The Bears

[reanimate]

Not sure where the idea of the Bears returning full-time to NSO in the NRL is coming from? The CC is a growth area with the highest number of grassroots clubs/ players not represented by an NRL entity. It makes far more sense for the Bears to relocate there and focus on that area (with the combined financial support of Norths and the north shore corporate backers) than moving them to Perth or Adelaide or Darwin or anywhere like that.


CC= works for commercial purposes AND growing the NRL/ league in a region that already has the interest, culture and infrastructure to support this growth.

North Shore corporate backers? There are none, it’s Norths Leagues and their associated businesses. Big blue chip sponsors like Microsoft aren’t withholding support for the NRL until we bring back the Bears because they have offices in North Sydney.

There are a large number of people who live on the CC that drive down to Sydney for work everyday, due to a lack of employment opportunities in the region. There aren’t huge amounts of commercial opportunities gone begging there.

 

[Colk]

Parramatta and Penrith - New Name - Western Sydney
St George Illawarra/Cronulla and Souths - New Name - Southern Sydney/Illawarra
Roosters - New Name -Eastern Sydney
Wests/ Canterbury - New Name-South Western Sydney
Manly/Norths/Central Coast - New Name - Northern Sydney/Central Coast

5 teams

Plus

Knights
Raiders
Storm
Broncos
Cowboys
Titans
Warriors

12 teams

Expansion

Dolphins
Central QLD
Perth
NZ 2
Adelaide
PNG

18 Teams

2 conferences

I love how in your system, your club is the only one that doesn’t merge. It is also probably the smallest area in Sydney

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

I love how in your system, your club is the only one that doesn’t merge. It is also probably the smallest area in Sydney

Roosters are based in the most important location of Sydney and are financially viable. It would be great for the game if they could become equal to the Broncos on and off the field. It might even force some of the smaller Sydney clubs to either grow their fanbase or merge with one another to become competitive. What I'd love to see is the Roosters poach the big end of town away from onionball and fumbleball.

 

[RL The greatest game]

For the NRL to expand further it does need to get a lot more juniors playing the game.
Junior playing numbers is the future of the game.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

For the NRL to expand further it does need to get a lot more juniors playing the game.
Junior playing numbers is the future of the game.

We really need to own the Pacific. There's a good chance of us becoming the number one sport throughout Oceania over the next 30 years if we spend enough money developing the game at grassroots level.

 

[Reflector]

Okay, but how valuable would that "tangible link" actually be in real terms.

To keep things simple we'll carry on with your example of people wearing Balmain gear at Wests tigers games.

Now lets be very charitable and assume that all of them can accurately be described as Balmain fans, and none of them are just Wests Tigers fans in a heritage kit (which, to be clear, is a faulty assumption). Then we'll be even more charitable and estimate that 5k fans at your average Wests match are "Balmain fans" as you describe.

Now we have that (very) charitable estimate of 5k, what percentage do you think would be willing to continue actively supporting the club once they've relocated to Brisbane/merged?
I'll tell you right now that it's not a very large percentage, but for sake of argument, and to again be charitable with our estimates, lets say 50% even though I speak from experience when I say that the actual number would be significantly lower than that.

Now lets extrapolate from there that roughly the same percentage of their broader fanbase would continue to support the club after the relocation/merger, and that leaves the real terms value of your "tangible link" as a charitable average of an extra 2.5k fans at Brisbane Tigers away games in Sydney and a few thousand extra people watching on TV (keeping in mind that realistically those numbers would be significantly lower).

In reality that wouldn't be very valuable to the club or league in real terms, and I think it's reasonable to describe that as 'f**k all fans'.

Furthermore it'd come with tons of baggage, as it's inevitable that taking those actions would have negative effects on the new club's potential fanbase in Brisbane. I'd go so far as to say that you'd potentially turn off more people than you would gain by "linking" with Balmain, but you'd need to do extensive market research to confirm that.

If the goal is solely to re-engage with the Balmain fanbase (and I'm not necessarily saying that it is or should be), then you'd be better off folding the Wests Tigers, handing their license to a new team, and putting some money, exposure, and good heads behind a Balmain NSW Cup side that plays out of Leichhardt full time. If you played your cards right you'd get better engagement from the Balmain fanbase, and you'd do it without impacting on another market.

