Bulldog Force
Referee
- Messages
- 20,619
Ok this is just my 2 cents on a few topics in our world of Rugby League at the moment. Feel free to add/comment/critisize - just calling it as I see it.
The Future:
The future of our competition the NRL looks very very bright. We will be the first code in this country to sign a billion dollar tv rights contract, either 1 contract for the billion or 2 ()combined. This has not happened yet in AFL and a milestone that our game will have proudly achieved first.
Our Juniors:
Despite Channel 9 trying to kill our game, with stories they've televised on ACA and what have you, they know they'll lost the next contract, however the juniors... well as far as I'm concerned they're looking as good as they've ever been. The junior teams in our Toyota Cup comp look great. The ARL has injected a lot of money into this competition and it's very first season was very successful. The junior talent we have will never die. It seems that any potential threat to our junior ranks has been quashed with the success of the new Toyota Competition, and we've also managed to salvage some history with our NSW/QLD cup competitions.
AFL/Rugby:
I don't think that we have anything to worry about here. AFL will be throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into a marketing scheme that will never work. The Swans took 70+ years to win their first major, and it didn't threat our code one bit. I highly doubt that having an AFL team in West Sydney will do any damage either. League is something you're born with. AFL is also something that you're born with. You can't persuade someone to cross codes (as a child) with only marketing, you need more. Blood is thicker than water. I also believe that the 18 team competition is a scramble technique that the AFL come up with to try and counter attack threats from the NRL - with the recent success of Melbourne from 2006-2010 (and yes taking into account the salary cap drama) AFL have wanted to hit our heartland in Western Sydney as our game was very successful down there (until the SC revelations came out). And with the success of the Titans in only 4 years, the AFL have also scrambled throwing a franchise up there to try and counter any NRL success. I think the ship has sailed though (for the AFL
)
Expansion:
Look at how many more places the game has to expand - Central Coast, North Coast, Central Queensland, Perth, Adelaide, Tassie, PNG (just to name a few) - yet the AFL have pretty much hit their peak with only 18 teams.
My final thoughts:
To put it simply, "Our game is here to stay!"
The Future:
The future of our competition the NRL looks very very bright. We will be the first code in this country to sign a billion dollar tv rights contract, either 1 contract for the billion or 2 ()combined. This has not happened yet in AFL and a milestone that our game will have proudly achieved first.
Our Juniors:
Despite Channel 9 trying to kill our game, with stories they've televised on ACA and what have you, they know they'll lost the next contract, however the juniors... well as far as I'm concerned they're looking as good as they've ever been. The junior teams in our Toyota Cup comp look great. The ARL has injected a lot of money into this competition and it's very first season was very successful. The junior talent we have will never die. It seems that any potential threat to our junior ranks has been quashed with the success of the new Toyota Competition, and we've also managed to salvage some history with our NSW/QLD cup competitions.
AFL/Rugby:
I don't think that we have anything to worry about here. AFL will be throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into a marketing scheme that will never work. The Swans took 70+ years to win their first major, and it didn't threat our code one bit. I highly doubt that having an AFL team in West Sydney will do any damage either. League is something you're born with. AFL is also something that you're born with. You can't persuade someone to cross codes (as a child) with only marketing, you need more. Blood is thicker than water. I also believe that the 18 team competition is a scramble technique that the AFL come up with to try and counter attack threats from the NRL - with the recent success of Melbourne from 2006-2010 (and yes taking into account the salary cap drama) AFL have wanted to hit our heartland in Western Sydney as our game was very successful down there (until the SC revelations came out). And with the success of the Titans in only 4 years, the AFL have also scrambled throwing a franchise up there to try and counter any NRL success. I think the ship has sailed though (for the AFL
)Expansion:
Look at how many more places the game has to expand - Central Coast, North Coast, Central Queensland, Perth, Adelaide, Tassie, PNG (just to name a few) - yet the AFL have pretty much hit their peak with only 18 teams.
My final thoughts:
To put it simply, "Our game is here to stay!"
