Prediction poll - who will get the 18th team?

[Perth Red]

May

wouldn’t a bears side representing north Sydney playing out of the north Sydney oval be better for Sydney and the NRL than a suburban and hard to get to manly?

maybe, but previously bears felt the need to leave because it wasn’t viable and manly are in and going nowhere. Ergo no room for bears, and no room for another nsw team whilst large cities have zero representation.

 

[Perth Red]

For me it just seems a shame that the north Sydney region isn’t represented in the NRL compared to western Sydney and southern Sydney.

Got to admit I’ve a soft spot for the bears because of their unique stadium and players like Brett Dallas and Gary Larson who I watched as a kid on uk tv.

incidentally what’s the population of north Sydney mate?

The area defined as northern Sydney was 850k 5 years ago but includes some areas, like Ryde and Hornsby that are closer to anz and parra than north Sydney So likely to follow a different team. Mosman to manly is only 9km and no reason they shouldn’t be following the sea eagles. Northern be@ches is biggest pop area and closer to brookvale than ns. Reality is the region NS bears reaches is actually quite small.

https://facs-web.squiz.cloud/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/725851/Northern-Sydney-District-Data-Profile.pdf

 

[Pippen94]

Depends, if fox don’t want to show the dolphins then nine could get two brisbane fta games a week compared to their current one most weekends. I expect broncos fta will be cut by 50% and dolphins will be on fta for 75% of their games. unless they’re shthouse lol.

next season broncos are on fta 17 out of 24 rounds. Say that goes down to 8 in ‘23 and dolphins are on 16 out of 24 then nine get a brisbane increase of 7 games overall.

if dolphins draw same as broncos will be Interesting to see, titans dont.

Derbies will boast ratings. Can see nrl looking to increase that.

 

[Colk]

Derbies will boast ratings. Can see nrl looking to increase that.

The Dolphins haven’t played a game yet and at this point in time have hardly signed anybody. Probably best to see how it all goes first.

 

[TGG]

Not having a go mate but what’s wrong with calling them the Auckland warriors and Christchurch(insert nickname)?

Absolutely nothing.

I would prefer North Island and South Island so the entire population is represented by a club. I don’t see New Zealand ever getting a third club so think this will be beneficial and perhaps stop some people thought profess of being neither Auckland or Christchurch is where they’re from so they don’t have a team to support.

Given the way the NRL went about the Dolphins name, I guess this could also work with last having the North Island based Warriors being known simply as The Warriors and the South Island based Whatevers known as simply the Whatevers.

relocation will on,y work here if it is a club owned by perth people, not some east coast parachuted in failed venture still run by a pokie den in suburban sydney.

Not having a go but what is this based on? Just opinion?

When I was in Perth most people I spoke to told me they wanted an NRL club in Perth. No one made any mention of who had to run it or where it had to come from.

I don't claim to be an expert but it's my understanding that the big rivalry in NZ is Auckland vs everybody else, not north island vs south island.

So if the goal is to create a strong rivalry between the two clubs then playing into that Auckland vs the rest dynamic by rebranding the Warriors back to the Auckland Warriors and playing up their Auckland heritage makes sense.

In an ideal world you'd then try to position the new club as the club for the rest of New Zealand, though that probably isn't realistic in practice given the last 25 years of the Warriors acting as the de facto NZ club in the NRL, so your best bet is probably to break the Warriors monopoly by picking a well defined target audience and running with it.

The biggest rivalry is between Auckland & Wellington. There is a rivalry between Christchurch and Auckland was well. But that doesn’t mean Wellington and Christchurch will combined against Auckland as they have a rivalry with each other as well.

You can keep repeating this all you like, but like I said before North Island vs South Island isn't the major cultural divide in NZ, Auckland vs the rest is. So if the goal is to create as strong a competitive rivalry between the two teams as possible, which it should be, then surely playing into that divide is the best way of going about it.

Hold up, I thought you weren’t claiming to be an expert but now happy to push your opinion as fact?

That’s what I’m led to believe as well with the main rivalry in rugby Union being that of Auckland v Canterbury which could easily be transferred into rugby league as well.

Key word here is in “Rugby Union” and yes you’re correct it could be recreated in Rugby League. However who does someone from Wellington support? They hate Aucklanders and don’t like people from Canterbury.