A large part of the rest of your post is waffle built off the faulty premise I've addressed here, or short-sighted attacks on the AFL that I have no interest in rehashing for the thousandth time, so it's not really worth the effort to go though the rest of your post, so I'll just leave mine here.

The amount of people in Balmain gear at WT games vs. the amount of people in Magpies gear is just one example of the disparity in support. Maybe others' experiences are different from my own, but I've always seen/ met far more ex Balmain WT fans than Wests fans. Many of the Balmain faithful live interstate, particularly in that SEQ area. They may not have the same numbers up there as Souths or Parra or Bulldogs supporters, but still more than the majority of expats. Turning people off by 'linking' with Balmain would turn off no more people than 'linking' with Easts Tigers (as the Firehawks bid did) or the Dolphins 'linking' with Redcliffe.

 

[Reflector]

GWS may be a bit force-fed, but it's not like it was the AFL's only option.

Tasmania has been begging for a team to the point they've had to make threats.

I'm a fan of both league and AFL (is that even allowed on this site) and I think Canberra could easily host an AFL team without the effort GWS has needed.

The NT are also pushing for a team and Perth has been raised about getting a third team.

The AFL didn't pick Western Sydney as they were out of options. They picked it because there 2 million in an untapped market. They've already got 30k members (probably 20k actually in Sydney), so all they needed was .01% of the population, and they've already got it. And the larger TV rights more than underwrote it. It'll likely slowly grow over time too.

The reward is much bigger than smaller heartland areas they can expand to later.

It's the same as Perth and the NRL. It's a big city. It doesn't need a large chunk of the pie to be successful. And there's so much room to grow once it's established.

The difference between places like Tasmania/ NT and places like western sydney/ GC is that the former two are not growth areas, while the latter two are. The latter two are also areas where league is the #1 code. The AFL would kill to have the "problem" the NRL currently has- growth areas with healthy grassroots numbers that are unrepresented by a side in the national competition AND with bids (admittedly some more active than others) who want to be included.

I'd actually tend to agree that the Giants could base themselves fully out of the ACT and be more successful than splitting their focus between two completely different areas. Likewise, a third team in W.A could work- provided there's enough of a market to support that third side in the short/ mid-term future.

While memberships are a valid argument in terms of money coming into the club (albeit a tiny portion of total revenue), being a member is an entrenched part of AFL culture, to the point you'll find many of the Suns/ Giants members rarely attend matches (if at all) and in fact support a different team but tokenistically purchase membership to the local club because "it's what you do".

Kind of similar to how people compare grassroots Aussie Rules numbers to grassroots RL numbers in a certain area, but include kids who are enrolled by their schools in Auskick for a term to bulk up the AFL numbers.

This is a bigger discussion but probably more relevant to threads on The Fight Club. I maintain that when it comes to expansion, we can ultimately have the best of both worlds- expansion into new areas AND keeping the identity of long-existing clubs. Again, of the existing Sydney NRL clubs, who should we be demanding does this?

 

[RL The greatest game]

We really need to own the Pacific. There's a good chance of us becoming the number one sport throughout Oceania over the next 30 years if we spend enough money developing the game at grassroots level.

We need to step up a lot here in Australia as well, we really do
We need to get the game in even more schools

 

[Colk]

Roosters are based in the most important location of Sydney and are financially viable. It would be great for the game if they could become equal to the Broncos on and off the field. It might even force some of the smaller Sydney clubs to either grow their fanbase or merge with one another to become competitive. What I'd love to see is the Roosters poach the big end of town away from onionball and fumbleball.

I was having a go at the irony GROTD. Roosters also have nowhere near the amount of supporters as Dragons, Tigers, Rabbitohs, Bulldogs and Parramatta - some of the Sydney clubs that he chose to merge. Essentially it doesn’t make sense

 

[Colk]

The difference between places like Tasmania/ NT and places like western sydney/ GC is that the former two are not growth areas, while the latter two are. The latter two are also areas where league is the #1 code. The AFL would kill to have the "problem" the NRL currently has- growth areas with healthy grassroots numbers that are unrepresented by a side in the national competition AND with bids (admittedly some more active than others) who want to be included.

I'd actually tend to agree that the Giants could base themselves fully out of the ACT and be more successful than splitting their focus between two completely different areas. Likewise, a third team in W.A could work- provided there's enough of a market to support that third side in the short/ mid-term future.

