NZ needs a second team - Tony Kemp

[Warrior@Heart]

I think a combined Wellington-Central districts bid would be the way to go, together Wellington, the Manawatu-Wanganui region, Taranaki & Hawke's Bay has a catchment area of close to a million people. Considering the Central Vipers are probably never gonna make it to NRL level it would be good to include them in the branding of a wellington based franchise and a game each in Palmy, New Plymouth & Napier would be good for those areas. Long term though ideally we could have a 3 team rivalry between Auckland (pop. 1,529,300) Wellington-Central (pop. 990,700) and the South Island (1,048,200). With relatively even population bases to market to I think it would be a pretty even spread.

 

[Lockyer4President!]

What are the crowd and membership figures for the NZ S14 teams? How much $$ do they bring in each year?

 

[oikee]

That is the problem with Wellington, Christchurch.
It costs close to 20 million to run a NRL club.
You need look no further than how the Titans struggle in a city of close to 600 thousand.
Sponsors, fans, even players and not maintaining a top 8 berth can quickly undo your new club.

The Titans are a role model of how badly things can go wrong and how hard it is to stay afloat.
So Wellington and Christchurch wont ever have a team.

Auckland on the other hand as i mentioned, could grow a lovely rivalry, find support, and also find plenty of Sponsors, the cites rivalry with Brisbane is also another plus, and the Gold Coast.

The NRL cant make any more mistakes with expansion. Perth, Brisbane and Auckland are the only 3 options.
All 3 could enter if Sydney merged one more team.
As i said elsewhere, the Sharks have to merge their club into a Queensland area, probably Rocky. That way they can build more support and get bigger crowds to QLD derbies.

Play all their games against Queensland teams in Rocky, so Rocky would get 5or 6 home games a year, that is enough.

 

[goodplayer]

fully agree with everything you posted , love a perth team, 2nd auckland team. more qld teams

 

[RoosTah]

That is the problem with Wellington, Christchurch.
It costs close to 20 million to run a NRL club.
You need look no further than how the Titans struggle in a city of close to 600 thousand.
Sponsors, fans, even players and not maintaining a top 8 berth can quickly undo your new club.

The Titans are a role model of how badly things can go wrong and how hard it is to stay afloat.
So Wellington and Christchurch wont ever have a team.

Auckland on the other hand as i mentioned, could grow a lovely rivalry, find support, and also find plenty of Sponsors, the cites rivalry with Brisbane is also another plus, and the Gold Coast.

The NRL cant make any more mistakes with expansion. Perth, Brisbane and Auckland are the only 3 options.
All 3 could enter if Sydney merged one more team.
As i said elsewhere, the Sharks have to merge their club into a Queensland area, probably Rocky. That way they can build more support and get bigger crowds to QLD derbies.

Play all their games against Queensland teams in Rocky, so Rocky would get 5or 6 home games a year, that is enough.

For a second Auckland team, how would you give them a sufficiently different identity? What would you call them?

 

[reanimate]

That is the problem with Wellington, Christchurch.
It costs close to 20 million to run a NRL club.
You need look no further than how the Titans struggle in a city of close to 600 thousand.
Sponsors, fans, even players and not maintaining a top 8 berth can quickly undo your new club.

The Titans are a role model of how badly things can go wrong and how hard it is to stay afloat.
So Wellington and Christchurch wont ever have a team.

Auckland on the other hand as i mentioned, could grow a lovely rivalry, find support, and also find plenty of Sponsors, the cites rivalry with Brisbane is also another plus, and the Gold Coast.

The NRL cant make any more mistakes with expansion. Perth, Brisbane and Auckland are the only 3 options.
All 3 could enter if Sydney merged one more team.
As i said elsewhere, the Sharks have to merge their club into a Queensland area, probably Rocky. That way they can build more support and get bigger crowds to QLD derbies.

Play all their games against Queensland teams in Rocky, so Rocky would get 5or 6 home games a year, that is enough.

The Greater Wellington area could easily support a team, a second Auckland team will just lead to identity issues and will make other areas in the country feel left out and give the image that RL is an Auckland only game.

