreasing the number of games, you would be just shortening the amount of weeks.

So for example with 20 sides you could have 20 rounds (200) and you would get more total games than what we have with 26 (24 rounds of 8 with each team having two byes - 192)

 

[MugaB]

I see no advantage to your arbitrary geographical line split, and three big disadvantages.
Unequitable travel (as far as is posible)
Clubs who traditionally draw big crowds against each other not playing each other a guaranteed twice
If not proper conferences new rivalries and more hype around each conference title is a missed opportunity
Missed sponsorship opportunities for distinct conferences

I'd have two distinct conference with top 3 from each conference going into finals and 2 wild card spots for best record clubs out of either conference.

Its not arbitrary, its fair... plus equal travel is the mindset for it, too many people have already touted conferences being all sydney vs all the rest... thats super unfair, my border idea stops any bias or BS anyone comes up with to justify exactly what you said regarding two teams who traditionally draw higher attendees... the goal is to have "ALL" teams to generate higher attendees, not just the 2 you mentioned, which theyll get once a year regardless, maybe more if they are good enough to play finals
Here's the updated conference map
With Dolphins and West Coast added

Add 1 more club from each conference from the blank possible areas

 

[Colk]

Also you take away any talk of an unfair competition. Nobody is playing weak sides twice etc.

 

[Brian potter]

The best time and situation to have had conferences would have been after The super league war had ended.

You could have had the ARL conference and super league conference both playing under the NRL banner a bit like the AFC and the NFC in the NFL.