40 years ago, richer Sydney clubs used there pokie monies to buy the best talent from Queensland.
Which proves my point that NSWRL clubs don't play fairly. If they have an advantage over their interstate rivals then they exploit it.
It's no mistake that the concentration of power remains in Sydney to the detriment of the game outside of Sydney. The NSWRL has been doing this since 1908 and it's led to the game never growing outside of NSW and Queensland. AwFuL has made tremendous strides in rural NSW and Queensland over the last 35 years because of the NSWRL's
Sydney-centric focus on basing everything around the best interests of the NSWRL clubs. I'll explain this below.
I can't blame the players for this at all.
Neither can I. I blame the corrupt NSW gov for allowing the NSWRL to exploit people who have a mental illness. Plenty of people have gone broke and lost everything due to this industry.
In my opinion, if the corrupt Sir Joh had allowed pokies in QLD earlier, there would have likely been about 4 teams from the BRL merge into the NSWRL.
Why are you bring Sir Joh into this?
NSW was the only state in Australia that allowed licenced venues to carry gaming machines between 1956 and 1991.
Poker machines were legalised in New South Wales in 1956; the ACT in 1976; Victoria and Queensland in 1991; South Australia in 1992; Tasmania in 1997; and the Northern Territory in 1998. They are banned in Western Australia, except in the casino.
Francis Markham, Australian National University and Martin Young Poker machines were legalised in New South Wales in 1956; the ACT in 1976; Victoria and Queensland in 1991; South Australia in 1992; Tasmania in 1997; and the Northern Territory in 1998. They are banned in Western Australia, except...
www.anu.edu.au
I can't see how that's remotely relevant in 2023, however. All the clubs in the comp are getting this revenue, not just Sydney ones, and it's not "charity"
You can blame the NSW gov for normalising this vice. The NSWRL has always relied on vice to keep its small clubs on their feet. For years they relied on gaming machine revenue plus sponsorship from alcohol and cigarette companies. The NSWRL clubs were lucky that pay TV came into the market around the time cigarette companies were banned from sponsoring sport.
I'm surprised you defend the NSWRL after its clubs set the Cowboys up to fail. The NSWRL expansion committee that was set up in 1992 was a collation of club officials from traditional NSWRL clubs and the Broncos who placed unfair stipulations on expansion clubs to protect the interests of those in Sydney. The Cowboys were forced to pay $800k on travel and accommodation for all Sydney teams who travelled to Townsville across three grades and fund their own travel to Sydney.
How come you've never called the NSWRL out for this conflict of interest?
The annual grant in those days was a lowly $500k as we got just $10m per annum from Packer for the broadcast rights. Teams had to cover the salary cap out of their own pockets.
The NSWRL expansion committee also forced the Cowboys to take out a massive loan to build a stadium at The Willows, despite allowing Sydney clubs to play out of shitholes with hazardous hills that could cause people to slip over and injure themselves in wet weather. This bankrupted the Cowboys as they had to cover this, player salaries and travel and accommodation for themselves and the Sydney teams. If it wasn't for News Ltd we would have folded midway through 1995. The Reds were hit with similar stipulations and it bankrupted them, too.
The Broncos were slugged with a $500k fee to join in 1988 while the Knights were not and the Giants were introduced a week after Arthurson and Quayle promised the Broncos exclusivity over SEQ.
I've never seen you call out Arthurson and Quayle or the NSWRL clubs for their biased favouritism of Sydney. Whenever I bring it up you deflect by saying Arthurson and Quayle aren't involved anymore, which is a stupid response.
Do you know of these facts or are you ignorant of history?
All of these facts about the Cowboys and NSWRL expansion committee were documented by Neil Cadigan. I've quoted excerpts from his book,
20 Years In the Saddle North Queensland Cowboys 1995-2014 in
this post..
Here's a snippet from page 41.
"An agreement, as requested by the NSWRL after pressure from other clubs, to pay not only for the travel of the Cowboys to away games but also visiting clubs to Townsville, a prohibitive cost estimated at about $800,000 a year."
Here's some snippets from pages 44-45.
Revised applications from the three aspirating clubs (North Queensland, Brisbane and Perth) were due to be lodged by 31 October 1993, to be viewed initially by the premiership policy committee of Peter Moore (chairman, from the Canterbury club), Quayle, John Ribot (Brisbane Broncos), Bob Millward (Illawarra) Denis Fitzgerald (Parramatta), Paul Cross and Paul Harrison (both independent), before going to the directors Arthurson, Quayle, Bellew, Moore, Terry Parker (South Sydney), Laurie Doust, and independent businessmen George Gaines and Graham Lovett. With the league demanding confirmation of a lease agreement in writing by 31 October, the Cowboys had mere weeks to pull off a coup with an agreement between the Townsville and Thuringowa councils to enter a joint venture with the state government and Top End to fund and develop The Willows, finally confirming the Cowboys' ability to provide a Winfield Cup-standard stadium.