PNG's back.

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

RU is a bigger participation sport than RL in Canberra as well. There're numerous cultural and historical reasons why, but aside from a short period in the 90s RU has always had been a bigger participation sport here. Aussie Rules has generally had larger participation numbers here as well.

Are you gonna argue that the Brumbies are more successful commercially than the Raiders now?

Local participation numbers has got less than f**k all to do with the success of professional sides, and you're simply disconnected from how the modern sport's industry functions if you think otherwise.

In this day and age you can literally have multiple regions with highly successful pro teams that don't produce any local talent at all.
The NHL would probably be the best example, where Canadian players still make up a majority of the talent pool despite a minority of the teams being based in Canada, and where the Tampa Bay Lighting and Las Vegas Golden Knights have won the Stanley Cup 3 of the last 4 seasons, and it genuinely wouldn't surprise me if there isn't a single player in the NHL from either city.

Brumbies were bigger than the Raiders 20 years ago. Back then rugby union and soccer fans were predicting the death of rugby league.

Now rugby league fans are doing the same with rugby union and soccer.

Rugby union and soccer have definitely contracted, but they still have some loyal fans. For RU it might be a matter of playing during the summer so they're not up against NRL and AwFuL. It would provide filler content for the broadcasters during the NRL/AwFuL off-season.

 

[The Great Dane]

Brumbies were bigger than the Raiders 20 years ago. Back then rugby union and soccer fans were predicting the death of rugby league.

Kind of, sort of, not really.

For a bunch of reasons that aren't worth getting into, the Raiders fanbase was largely dormant at the time. It still existed, it just wasn't actively engaging with the club.

Similar is true of the Brumbies fanbase at the moment. It could be reengaged relatively easily if the ARU wasn't run by morons, but it is what it is and I don't think the NRL has to worry about a competent ARU any time soon.

It's also irrelevant from the fact that the Raiders have been a better commercial prospect than the Brumbies for the majority of their existence despite RU being the more popular participation sport in the city.

Now rugby league fans are doing the same with rugby union and soccer.

Neither will die, that's just silly.

RU is a genuine chance of regressing to semi-pro status in Australia though.

Rugby union and soccer have definitely contracted, but they still have some loyal fans. For RU it might be a matter of playing during the summer so they're not up against NRL and AwFuL. It would provide filler content for the broadcasters during the NRL/AwFuL off-season.

RU can't play in the summer. For one thing the NZRU would never agree to it, and even if the NZRU could be brought around it'd clash with the international calendar and effect their bottom line too much, which they simply can't afford.

What they really need to do is abandon Super Rugby in favour of national competition, but they don't have the means to pull it off independently anymore and they're terrified of the consequences of doing so. Which is fair enough I guess, because it will hurt in the short term, but sometimes you've got to amputate the limb to save the body.

Soccer on the other hand hasn't contracted at all. If anything it's grown in the last decade, it's just that the vast majority of soccer's fanbase in this country has zero interest in the local professional competition.

The people who figure out how to get them to support the local product en masse will make themselves very wealthy, but I can't see it happening anytime soon though. There're too many different factions with different visions for what Australian soccer should look like to get them all to work together, and most of those factions have delusionally unrealistic goals and demands.

 

[Canard]

People incorrectly correlate on field success with a sports "popularity" in a market.

 

[AlwaysGreen]

Can someone tell The Great Bore that noone gives a flying f**k about rugby or soccer.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Kind of, sort of, not really.

For a bunch of reasons that aren't worth getting into, the Raiders fanbase was largely dormant at the time. It still existed, it just wasn't actively engaging with the club.

Similar is true of the Brumbies fanbase at the moment. It could be reengaged relatively easily if the ARU wasn't run by morons, but it is what it is and I don't think the NRL has to worry about a competent ARU any time soon.

It's also irrelevant from the fact that the Raiders have been a better commercial prospect than the Brumbies for the majority of their existence despite RU being the more popular participation sport in the city.

Neither will die, that's just silly.

RU is a genuine chance of regressing to semi-pro status in Australia though.

RU can't play in the summer. For one thing the NZRU would never agree to it, and even if the NZRU could be brought around it'd clash with the international calendar and effect their bottom line too much, which they simply can't afford.

