The Effects on Queensland Rugby League as a result of the creation of the Brisbane Broncos
The sport of Rugby League was born in the year 1895 as a result of several UK Rugby Union officials and clubs becoming disenchanted with the way Rugby Union at the time was being played. What appeared to be nothing more than a minor or temporary protest ended up yielding one of the most competitive, supported and successful sports in the United Kingdom, and Rugby League also managed to spread into neighbouring France and other northern Europe countries, down to South Africa and over to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Rugby League first made its way to Australia early in the 1900s and by 1908 the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) had formed to create Australias first rugby league competition. But it wasnt only New South Wales who adopted this new and intriguing sport, Queensland also became engrossed with the game of Rugby League as well. The game has changed a lot between 1895 and 2003 but it is still an extremely popular sport in these two Australian states. (Information via rugby league websites League Unlimited, World of Rugby League and RL1908)
Rugby League in Queensland has had an interesting history, and it has been so popular in this state that other sports have rarely rated a mention, but within the last decade things have changed in the Queensland sporting landscape, a look at the history of Rugby League in Queensland helps to outline possible reasons. Rugby League in Queensland really started to develop in 1962 with the development of a state championship tournament contested by teams from each section of the state, (from North Queensland through to Central Queensland, Wide Bay, Brisbane and down the Coast) this became one of the first genuine rugby league competitions in Queensland. The Statewide Competition ended in 1973, but it had gone a long way towards creating the interest towards a Queensland Rugby League competition. In 1974 a slightly less populated competition was designed, consisting of most of the teams from the Statewide Competition but without any Brisbane teams. Brisbane teams did not participate in the new competition because the Brisbane Rugby League had formed and was running its own competition, and its popularity was beginning to reach unchartered levels of support, and it was beginning to catch up to the professionalism of the NSWRL competition based in Sydney. The only time the two states combined was for the annual state games, but the New South Wales side often was filled with many Queensland born players who had been lured to Sydney to play in the NSWRL competition. This changed however in 1980 in one of the biggest changes that Rugby League in Australia has seen, the creation of the State Of Origin series. For the first time the Queenslanders argued their case to the Australian Rugby League chairman that the New South Wales team was unfairly advantaged, and so the State of Origin series was born, with players playing for their state of birth. Pollard (1995, pp 10-12) wrote that through the lobbying of Queenslander Ron McAullife and with the support of then Australian Rugby League Chairman Kevin Humphries, the concept of players playing for their state of birth was born. This became the start of not only an unbelievably successful competition, but it is argued that this was also to be a key factor in later years towards making a permanent change to the way rugby league competitions were run in Australia, by the Queenslanders standing up for themselves they became a more important player in the Australian Rugby League and it is that sparked the interest in creating a Brisbane team to enter the NSWRL competition later that decade.
In New South Wales there was a belief that it harboured the best rugby league competition as it was where the saying, and they adopted the saying from a former Queensland radio commentator, the greatest game of all as their own. And it was hard to argue with this, because the results of the annual state games up until 1980 showed that New South Wales based team won 160 of the 219 matches played over their Queensland based counterparts (Pollard, 1995). The New South Wales competition also had more money to utilise due to the use of poker machines as additional sources of revenue, which wasnt adopted by Queensland clubs until many years later. This meant that the New South Wales clubs were much more capable of signing talent from interstate, and each season the number of Queensland players being signed to Sydney teams was increasing, according to McGregor (1989). McGregor also wrote that, In the 1987 season, Brisbane lost 59 first grade players to the NSWRL, the equivalent of four teams, which was nearly half of the nine team league. And it wasnt just the players who were looking to the greener pastures of the NSWRL competition, the Brisbane Rugby League (BRL) in the years of 1986 and 1987 decided to lodge an application for a Brisbane based team to join in the NSWRL and used the argument of the Queensland teams successes in the state of origin series since the competition began (Queensland won nine of the first 13 matches, played between 1980 and 1986, (Pollard, 1995)) to show that Queensland could not only hold their own, but be successful. The Queensland Rugby League officials were interested in joining the NSWRL competition for several reasons, but at the time appeared oblivious to the impending problems that could be incurred by completely changing the Queensland Rugby League structure and focus. The QRL officials seemed only interested in the potential benefits and failed to see that by changing a successful formula in search of a potential greater benefit could have back-fired as was to happen in later years. The combination of an increasing player exodus to the NSWRL competition, a perceived drop in interest from the public in the BRL competition and the challenge of the Sydney competition proved enough motivation however, and in 1987 the Brisbane Broncos, along with three other new teams (Gold Coast-Tweed Giants (who at the time were based in Northern NSW and not Queensland), Newcastle Knights and Illawarra Steelers) were created and all joined the 1988 NSWRL competition, (Cadigan, 2001).