While memberships are a valid argument in terms of money coming into the club (albeit a tiny portion of total revenue), being a member is an entrenched part of AFL culture, to the point you'll find many of the Suns/ Giants members rarely attend matches (if at all) and in fact support a different team but tokenistically purchase membership to the local club because "it's what you do".

Kind of similar to how people compare grassroots Aussie Rules numbers to grassroots RL numbers in a certain area, but include kids who are enrolled by their schools in Auskick for a term to bulk up the AFL numbers.

This is a bigger discussion but probably more relevant to threads on The Fight Club. I maintain that when it comes to expansion, we can ultimately have the best of both worlds- expansion into new areas AND keeping the identity of long-existing clubs. Again, of the existing Sydney NRL clubs, who should we be demanding does this?

What areas are we talking about? We have a side in every league area you can think of. The large areas that we don’t have sides are in Perth and Adelaide which are traditionally AFL areas

 

[RL The greatest game]

What areas are we talking about? We have a side in every league area you can think of. The large areas that we don’t have sides are in Perth and Adelaide which are traditionally AFL areas

Personally i would love to see a NRL club in Cairns.
The population is over 150,000 and the game is popular there, and also the rivalry with the Cowboys would create a North Queensland derby and a lot of interest in our game there.

 

[marshall stalin]

I love how in your system, your club is the only one that doesn’t merge. It is also probably the smallest area in Sydney

That was based on when the two comps got back together and if you knew the history you should be able to see why such mergers would have been options -

Some of these mergers almost happened - Wests were going to merge with Canterbury until Canterbury said they will play in Canterbury Kits and all home games at Belmore and the Board will be the Canterbury one. So it didn't go ahead

When Canterbury came into the comp in 1935 they were allocated a significant part of Western Suburbs junior areas - when Wests were based in Ashfield so that merge would have been viable based on that history alone.

When Manly came in to the comp in 1947 they also were allocated significant parts of North Sydney's junior areas so there is a historical connection. That merge didn't work in the end though.

Souths almost Merged with Cronulla so a St George-Illawarra/Souths/Cronulla merge would have been possible.- The Cronulla area would have been St George juniors area until Cronulla were admitted to the comp in 1967 and the Dragons have had a long standing relationship with the Ilawarra/South Coast.

Parramatta and Penrith would have been a natural merge as prior to Penrith coming into the comp in 1967 that area was Parramatta junior areas.

Parramatta also sounded out mergers with North Sydney and then Balmain but not for reasons you might think - Fitzgerald didn't like Eels as a mascot/emblem - Fitzgerald thought Parramatta Bears or Parramatta Tigers would be better for marketing and sponsorship etc.

The Roosters had and have no need to merge being more than financially viable and it is well documented what happened to their junior areas in the 1930'S and 1950's - Given over to Souths.

See the current junior areas - not sure how many kids in Point Piper/Darling Point/Dover Heights/Double Bay/Vaucluse/Rushcutters Bay/Bellevue Hills/Elizabeth Bay/Rose Bay/Edgecliffe/Darlinghurst/Potts Point for an example would play Rugby League.

So of course their junior league is going to be small.

Having the most juniors doesn't equate to success and premierships though as Parramatta/Penrith/Bronco's would be playing in every Grandfinal year after year

The Roosters are doing great things on the Central Coast in their partnership with the Central Coast Rugby League-Central Coast Roosters including providing Central Coast Juniors a pathway to play NRL.

Central Coast Roosters have 3 junior rep sides in Harold Matthews/Andrew Johns/Laurie Daley Cup comps and Central Coast Senior sides (NSW Women's premiership and Country Championship sides in both Men's and Women's)

Then SG Ball , Jersey Flegg , Tarsha Gale Cup /NRL/NRLW opportunities with the Sydney Roosters. Plus an arrangement with the North Sydney Bears - NSW Cup Feeder team

Hopefully down the track the Roosters will have a permanent arrangement with the Central Coast and Even North Sydney Bears for those areas to come under the Sydney Roosters as a pathway to play NRL but still field their junior rep and open age teams

 

[Colk]

That was based on when the two comps got back together - some of these mergers almost happened - Wests were going to merge with Canterbury until Canterbury said they will play in Canterbury Kits and all home games at Belmore and the Board will be the Canterbury one. So it didn't go ahead

When Canterbury came into the comp in 1935 they were allocated a significant part of Western Suburbs junior area - when Wests were based in Ashfield so that merge would have been viable based on that history alone.