What they really need to do is abandon Super Rugby in favour of national competition, but they don't have the means to pull it off independently anymore and they're terrified of the consequences of doing so. Which is fair enough I guess, because it will hurt in the short term, but sometimes you've got to amputate the limb to save the body.

Soccer on the other hand hasn't contracted at all. If anything it's grown in the last decade, it's just that the vast majority of soccer's fanbase in this country has zero interest in the local professional competition.

The people who figure out how to get them to support the local product en masse will make themselves very wealthy, but I can't see it happening anytime soon though. There're too many different factions with different visions for what Australian soccer should look like to get them all to work together, and most of those factions have delusionally unrealistic goals and demands.

Rugby's problems began around the time they tried to expand their footprint.

“Everyone pinpoints 2003 as the downturn,” says Turinui of the year Australia hosted the World Cup, made the final (losing to England 20-17), sold two million tickets and made $46m profit. “We should’ve invested that money but we spent it on giving the game a national footprint.” That gamble has backfired and there are now widespread calls for the Western Force (introduced in 2006) and Melbourne Rebels (2011) to be folded to distil player stocks.

‘It’ll take a miracle’: decades of decline leave Australian rugby at dire crossroads | Rugby union | The Guardian

<strong>Special report</strong>: The ailing sport is searching for a drastic turnaround on and off pitch. What if anything can save it at this point?

amp.theguardian.com

 

[docbrown]

. For RU it might be a matter of playing during the summer so they're not up against NRL and AwFuL. It would provide filler content for the broadcasters during the NRL/AwFuL off-season.

The only way that would happen is if the ARU broke away from NZ. NZ RU will never go to a summer comp.

I think what will happen is that Super Rugby will shrink back down to 5 NZ teams (Blues, Chiefs, Crusaders, Hurricanes, Highlanders) and NZ will pay to prop up 3 token OZ teams (Waratahs, Reds, Brumbies). Fiji, Perth, Pasifika and Melbourne will all be axed. Basically what it was in 1996 but without the South African teams (because they're never coming back).

Meanwhile, nobody in Australia will care about Super Rugby and in New Zealand the Warriors and eventually a second New Zealand NRL side will become the most popular clubs.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

The only way that would happen is if the ARU broke away from NZ. NZ RU will never go to a summer comp.

I think what will happen is that Super Rugby will shrink back down to 5 NZ teams (Blues, Chiefs, Crusaders, Hurricanes, Highlanders) and NZ will pay to prop up 3 token OZ teams (Waratahs, Reds, Brumbies). Fiji, Perth, Pasifika and Melbourne will all be axed. Basically what it was in 1996 but without the South African teams (because they're never coming back).

Meanwhile, nobody in Australia will care about Super Rugby and in New Zealand the Warriors and eventually a second New Zealand NRL side will become the most popular clubs.

Rugby union is between a rock and a hard place. It might need to bring back the National Rugby Championship during the summer months, with everything else played in the winter.

 

[Canard]

Why do LU members have an obsession with playing winter sports in summer?

 

[Éamonn an Chnoic]

I really hope PNG actually gets off the ground!

There is enough money locally to keep a club running and it would be a huge thing for the local economy.

The plan should be to set up a resort for the players and use the club as a tourism ad. Aus players could probably get a schedule to split their time between Aus (maybe with NSW/QLD feeder clubs) and PNG.

And I think this would do amazing things for the nations reputation and self-image.

Even if the club is consistently lower 8, fighting for a bottom spot in the finals, that would be a great result.

This would also be probably the only time salary cap exemptions would be justified

 

[Maximus]

There is enough money locally to keep a club running

No there isn't.

 

[The Great Dane]

Rugby's problems began around the time they tried to expand their footprint.

“Everyone pinpoints 2003 as the downturn,” says Turinui of the year Australia hosted the World Cup, made the final (losing to England 20-17), sold two million tickets and made $46m profit. “We should’ve invested that money but we spent it on giving the game a national footprint.” That gamble has backfired and there are now widespread calls for the Western Force (introduced in 2006) and Melbourne Rebels (2011) to be folded to distil player stocks.​

​

‘It’ll take a miracle’: decades of decline leave Australian rugby at dire crossroads | Rugby union | The Guardian

<strong>Special report</strong>: The ailing sport is searching for a drastic turnaround on and off pitch. What if anything can save it at this point?

amp.theguardian.com

The failure of SR's expansion in Australia is a symptom of the greater issues facing the sport, not the cause of them. Frankly, anybody who's saying otherwise is either in denial, trying to shift blame for their mistakes, or simply hasn't got a clue what they're talking about, all of which are big issues in Australian RU ATM.

