NRL's growth mindset points to 18th team. And it ain't Perth.

[Perth Red]

Yeh nz2 is going to go out and sign a load of rugby union talent and not experienced current nrl first graders. He’s having a laugh.
If they do go nz2 hopefully it’s Christchurch and hopefully it’s properly funded. but this is nrl so theyl probably choose Auckland and screw the new club and the warriors lol
Abdo is kermit but less visible, he’ll do whatever Vlandys tells him to do.

 

[Colk]

They will repeat what they did this time

admit the strong team first that adds a lot to tv viewers on their own (south west Brisbane) for team 19 then add Perth as the tenth game and the bonus of the time slot back into Sydney and Brisbane

Anything more than 20 teams depends on growth in junior pathways and more money into the game and the list of places starts to look less attractive

ie png
Central coast
Adelaide

20 teams is the optimum number. As you said anything beyond that number presents some problems in terms of player depth and the viability of the area itself.

 

[Colk]

Yeh nz2 is going to go out and sign a load of rugby union talent and not experienced current nrl first graders. He’s having a laugh.
If they do go nz2 hopefully it’s Christchurch and hopefully it’s properly funded. but this is nrl so theyl probably choose Auckland and screw the new club and the warriors lol
Abdo is kermit but less visible, he’ll do whatever Vlandys tells him to do.

It has to be away from Auckland for this to work

 

[Wb1234]

20 teams is the optimum number. As you said anything beyond that number presents some problems in terms of player depth and the viability of the area itself.

It’s a shame because png has been a long dream of mine. But given the super league war and the fact we didn’t expand for so long 20 teams again would be a great result given the nrl was 14 teams at the start.

eventually the central coast will hit 1 million people but that may be past our lifetimes

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Just relocate the ailing Canterbury Bulldogs to Christchurch and change their colours to red and black. Then add the West Coast Pirates.

1. Tigers have room to grow and become a powerhouse. Must change their name to West Sydney Tigers or Western Sydney Tigers. None of this hillbilly "Wests" shit.

2. Bulldogs have a future in a non-congested market and don't have to change their brand. That'll please the traditionalists and allow old time Bulldogs fans from Sydney to still have a team they can follow. Could become one of the biggest teams in Australia and NZ.

3. One less blue coloured team in the NRL.

4. Game expands to Australia's fourth largest city and NZ, eating into fumbleball and onionball territory.

5. Game wouldn't need to expand past 18 teams to cover all bases.

 

[Perth Red]

It has to be away from Auckland for this to work

Are the markets away from auckland big enough though? Leaving jnrs aside it’d be like putting an nrl club in Geelong. Both possible markets are under. 500k people and nrl will be the secondary sport. the main sport is only drawing 12-15k in those cities so what will an nrl club get? I think nz2 is def a positive from jnrs and strengthening the PI and kiwi squads but it’s hard to see how they’ll financially be a powerhouse unless there’s a big money consortium waiting in the wings we dont know about yet. One thing we do know is nrl is not willing to invest more than the grant in expansion and are super conservative and risk averse so I guess unless they can show the numbers add up they’ll be no chance they’ll get in.

 

[Wb1234]

Are the markets away from auckland big enough though? Leaving jnrs aside it’d be like putting an nrl club in Geelong. Both possible markets are under. 500k people and nrl will be the secondary sport. the main sport is only drawing 12-15k in those cities so what will an nrl club get? I think nz2 is def a positive from jnrs and strengthening the PI and kiwi squads but it’s hard to see how they’ll financially be a powerhouse unless there’s a big money consortium waiting in the wings we dont know about yet. One thing we do know is nrl is not willing to invest more than the grant in expansion and are super conservative and risk averse so I guess unless they can show the numbers add up they’ll be no chance they’ll get in.

Taking on rugby union in New Zealand is risk averse is it ?

why don’t afl try and expand there. I mean they did play a few games in Wellington and it would be a massive growth market for them

in a nation of five million people there’s plenty of room for a second nrl team

especially with the nrl salary cap dwarfing super rugby’s

 

[Wb1234]

Just relocate the ailing Canterbury Bulldogs to Christchurch and change their colours to red and black. Then add the West Coast Pirates.