Why the love for the bears and not the jets to rejoin? is it just a generation thing, ie you can remember the bears being in first grade but not Newtown? In which case it’s a pretty flimsy reason to advocate their readmission.

they’ve only got 11% of the vote but…

Its based on Geography and the glaring mistake by past administrators to leave such a huge part of Sydney that supports Rugby League without a team in their area. Newtown’s territory has been taken by other clubs. Norths hasn’t. Manly has failed to grow out of their tiny corridor and haven’t shown much want to either. Roosters are currently trying to grow into that area which is a very smart business move by them.

I think the Bears returning in another city would give everyone the best of both worlds.

One thing is for sure though, the best most realistic outcome at this point would be for Manly to take up the mantle as "the North Sydney team", but they haven't shown any real interest in doing that and the Bears and NSWRL would do everything in their power to try and prevent it from happening.

Absolutely no interest from Manly to do this and perhaps is a reason why a club with this mindset shouldn’t be in a “National” competition. In their defence, part of the reason why they’ve shown no interest in this is because they can’t given there is absolutely no want from the wider North Sydney area to be represented by Manly.

Mosman to manly is only 9km and no reason they shouldn’t be following the sea eagles.

This is a highly contentious comment to say the very least and highlights the problem when you looking just at a singular to decide who, what and why people should or shouldn’t support a team.

 

[The Great Dane]

The biggest rivalry is between Auckland & Wellington. There is a rivalry between Christchurch and Auckland was well. But that doesn’t mean Wellington and Christchurch will combined against Auckland as they have a rivalry with each other as well.

Nobody said that they would... In fact one of the major points of my posts was that no matter what you call the teams you aren't going to get masses of people from multiple of the major markets in NZ supporting a couple of teams that don't directly represent their market once you break the Warriors monopoly on all of NZ.

Hold up, I thought you weren’t claiming to be an expert but now happy to push your opinion as fact?

Got it confirmed by a few people much more in the know of than either of us ever will be.

What they said was that Auckland vs the rest is an overly simplistic way of putting it, but that everyone outside of Auckland wanting to get one over Auckland is definitely a major cultural force in NZ.

That though North Island vs South Island could hypothetically work as a rep game similar to SOO, that having them as the two NZ clubs in an Australian comp would be the equivalent of an NZ comp creating a singular team called "Eastern Seaboard" to represent all of NSW, Victoria, and Queensland, and expecting people from Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, to support them en masse... In other words, the idea is a fanciful pipedream at best.

They also supported my suspicion that if you did create NI and SI teams that market pressures would inevitably force them to become de facto Auckland and Christchurch teams in practice.

Besides that they also said that unlike in a lot of countries where there are strong rivalries between cities that sports can easily capitalise on, that there isn't really a money rivalry in NZ sport generally speaking, and that in NZ the biggest rivalry really depends on the history within the sport, on the success of teams at the time, and other factors as well.

That for the most part Wellington is a bit of graveyard for pro-sport in NZ, and that even by NZ standards Wellington sides are often shaky prospects commercially and tend to be poorly supported per capita, but again there are outliers and it depends on individual circumstances.

Finally they said that if the NRL is serious about taking a significant slice of market share from the NZRU, and truly challenging the All Blacks, that it'd require market coverage and that will require more than two teams, that breaking the current monopoly but allowing the duopoly to become the status quo in the way that the Warriors monopoly did would badly hurt that endeavour, and that branding practices like having a "New Zealand" team, or NI and SI teams for that matter, slowly reduce it's target audience as new clubs are introduced would alienate people.

In other words if the NRL are serious about the NZ market then they need to be prepared to bring clubs into most of the major markets in quick succession after the second club is introduced, and that no matter what they do changing the Warriors brand to represent smaller regions will inevitably alienate portions of their fan base, particularly amongst those that resides outside of Auckland, and the NRL will have to accept that outcome if it's ever to grow in NZ.

 

[The Lounge Lizard]

Oodnadatta Oddballs.

Since no residents would know what rugby league is.

 

[TGG]

Got it confirmed by a few people much more in the know of than either of us ever will be.

Stop reading this dribble after this line.

Anyone can complain they know people more in the know than people on here to back up a point. I haven’t entertained this in conversation since I was a junior in high school.

 

[Perth Red]

It’s strange that nrl is interested in another nz team when they have been cutting nzrl funding for the last few years!

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

It’s strange that nrl is interested in another nz team when they have been cutting nzrl funding for the last few years!