 

[RoosTah]

The Greater Wellington area could easily support a team, a second Auckland team will just lead to identity issues and will make other areas in the country feel left out and give the image that RL is an Auckland only game.

Isn't greater Canterbury even more populous? I know it's a bigger region, but it looks like the majority are all pretty well centred on Christchurch and the surrounding region.

 

[reanimate]

Isn't greater Canterbury even more populous? I know it's a bigger region, but it looks like the majority are all pretty well centred on Christchurch and the surrounding region.

RL is stronger in Wellington and its surrounds than in Canterbury (where Union's stronger), I think a team in Canterbury would be a good idea down the track, but after RL in NZ gets stronger as a whole once there's two NRL teams in the country.

 

[RoosTah]

RL is stronger in Wellington and its surrounds than in Canterbury (where Union's stronger), I think a team in Canterbury would be a good idea down the track, but after RL in NZ gets stronger as a whole once there's two NRL teams in the country.

The only problem I have with Wellington is that it's stadium just isn't built for footy (unless we're talking AFL - which we're not), and I reckon it's a discincentive for fans. It shows too - the Hurricanes averaged barely 10k this season, and not many turned out for the Warriors match there this year.

Meanwhile people in Christchurch have been the exception in terms of attendances, selling out their more modest Rugby League Park a few times this season (20k capacity). And again - that venue is owned by the Canterbury RL, so it'd be cheaper for a team to run there than it would out of the caketin.

 

[jim_57]

Why not a game split between Wellington, Christchurch and perhaps a roaming city in NZ.

8 Games in Wellington
3 Games in Christchurch
1 Game in Dunedin?

 

[oikee]

Everything points to Auckland. They have Eden Park that needs filling, they will have instant rivalry with warriors, they will get sponsors, they will then have more chance to bring bigger games to Auckland, like Origin. It will also give them a better chance of keeping the Nines, which is huge, massive for this city.

Wellington and Christchurch can then become feeder clubs and they can both take games to these cities./

Either smaller city would struggle to keep a NRL team afloat.
I mean look at Melbourne, they are still not quite on top of things after 15 years in top flight.
You want for things to end badly, introduce a Wellington or Christchurch team, where players wont want to go.
They struggle now to get players into the warriors.

No, the only hope for NZ is a second Auckland team, and they need this team. The warriors need some local competition.

Call them Bonecrushers or Jessabels.

 

[RoosTah]

Everything points to Auckland. They have Eden Park that needs filling, they will have instant rivalry with warriors, they will get sponsors, they will then have more chance to bring bigger games to Auckland, like Origin. It will also give them a better chance of keeping the Nines, which is huge, massive for this city.

Wellington and Christchurch can then become feeder clubs and they can both take games to these cities./

Either smaller city would struggle to keep a NRL team afloat.
I mean look at Melbourne, they are still not quite on top of things after 15 years in top flight.
You want for things to end badly, introduce a Wellington or Christchurch team, where players wont want to go.
They struggle now to get players into the warriors.

No, the only hope for NZ is a second Auckland team, and they need this team. The warriors need some local competition.

Call them Bonecrushers or Jessabels.

Fair points on the market sizes - cities of less than a million are always a problem.

But naming is an issue. Do you make the Warriors automatically revert to "Auckland" and the new team the "Auckland City" ... oh lets say 'Moas'? That seems the only reasonable thing to do if you go down that path.

Because you can't continue to have the Warriors be NZ.

 

[roughyedspud]

one of the problems sighted about expansion of the NRL is that australia could'nt actually sustain another team,let alone 2, cos the talent would be spread too thin...ive heard bob fulton say that a few times on 2gb.



i fail to see how thats stopping giving NZ a second team?

 

[The Great Dane]

one of the problems sighted about expansion of the NRL is that australia could'nt actually sustain another team,let alone 2, cos the talent would be spread too thin...ive heard bob fulton say that a few times on 2gb.



i fail to see how thats stopping giving NZ a second team?

Bob Fulton and his like are just Sydney centric idiots who wish the N in NRL stood for NSW and not national, you'd be best to ignore him when it comes to the expansion of the NRL and RL in general.