A book with multiple volumes could be written about Australian RU's current decline and it's causes, so I'd rather not go into detail, but the main causes of Australian RU's decline can largely be boiled down to-

• The many complications associated with an international club competition spread over so many time zones.

• Loss of exposer and publicity caused by the decision to lock the product behind a paywall for 25 years for short term financial gain.

• Complete failure to develop the product and adapt to competition and changing circumstances within the market.

•Failure to invest in grassroots and junior develop, in many regions going so far as to disinvest in them, in favour of get rich quick schemes designed to poach developed talent from other organisations as cheaply as possible.

• Chronic cronyism, incompetence, and infighting within the ARU and basically every other major RU body in Australia.

• Handing over too much control over the sport in Australia to foreign institutions, namely SANZAAR, the NZRU, and SARU, who's own goals don't always align with the ARU's and that don't actually care about the health of Australian RU except in so far as they can benefit from it.

There's a whole bunch of other knock-on effects caused by the above and lesser impacts as well, but we'd literally be here all year if we attempted to go through them all.

For vastly different reasons Australian professional RU is where Australian Soccer was in the early 00s; it's completely broken and can't be saved. They need to salvage anything valuable that's is left, scrape the rest, and start again from scratch, and the longer they put it off the more damage it'll do to the sport in the long run.

 

[Éamonn an Chnoic]

No there isn't.

Its a $30bil legal economy. I reckon there is $10mil floating around for an NRL team.

 

[Canard]

Its a $30bil legal economy. I reckon there is $10mil floating around for an NRL team.

Haha.

Big financial news type of guy.

 

[Wb1234]

I really hope PNG actually gets off the ground!

There is enough money locally to keep a club running and it would be a huge thing for the local economy.

The plan should be to set up a resort for the players and use the club as a tourism ad. Aus players could probably get a schedule to split their time between Aus (maybe with NSW/QLD feeder clubs) and PNG.

And I think this would do amazing things for the nations reputation and self-image.

Even if the club is consistently lower 8, fighting for a bottom spot in the finals, that would be a great result.

This would also be probably the only time salary cap exemptions would be justified

Wow another true believer

don’t let the trolls on here yet you down they are full of bs

 

[Maximus]

Its a $30bil legal economy. I reckon there is $10mil floating around for an NRL team.

It's one of the poorest countries in the planet, with most of the country living in poverty. If the country can't even support its own people, no there isn't $10m floating around.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

It's one of the poorest countries in the planet, with most of the country living in poverty. If the country can't even support its own people, no there isn't $10m floating around.

Using your logic we should cancel the Olympics and never build another stadium in Australia because there's a housing crisis.

You're not interested in solving the problems you raise. You're just shit posting because you're a miserable bastard.

 

[Brian potter]

Its a $30bil legal economy. I reckon there is $10mil floating around for an NRL team.

$30 billion economy is peanuts mate, especially for a population of 11 million.

 

[Perth Red]

Its a $30bil legal economy. I reckon there is $10mil floating around for an NRL team.

An nrl team needs to be generating $15mill plus revenue. good luck in a developing nation achieving that.

 

[Perth Red]

Using your logic we should cancel the Olympics and never build another stadium in Australia because there's a housing crisis.

You're not interested in solving the problems you raise. You're just shit posting because you're a miserable bastard.

Rich australians not being Able to afford to buy another investment property hardly equates to no running water, unstable electric supply and tribal warfare!

 

[Maximus]

Using your logic we should cancel the Olympics and never build another stadium in Australia because there's a housing crisis.

You're not interested in solving the problems you raise. You're just shit posting because you're a miserable bastard.

Australia is not a 3rd world country where the capital city isn't connected to the rest of the country, where 40% live in poverty and where 60% of the population doesn't have access to clean drinking water.

Trying to compare the 2 shows just how little you know about PNG's economic situation.