The Great Dane
First Grade
- Messages
- 7,957
I'm sorry but that's just garbage.Although he doesn't reflect their views or interest, he would love to broker expansion and not have the league pay for it, and if news ltd are footing the bill, and choosing the bid etc, atleast they aren't getting in the ARLCs way, ala another Sth Qld Crushers vs Broncos monopoly... which will only end up in failing to expand the comp in SEQ...
As unfair and as bad as it is to stomach the way News ltd has influence over the comp, atleast Vdog has used them to push Expansion and broadcasters in the NRLs favour, and not ended up fighting an impossible fight for expansion vs not only the existing clubs, but also against News Ltd... all these factions could have easily caused headaches all round, and kept the comp stagnate.
This proves that getting NRL to expanding to 17 teams will eventually get the comp to 18, and give another incentive to gain more dollars to sell a 9th weekly game, hopefully gaining support to increase to 19 teams do it all over again for a 20th and 10th game... which then will get interesting if they want to persue conferences to go beyond 20 teams or cull any existing clubs for spots to fill in areas unrepresented by the league.... or relocations... which will be 20 years from now... which then we probably won't care by then or clubs will fall away by how inept they are at running a business
The ARLC have other options to achieve expansion, so it's not like they have no choice but to bow down to News's will at their own detriment. Besides, no expansion is better than bad expansion, so even if they really had no choice they'd be better off putting expansion on hold and coming back to it in few years time once the situation has changed rather than forcing it through now when it's not in their interests.
Why do you assume that the NRL will handle team 18 any better than team 17 if they are willing to capitulate like this? Once the time comes to choose team 18 News, and/or other corporate stakeholders, will simply dictate which team gets that license as it suits them like they are doing with team 17, and the NRL will be worse off as a result.
That's probably why NZ has been lined up for the 18th license BTW.
News reckons if broadcasters in NZ can be convinced to pay the majority to fund an expansion club in NZ that they (News) will end up with extra NRL content on the cheap. Meanwhile the NRL still won't have explored the real opportunities in the west and the expansion clubs will underperform, which will keep the NRL's broadcast values lower for News and make the NRL hesitant to expand again like the Titan's underperformance did.