The Brisbane Broncos became an instant success, on and off the field, and they still remain fairly successful to this day, but that only created a false image of success for Rugby League in Queensland. There are two arguments based around the birth of the Broncos, the first argument is that it was essential for Rugby League to move towards a national competition for the sake of the game in the future. McGregor writes that by 1987 the Brisbane Bullets, a team in the National Basketball League (NBL), sold out any stadium it booked (it had just won its second premiership at the time) and the Victorian Football League (now known as the AFL) had begun making progress into the traditional Rugby League states by moving towards a national competition and creating teams in Brisbane and Sydney. From this viewpoint it is argued that Rugby league needed to go national in some way, or at least find a way of integrating the successful BRL and NSWRL competitions, and this is why the NSWRL and the Queensland Rugby League had to agree to terms, but the other argument says that in creating a more national competition was going to alienate the pre-existing competitions that were already such a success (ie the BRL) and it would automatically make any other league appear as a second-tier competition, and that is exactly what happened. The traditional fans of the BRL argued that all that was happening was the New South Wales competition was growing at the expense of their own competition.
By the time the 1988 NSWRL season had gotten underway, the media had devoted its interests towards the Broncos and ignored the BRL because it was no longer a popular or glamorous event in the eyes of some. As a result, the crowds at BRL games declined rapidly as the Broncos home crowds increased. The question that divided Rugby league fans, and still does, is did the Broncos cause the decline in interest in Rugby League in Queensland? Andrews (1992) argued that by creating the Broncos, Rugby league was putting itself in a new image and slipping into dangerous territory by shifting away from tradition and focusing on glitz and glamour. By doing this the supporters in Queensland no longer had such a firm attachment, and it also grouped all the rugby league supporters in Brisbane behind the one team, so if the Broncos faltered, Rugby league in Brisbane would be in a very dangerous position. This opened the door for the first ever time for other sports to have a genuine opportunity at stealing the spotlight away from Rugby League in Queensland. In the early 1990s the Brisbane Bullets (NBL) were still quite successful and in the mid 1990s the Brisbane Strikers (National Soccer League) had a moment in the spotlight. In 2003 the Brisbane Lions (AFL) have become the latest Brisbane sporting team to have a surge in popularity, and the traditionalists argue that none of these sports would become anywhere near as popular had the Brisbane Broncos not been created, which is an argument no one can prove or disprove but it does have merits.
The BRL continued to operate in the early 1990s despite falling further and further behind each season as NSWRL clubs signed more and more players, but it was clear to the Queensland Rugby League officials that something had to change or the once proud Brisbane competition would drift into sporting oblivion. So, in 1996, the Queensland Cup was created. The Queensland Cup was designed to replace the BRL (although the BRL did continue to operate for several years after the creation of the QRL before finally being removed) and to bring in teams from the Gold Coast (Burleigh Bears), the west (Toowoomba Clydesdales and Ipswich Jets), Central Queensland (Central Comets) and the North (North Queensland Young Guns) and of course the pre-existing Brisbane based clubs. The Queensland Cup has been able to have a more successful competition than the BRL was able to as in 2001 it secured a major sponsor (Bundy Gold) and has been successful in securing a television broadcast on the ABC. But the QRL competition is still well and truly second tier to the national competition (Which in 1998 changed its name to the National Rugby League).
Rugby League in Southern Queensland has now only one successful team, the Broncos, and even they are feeling the effects of the Super League war when the National competition in 1997 was split due to a management issue and two competitions were created, by 1998 the two competitions were one again and this is why the name NRL was adopted. The Brisbane Broncos have followed the path that the opposition of a national competition in 1988 predicted, they would not be able to capture the interests of all rugby league fans in Brisbane alone, and therefore Rugby League would suffer. This decline is reflected in the Brisbane Broncos average home crowds, in 1993 the Broncos were averaging well in excess of 30,000 people per game, a decade later the Broncos have dropped to an average of just over 20,000 (source: Stats.Rleague.com). The problem for Rugby League in Queensland is that the new generation of supporters have been brought up watching the national competition and so to suggest that the Queensland Cup will take over and undo the negatives created by the Broncos failures is hard to agree with. The decline in interest in Rugby League in Queensland may be a curb that is impossible to recover from, and the NRL has suggested a second team in Brisbane as almost a desperation measure to try and do something to re-capture the imaginations of the public, but this is fraught with danger and could result in an even more rapid decline.
Its hard not to blame the inclusion of the Broncos into the NSWRL as the reason that rugby league in Queensland has begun to decline, but the decline may have happened anyway and may have happened sooner if no change had been made anyway. The NSWRL was poaching more and more players and the quality of the BRL was always going to suffer as a result so something had to happen, but did the NSWRL officials go the wrong way about it? Maybe if they had decided to make a truly more national competition and allowed an even mix of Queensland and New South Wales clubs the problems that exist today may never have happened. It is hard also to think of any possible suggestions for how to change this, other than to hope that the Brisbane Broncos can manage to re-ignite the interests of the Brisbane public, maybe another Brisbane team would be a positive move, or maybe another Queensland team based in Central Queensland or on the Gold Coast could be a successful move. Either way, Rugby league in Queensland is suffering and the once proud success and triumph of the sport appears to be just a memory.