1. Tigers have room to grow and become a powerhouse. Must change their name to West Sydney Tigers or Western Sydney Tigers. None of this hillbilly "Wests" shit.

2. Bulldogs have a future in a non-congested market and don't have to change their brand. That'll please the traditionalists and allow old time Bulldogs fans from Sydney to still have a team they can follow. Could become one of the biggest teams in Australia and NZ.

3. One less blue coloured team in the NRL.

4. Game expands to Australia's fourth largest city and NZ, eating into fumbleball and onionball territory.

5. Game wouldn't need to expand past 18 teams to cover all bases.

Tigers future is in the far south west

dogs would then represent some but not all of the inner west from campsie out to Liverpool

 

[Perth Red]

Taking on rugby union in New Zealand is risk averse is it ?

why don’t afl try and expand there. I mean they did play a few games in Wellington and it would be a massive growth market for them

in a nation of five million people there’s plenty of room for a second nrl team

especially with the nrl salary cap dwarfing super rugby’s

The tiltile of the article is a complete furphy. When you actually read the article Abdo just talks about investing in pathways, which is long overdue. Nzrl funding has been reduce for last few years.

There is no mention of nz2 and when it comes to taking about club 18 his quote is . “Beyond that, the commission is open to looking at 18 teams down the track and open-minded about the location of potential new markets.”. So nothing suggesting they consider nz2 is a shoe in.

Wellingtons population is less than 500k and hardly growing. How do you suggest a club in a secondary sport in a small city that is required to raise $15-20mill a year will manage it?

christchurch probably even more of a risk in that area but at least they have a nice stadium and can market to whole of South Island

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Tigers future is in the far south west

dogs would then represent some but not all of the inner west from campsie out to Liverpool

Canterbury have no room to expand. It's a recipe for disaster. Fortitude Valley Diehards, Pastoral Brothers Leprechauns, Western Suburbs Panthers, Southern Suburbs Magpies, Balmain Tigers, North Sydney Bears, St George Dragons, Newtown Jets and even South Sydney Rabbitohs before relocating to Stadium Australia after readmission fell victim to landlocked status and died a slow death. Cronulla Sharks and Sydney Roosters struggle as they've been landlocked for decades.

Demographics change and smart businesses alter their plans to keep up or stay the same and go broke. Brisbane and Sydney are growing and experiencing gentrification in their inner suburbs, forcing working class rugby league supporting families to the outer suburbs. The future is for the inner city of Brisbane and Sydney to have a large and affluent club like the Broncos to appeal to yuppies who like "status", and have the smaller clubs partially relocate to the outer suburbs and grow with the emerging communities.

 

[Wb1234]

Well they’ve done sweet FActo help nzrl so far Take on union. And they haven’t announced a new team so let’s not count our chickens shall we. 5 million people but no major city outside of Auckland, which is a problem for a high spending professional sports club.

Wellingtons population is less than 500k and hardly growing. How do you suggest a club in a secondary sport in a small city that is required to raise $15-20mill a year will manage it?

christchurch probably even more of a risk in that area but at least they have a nice stadium and can market to whole of South Island

Canterbury have no room to expand. It's a recipe for disaster. Fortitude Valley Diehards, Pastoral Brothers Leprechauns, Western Suburbs Panthers, Southern Suburbs Magpies, Balmain Tigers, North Sydney Bears, St George Dragons, Newtown Jets and even South Sydney Rabbitohs before relocating to Stadium Australia after readmission fell victim to landlocked status and died a slow death. Cronulla Sharks and Sydney Roosters struggle as they've been landlocked for decades.

Demographics change and smart businesses alter their plans to keep up or stay the same and go broke. Brisbane and Sydney are growing and experiencing gentrification in their inner suburbs, forcing working class rugby league supporting families to the outer suburbs. The future is for the inner city of Brisbane and Sydney to have a large and affluent club like the Broncos to appeal to yuppies who like "status", and have the smaller clubs partially relocate to the outer suburbs and grow with the emerging communities.

No gentrification out Bankstown or belmore way lol

plus their league club has around 100 million in revenue or pretty close and their crowds are great

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

No gentrification out Bankstown or belmore way lol

plus their league club has around 100 million in revenue or pretty close and their crowds are great

Their crowds aren't great. Far from it. Three of their home matches in 2019 were under 9k, with one under 7k and one just over 7k. Their mean average was inflated by Magic Round (41,612) and their annual Easter Round game against the Elmer Fudds (30,040).