There's easily enough NRL quality talent out there in the lower grades alone to support two more teams, not necessarily top 4 quality teams but competitive teams none the less.

There're lots of really good players in the QCup and the NSWCup that just need to be given an opportunity, two more teams would provide those opportunities.

And that's without considering the ESL, the Pacific Islands (particularly PNG and Fiji), NZ's RL competitions or the ARUs juniors all of which are very accessible to Australian clubs to say the least.

 

[goodplayer]

Why not a game split between Wellington, Christchurch and perhaps a roaming city in NZ.

8 Games in Wellington
3 Games in Christchurch
1 Game in Dunedin?

The only problem I have with Wellington is that it's stadium just isn't built for footy (unless we're talking AFL - which we're not), and I reckon it's a discincentive for fans. It shows too - the Hurricanes averaged barely 10k this season, and not many turned out for the Warriors match there this year.

Meanwhile people in Christchurch have been the exception in terms of attendances, selling out their more modest Rugby League Park a few times this season (20k capacity). And again - that venue is owned by the Canterbury RL, so it'd be cheaper for a team to run there than it would out of the caketin.

all good ideas, knowledge , lets hope it happens , atleast a 2nd nz team. then a 3rd in the future ;-)

 

[oikee]

one of the problems sighted about expansion of the NRL is that australia could'nt actually sustain another team,let alone 2, cos the talent would be spread too thin...ive heard bob fulton say that a few times on 2gb.



i fail to see how thats stopping giving NZ a second team?

That is true in one sense, (not enough talent) in another sense you cant grow more talent if your not in the big cities.
Look, the NRL really need to sort out Sydney. This city struggles to support 8-9 teams plus all the other codes.
Common sense tells you,,,,must cut back and reconfigure the boundaries for only 6 Sydney clubs.
They need to grow the game, so Brisbane NZ desperately need local city derbies, this is a must. It is proven worldwide that city derbies are huge and grow codes.

Also Perth needs to be entered, not just for excellent expansion opportunities, but also to find more and new talent.
Brisbane and NZ Auckland are really no brainers.
They need to announce the new teams soon. And tell the world they will be looking at bringing back Burgess and Sonny Bill as the new markee signings for these new teams, and possibly Falou and any other sucker good enough.
You do that and you have instant media recognition and browning points.

Our code has to become smarter, understand what sells, and know how to upset other codes and work the media.

We always seem to be meek and always on the receiving end of sand kicked into our faces.
League fans are sick of our code with no forward thinking, and falling behind world best practice as in red cards and lazor lines and captains challenge.
The reason people are sick of league is the same dumb penalties the first 10 minutes of games.
The refs kill a team before they even get started, and it is normally a mistake anyhow.
Captains challenge changes all that, and keeps the video ref out of the contest.
People are bored at going to video ref after every try, they are bored of stupid mistakes like ball stripping or knock ons that are not called correctly.
Mitch Pearce knocked on the other day, i dont care what the video ref or refs think, it is a knock on and at the very least should have been a scrum, not a try.
You cant have amateur decisions like that be a try.
It just makes our code look dumb and amateurish, which it is.

 

[Warrior@Heart]

If I was gonna put another team in Auckland it would be Counties Manukau/South Auckland. The strongest league area in NZ by a mile. Another team generically named Auckland wouldn't work I don't think. But south aucklanders are proud staunch supporters of anything south of Mt. Wellington. Plus if there's anywhere in the country where League is the no. 1 sport it's definitely the counties area.

 

[RoosTah]

Interesting point mate - north south divides work well as rivalries, and in NZ it sounds like the wealth relationship aspect is there to make it a good one. I suppose then you'd have to make the Warriors North Auckland though wouldn't you?

 

[Perth Red]

Not sure cannabilising the volatile Warriors crowd with another team in Auckland is a good idea when you have the whole rest of the country open to expansion. Be like putting a team in Gosford. NZ def needs another club for TV value and to give the Warriors a akic up the backside. they are probably the club with the most unrealised potential in the NRL.

 

[alien]

meh nz doesnt need another nrl team. the 1 team they have now hasnt even won a comp yet and a 2nd nz team would weaken the warriors. the warriors should play more home games in other nz cities besides auckland though...