I’d be relocating teams rather than commencing new franchises. The AFL did it successfully for many years and although some diehards won’t cop it the majority embrace it.
There is simply not enough talent. A team in central QLD and Perth should be a priority. Teams that are vulnerable at the moment are the Tigers and Dogs. The Sharks were close but they got their shit together by winning a comp and getting themselves out of financial hardship with their development even though they sold that land for less than market value.
It should have been done decades ago with massive incentives. It won't happen now since all the clubs get the millions they do in money grants. They would rather limp around for years at the bottom of the table then move elsewhere.
It's dead head old thinking that is very hard to change. It's like Sydney is some magic wonderland that they can't seem to cut the apron strings from and go their own way into the big wide world even if it means living off the crumbs that the big clubs leave behind forever.
If we were a small club and had half the supporters and or juniors, bad location, shit stadium or financially weak, I would be begging we relocate. What's the point in being in a saturated market that we will always be a small fish with once in a couple of decades, if lucky, ability of sustained success versus being in a whole city as the only RL team in town?
The opportunities and potential are almost limitless in a city like Perth or even Christchurch now that they will have a state of the art 25-30K seat stadium with transparent roof in the heart of the city by 2026.
One NZ Stadium is the new Christchurch stadium in the centre of Otautahi, Christchurch, the ideal place to host all the biggest and best games, gigs and…
www.te-kaha.co.nz
This is also why I was very pissed off that the NRL didn't get together with ARU and Soccer to lobby hard to reverse the decision not to build the new Adelaide indoor city stadium so it could accommodate rectangular football codes like it was first planned and designed to do. Offer a team licence or relocation if they did.
This was the original proposal but the football component was removed in the end siting costs, but you can bet your bottom dollar the AFL white anters got into the ears of the pollies and kyboshed it. No way they wanted a state of the art 22K indoor stadium right in the heart of the city. It would virtually guarantee success for any interloping football code that had a half decent team. People would just turn up just to watch something when they wanted something to do. Tourist would put it on their agenda, a when in Adelaide to do list.
Information about the proposed Adelaide Riverbank Arena on the Austadiums website.
www.austadiums.com
Anyway the ARLC is weak and doesn't have the balls or knowhow to lobby smart and hard for these types of things like the AFL does. As for relocation, ditto. Talks the big talk, but couldn't entice a team to move in a million years.