Souths almost Merged with Cronulla so a St George/Souths/Cronulla merge would have been possible.- The Cronulla area would have been St George juniors area until Cronulla were admitted to the comp in 1967

Parramatta and Penrith would have been a natural merge as prior to Penrith coming into the comp in 1967 that area was Parramatta juniors area.

Parramatta also sounded out mergers with North Sydney and then Balmain but not for reasons you might think - Fitzgerald didn't like Eels as a mascot/emblem - Fitzgerald thought Parramatta Bears or Parramatta Tigers would be better for marketing and sponsorship etc.

The Roosters had and have no need to merge being more than financially viable and it is well documented what happened to their junior areas in the 1930'S and 1950's - Given over to Souths.

See the current junior areas - not sure how many kids in Point Piper/Darling Point/Dover Heights/Double Bay/Vaucluse/Rushcutters Bay/Bellevue Hills/Elizabeth Bay/Rose Bay/Edgecliffe/Darlinghurst/Potts Point for an example would play Rugby League.

So of course their junior league is going to be small.

The Roosters are doing great things on the Central Coast in their partnership with the Central Coast Rugby League-Central Coast Roosters including providing Central Coast Juniors a pathway to play NRL.

Central Coast Roosters have 3 junior rep sides in Harold Matthews/Andrew Johns/Laurie Daley Cup comps and Central Coast Senior sides (NSW Women's premiership and Country Championship sides in both Men's and Women's)

Then SG Ball , Jersey Flegg , Tarsha Gale Cup /NRL/NRLW opportunities with the Sydney Roosters. Plus an arrangement with the North Sydney Bears - NSW Cup Feeder team

Hopefully down the track the Roosters will have a permanent arrangement with the Central Coast and Even North Sydney Bears for those areas to come under the Sydney Rooster as a pathway to play NRL but still field their junior rep teams



View attachment 58148

I know all about the potential mergers between Parra/Penrith, Parra/Tigers, Canterbury/Wests etc. Mergers are a ridiculous idea that only RL could think could work (no other sport does it) In fact the only merger that has kind of worked (or at least not been atrocious) has been St George Illawarra. That’s only because it was effectively a takeover by St George and there were obvious symmetries between the two - same colours, areas adjacent to each other, a lot of history of players from the Wollongong area playing for St George etc)

They should have either put the sides with the least amount of supporters in Sydney back to NSW Cup or relocated them to areas that needed sides after the SL war (Perth, Adelaide in particular)

 

[bad boy bubby]

I see that the merger talks between the Roosters and the Dragons has been conveniently left off the list...

Anyone remember Sydney City Saints? Yes

When former St George chief executive Geoff Carr walked through the milling crowd towards ANZ Stadium with his wife Penny for Saturday night's Dragons versus Wests Tigers preliminary final, he heard the voice of a fan with a long memory.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

I was having a go at the irony GROTD. Roosters also have nowhere near the amount of supporters as Dragons, Tigers, Rabbitohs, Bulldogs and Parramatta - some of the Sydney clubs that he chose to merge. Essentially it doesn’t make sense

As an outsider looking in from Brisbane, I have a hard time envisioning much growth for the Sydney clubs unless drastic action is taken.

Parramatta have a cult-like following which could grow as the city becomes bigger and richer.

Roosters have the potential to grow if they can capture the North Shore and Northern Beaches, but that would require Manly to f**k off and take a generation to bear fruit.

Tigers don't have much support out in the Campbelltown area, but that's the area set to experience population growth over the next 25 years.

There are Balmain supporters from the Tigers area keeping the club strong off the field, but how many kids from the area are as passionate as their parents?

Penrith have a large area to themselves, but haven't managed to convert it into a large fanbase.

South Sydney are riding high on the back of Russell Crowe, but what happens when he f**ks off?

Cronulla are never going to be anything more than a team for the RL community of Sutherland. Only 230k live in Sutherland and not all of them are RL fans.

The demographics in the old St George district have changed and I don't see any evidence of the club changing its culture to draw support from the new community.

Illawarra cannot sustain a full time team.

Bulldogs could grow, but they would need to broaden their reach beyond Canterbury-Bankstown.

