Once we have NZ2 in the nrl, we start expanding to the next pacific frontiers via global rounds, 9s comps, etc to establish a base - Hawaii, Japan, Fiji, California. We enter these frontiers as the premier pacific football competition. It makes sense to play in these locations being part of the wider pacific rim.
The goal should be own the pacific. Eventually develop players from california, Fiji, Japan, Hawaii, then base nrl clubs there.
20 - NZ2: 2030
Pause on new teams, incorporate SL as NRL Atlantic. When moving to team 21 introduce conferences:
21 - Brisbane2: 2035
22 - Adelaide: 2036
Next wave of expansions is pacific based and continue to grow Atlantic conference with more European teams. We greatly expand audience size of the nrl and sponsorship/tv dollars and utilise player talent from pacific to grow teams:
23 - Fiji: 2039
24 - NZ3: 2040
25 - Hawaii: 2040
26 - Tokyo: 2042
27 - LA: 2044
28 - Melb2: 2045
We end up with three main conferences around 2045:
- NRL Atlantic conference: 16 clubs
Wigan, st helens, hull fc, hull kr, Warrington, Leeds, York, London, Paris, toulouse, catalans, wales, Spain club, Central Europe club, southern Europe club, Toronto club
- NRL Pacific conference: 13 clubs
Nz warriors, NZ2, NZ3, Fiji, PNG, Hawaii, Tokyo, LA, North QLD, Brisbane, Dolphins, Bris3, Titans
- NRL Southern conference: 15 clubs
Bears, storm, melb2, knights, manly, roosters, souths, dragons, bulldogs, eels, panthers, sharks, raiders, tigers, Adelaide
total 44 professional clubs across three conferences.
Top 4 from each conference qualify for finals automatically with a final 2 wildcard spots taken from the next 4 to have a top 6 in each conference. These top 6 play each other in a finals series until each conference has a winner.
then there’s a world finals play off between the winners of each conference to come up with an overall global NRL winner. Or to expand this you could take the top 2 from each conference to make a bigger play off series and make it its own comp like an expanded ‘world club challenge’. Could even make it a top 8 by having two extra wildcard entries across the three divisions, which would give the stronger conferences extra chances to get more teams in this expanded world club competition.
This would effectively create a global NRL, with round the clock games being played from Thursday to Tuesday (au time).
Might seem pie in the sky thinking but you need to dream big and have a vision if you want to grow.
There would be clear phases for this:
2028 - 2030
1 . NRL gets to 20 teams including NZ2 to really establish a pacific wide competition.
2. NRL Atlantic is establish, in conjunction with NRL Southern. Two conferences, one world club challenge.
2028 - 2036
3. Add teams that make sense to grow both comps sustainably, meanwhile global round and global grassroots pathways are being run.
2036 - 2045
4. By this stage we’ve done a lot of work establishing the nrl brand in other pacific markets and developing grassroots, we start establishing teams in places like Hawaii and Tokyo.
5. Eventually we split NRL Southern into two, introducing the new NRL Pacific conference to make a total of 3 conferences
