Out of 17 million people I think they could find 1k rich people to bald the bid financially
man’s of course I’ll just ignore all the Australian mining companies who are in png who would back a bid
Look I get the misty eyed view of this - I would also love a PNG side but I want it to be successful and at the end of the day you have to look at the positives and negatives. There are just so many more issues or factors to overcome than any benefits you can see.
Benefits
Potential player development - this is supposedly the biggest benefit although I would counter this and say how many players have they actually produced for the NRL. I can think of three of the top of my head. So I don’t really think it is certain that there will all of a sudden be an absolute stream of talent coming in. It’s a little optimistic at least.
There is interest - Totally agree. But how much can this interest be monetised.
Political benefit - It would aid our relations yes but to also suggest or infer that somehow that would mean that they are likely to reject financial assistance from China on the back of this is incredibly naive. They are a poor country so they are going take aid from wherever they can get it.
Negatives.
Australian TV wouldn’t likely want a PNG side. It increases their costs dramatically without giving much additional revenue.
What would advertisers want out of a PNG side - a lot of the country doesn’t have a lot of disposable income so what you would be able to sell them?
What about gate receipts? Selling merchandise? How would the population sustain this side
What about the infrastructure?
Where are you basing them? You base them in PNG then you have problems. If you base them outside of PNG then you have logistical issues . You have got extra flights and accomodation to pay for. Then you have the central issue of what’s in it for the secondary region.
Like for example what do say Cairns (as that is what has been floated) get out of this arrangement? They have to build a stadium and facilities so that a side that doesn’t come from that region play there for half the year. Why do you think people from Cairns will support this idea in say the medium to long term once the novelty wears off. Think of it this way: would you think of it as a good idea if say a Sydney side played half their games in Townsville or in Perth?
Safety - what happens if an NRL side refuse to play in PNG because of safety concerns? It happened recently with a QLD Cup side so it is not out of realms of possibility. Do the NRL put their foot down in this instance
Climate - PNG is just really hot. Much hotter than Townsville It would be oppressive for players.
Optics - you don’t think that this isn’t going to become a political football (eventually) What happens when other codes/sports go to the federal government and say well you’re funding this, why don’t you fund millions of dollars of investments for us in the region.
What happens when somebody (quite rightly) points out the government is directly paying the pay packets of highly publicised sports people- you don’t think that there might be pressure from other sections of the community? The same pressure will occur if the side is uncompetitive or there are off field issues.
What happens if and when PNG next take aid from China - people are likely to conflate the two aren’t they?
Also If it does become a political football then it can also become an issue for voters and if it becomes a negative issue and the optics are bad then it is likely that the government would drop the funding because of self interest.
Lastly, how is this team going to be competitive? Like how are they going to recruit decent players? How are they going to keep decent players? I don’t see how you could sell this as an attractive proposition.