 

[Colk]

As an outsider looking in from Brisbane, I have a hard time envisioning much growth for the Sydney clubs unless drastic action is taken.

Parramatta have a cult-like following which could grow as the city becomes bigger and richer.

Roosters have the potential to grow if they can capture the North Shore and Northern Beaches, but that would require Manly to f**k off and take a generation to bear fruit.

Tigers don't have much support out in the Campbelltown area, but that's the area set to experience population growth over the next 25 years.

There are Balmain supporters from the Tigers area keeping the club strong off the field, but how many kids from the area are as passionate as their parents?

Penrith have a large area to themselves, but haven't managed to convert it into a large fanbase.

South Sydney are riding high on the back of Russell Crowe, but what happens when he f**ks off?

Cronulla are never going to be anything more than a team for the RL community of Sutherland. Only 230k live in Sutherland and not all of them are RL fans.

The demographics in the old St George district have changed and I don't see any evidence of the club changing its culture to draw support from the new community.

Illawarra cannot sustain a full time team.

Bulldogs could grow, but they would need to broaden their reach beyond Canterbury-Bankstown.

I think there’s always going to be 2-3 clubs in Sydney which are going to be small. The Western Sydney clubs have a chance to be well supported as that is where the growth in Sydney is going to be. Penrith might need to extend their reach out to Western NSW so they could reach their potential in terms of supporters.

South Eastern Sydney is big enough for one well supported club which is Souths (they are going to be fine btw - probably the biggest club in Sydney) Yes, they were saved by Crowe but they have converted their money to strong renewed support.

In a perfect world you could fit one other club stretching down to Wollongong that could be well supported ( particularly if they could stretch that support right down to the South Coast of NSW)

Then one big club in North Sydney.

On the Roosters, they are never going to be well supported. Maybe you are under some illusion because you are based in Queensland and they are media darlings but essentially the only reason they are still alive is down to one man: Politis. Despite their unparalleled on field success and money over the past 20 years their supporter base hasn’t grown much (unlike Souths in comparison). You could kick Manly out and give them the whole area from Central Coast to Sydney CBD and they still wouldn’t be well supported. It’s essentially an illusion.

In fact on the topic of mergers, if you wanted another merger (which wasn’t discussed) then perhaps it would have made more sense to merge Manly/Roosters. They would have had at least something in common: everybody who doesn’t follow them, hates them.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

I see that the merger talks between the Roosters and the Dragons has been conveniently left off the list...

Anyone remember Sydney City Saints? Yes

When former St George chief executive Geoff Carr walked through the milling crowd towards ANZ Stadium with his wife Penny for Saturday night's Dragons versus Wests Tigers preliminary final, he heard the voice of a fan with a long memory.

www.smh.com.au

Sydney Sharks has a nice ring to it, hey?

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

I think there’s always going to be 2-3 clubs in Sydney which are going to be small. The Western Sydney clubs have a chance to be well supported as that is where the growth in Sydney is going to be. Penrith might need to extend their reach out to Western NSW so they could reach their potential in terms of supporters.

South Eastern Sydney is big enough for one well supported club which is Souths (they are going to be fine btw - probably the biggest club in Sydney) Yes, they were saved by Crowe but they have converted their money to strong renewed support.

In a perfect world you could fit one other club stretching down to Wollongong that could be well supported ( particularly if they could stretch that support right down to the South Coast of NSW)

Then one big club in North Sydney.

On the Roosters, they are never going to be well supported. Maybe you are under some illusion because you are based in Queensland and they are media darlings but essentially the only reason they are still alive is down to one man: Politis. Despite their unparalleled on field success and money over the past 20 years their supporter base hasn’t grown much (unlike Souths in comparison). You could kick Manly out and give them the whole area from Central Coast to Sydney CBD and they still wouldn’t be well supported. It’s essentially an illusion.

In fact on the topic of mergers, if you wanted another merger (which wasn’t discussed) then perhaps it would have made more sense to merge Manly/Roosters. They would have had at least something in common: everybody who doesn’t follow them, hates them.

Sydney Sea Eagles. 8 games at SFS and 4 at Central Coast Stadium.

 

[bad boy bubby]

Sydney Sharks has a nice ring to it, hey?

I'd go for them!

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

I'd go for them!

Sky blue, white and red would make a good colour scheme.