Rugby League Tables / Attendances 2019

Rugby League Tables - NRL Stats & Tables

afltables.com

 

[Wb1234]

Their crowds aren't great. Far from it. Three of their home matches in 2019 were under 9k, with one under 7k and one just over 7k. Their mean average was inflated by Magic Round (41,612) and their annual Easter Round game against the Elmer Fudds (30,040).

Rugby League Tables / Attendances 2019

Rugby League Tables - NRL Stats & Tables

afltables.com

If your going to pick attendances to bash the dogs picking a year where they averaged close to 16k isn’t great

 

[MugaB]

If your going to pick attendances to bash the dogs picking a year where they averaged close to 16k isn’t great

Yeah just loves to bash any sydney club with attendances, especially when they are bottom of the ladder

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

If your going to pick attendances to bash the dogs picking a year where they averaged close to 16k isn’t great

The only reason they averaged 16k is because they played a "home" game in Brisbane during Magic Round that drew 41k and 30k in the Easter Friday game against the Elder Fudds. Take away those two "event" games and their crowds were shithouse. In their other 10 matches they averaged just 11,164.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Yeah just loves to bash any sydney club with attendances, especially when they are bottom of the ladder

Bottom of the ladder Cowboys averaged 13,658 in an isolated regional city under 180k.

Take away the Bulldogs 41k at their "home" game in Brisbane during Magic Round and the 30k against the Elmer Fudds on Easter Friday and they averaged just 11,164 over their other 10 home games. Terrible considering many of those games were against other Sydney clubs who brought fans with them. One of their games against Cronulla drew 8,300.

 

[Wb1234]

Bottom of the ladder Cowboys averaged 13,658 in an isolated regional city under 180k.

Take away the Bulldogs 41k at their "home" game in Brisbane during Magic Round and the 30k against the Elmer Fudds on Easter Friday and they averaged just 11,164 over their other 10 home games. Terrible considering many of those games were against other Sydney clubs who brought fans with them. One of their games against Cronulla drew 8,300.

They aren’t called the Townsville cowboys lmao

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

They aren’t called the Townsville cowboys lmao

If you're going to include small towns located hundreds of kilometres away then there's no excuse for Sydney's 5m people to not travel from Penrith to SFS, or from Central Coast to Penrith to see a Thursday night game. Canterbury drew 8,300 against Sharks.

 

[flippikat]

Are the markets away from auckland big enough though? Leaving jnrs aside it’d be like putting an nrl club in Geelong. Both possible markets are under. 500k people and nrl will be the secondary sport. the main sport is only drawing 12-15k in those cities so what will an nrl club get? I think nz2 is def a positive from jnrs and strengthening the PI and kiwi squads but it’s hard to see how they’ll financially be a powerhouse unless there’s a big money consortium waiting in the wings we dont know about yet. One thing we do know is nrl is not willing to invest more than the grant in expansion and are super conservative and risk averse so I guess unless they can show the numbers add up they’ll be no chance they’ll get in.

You hit the nail on the head there - The "let's plunder the junior talent" and "let's use NZ 2 to help fill that pesky early Friday timeslot" are the drivers for NZ 2 to get that 18th spot - and the fact that there are bigger markets sitting around untapped (Perth, Adelaide) doesn't matter in that reckoning.. even though Perth is ramping up it's local league scene year-by-year, and is producing home-grown talent.

 

[Perth Red]

You hit the nail on the head there - The "let's plunder the junior talent" and "let's use NZ 2 to help fill that pesky early Friday timeslot" are the drivers for NZ 2 to get that 18th spot - and the fact that there are bigger markets sitting around untapped (Perth, Adelaide) doesn't matter in that reckoning.. even though Perth is ramping up it's local league scene year-by-year, and is producing home-grown talent.

if skynz are willing to kick in another $20mill plus a year (lol) and Australian tv doesn’t care they are getting another kiwi team that no one in Oz wants to watch then sure they may get in, presuming as well there is a rich consortium willing to back them. If either of those things arent a reality then I very much doubt they’ll get in.