It makes me wonder what they hope to achieve. The Sydney-centric NSWRL/ARL/NRL has a history of admitting teams from outside of NSW specifically to generate revenue to bail out broke Sydney clubs. They never do anything for the good of rugby league outside of Sydney.

 

[Perth Red]

It makes me wonder what they hope to achieve. The Sydney-centric NSWRL/ARL/NRL has a history of admitting teams from outside of NSW specifically to generate revenue to bail out broke Sydney clubs. They never do anything for the good of rugby league outside of Sydney.

Tbf the admission of another brisbane club has cost the game around $5mill a year so not sure you can argue that anymore.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Tbf the admission of another brisbane club has cost the game around $5mill a year so not sure you can argue that anymore.

I thought it added $20m?

 

[Perth Red]

I thought it added $20m?

Smoke and mirrors, News Ltd offered $20mill less than last time when they signed the deal, then added the missing $20mill back in when expansion was announced. Thus allowing Vlandys to con everyone that expansion brought in an extra $20mill a year. In effect they are paying no more in 2023 than they were in 2018. Same with Nine in cash terms. Expansion didnt add anything to the pot which is staggering really.

 

[AdelaideSharky]

Wellington or Christchurch for me.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Smoke and mirrors, News Ltd offered $20mill less than last time when they signed the deal, then added the missing $20mill back in when expansion was announced. Thus allowing Vlandys to con everyone that expansion brought in an extra $20mill a year. In effect they are paying no more in 2023 than they were in 2018. Same with Nine in cash terms. Expansion didnt add anything to the pot which is staggering really.

If News Ltd offered $20m less than the previous deal for a 16 team competition, but agreed to pay the same as last time if we added The Dolphins, then you cannot say the new club has taken money away from existing teams. Fact is we were going to get $20 less than last time if we stayed with a 16 team format. By adding The Dolphins we're getting an extra $20m on top of what Foxtel were willing to offer with $15m going to The Dolphins. That provides an extra $5m to the game that the ARLC wouldn't have if they kept the status quo.

 

[Perth Red]

If News Ltd offered $20m less than the previous deal for a 16 team competition, but agreed to pay the same as last time if we added The Dolphins, then you cannot say the new club has taken money away from existing teams. Fact is we were going to get $20 less than last time if we stayed with a 16 team format. By adding The Dolphins we're getting an extra $20m on top of what Foxtel were willing to offer with $15m going to The Dolphins. That provides an extra $5m to the game that the ARLC wouldn't have if they kept the status quo.

well maybe, or maybe it was already decided when news ltd offered less so they could get an eventual deal that didn't cost them anymore, and Vlandys gets to to tell the other clubs and fans that expansion was worth $20mill a year?

End of day the reality is that in 2023 the NRL will be paying for 17 cubs with the same amount of tv revenue from Nine and Fox as it got for 16 clubs in 2018.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

well maybe, or maybe it was already decided when news ltd offered less so they could get an eventual deal that didn't cost them anymore, and Vlandys gets to to tell the other clubs and fans that expansion was worth $20mill a year?

End of day the reality is that in 2023 the NRL will be paying for 17 cubs with the same amount of tv revenue from Nine and Fox as it got for 16 clubs in 2018.

That's speculation and something we will never know. What we can say is information provided by the media says we would have received $20m less if The Dolphins weren't added. With or without expansion, we were getting less than last time. It just happens that expansion gave us $5m more than we would have got without The Dolphins.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

It makes me wonder what they hope to achieve. The Sydney-centric NSWRL/ARL/NRL has a history of admitting teams from outside of NSW specifically to generate revenue to bail out broke Sydney clubs. They never do anything for the good of rugby league outside of Sydney.

They pretty much just want the NZ playing talent and the NZ TV money. Anything else they get is a bonus in their eyes.

 

[Perth Red]

That's speculation and something we will never know. What we can say is information provided by the media says we would have received $20m less if The Dolphins weren't added. With or without expansion, we were getting less than last time. It just happens that expansion gave us $5m more than we would have got without The Dolphins.

True, maybe its just coincidence it was exactly the same amount? lol.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

They pretty much just want the NZ playing talent and the NZ TV money. Anything else they get is a bonus in their eyes.

I wonder if they will identify NZ2's geographic location in its name, or just call them The Cyclones, like they've done with Redcliffe, to draw support from far and wide?