This day 25 years ago........

[Stallion]

St George & Norths were close to jumping. If that happened, things could’ve looked a lot different now. Not one Sydney SL club merged or got the chop

Yes. It was a very dodgy "agreement"! Flawed from the drastic initial lowering of team numbers and the rest of the shambles followed suit.

 

[Perth Red]

Superleague at its initial plan was a great idea. Sadly we just couldn't get our sht together enough to play Murdoch so he bulldozed his way over the game. Would be fascinating to see what the game would look like now if that initial 1995 proposal had been accepted by the ARL. The best thing to come out of it was the switch to summer of English RL and the funding for the English clubs to go fulltime.

 

[Stallion]

Superleague at its initial plan was a great idea. Sadly we just couldn't get our sht together enough to play Murdoch so he bulldozed his way over the game. Would be fascinating to see what the game would look like now if that initial 1995 proposal had been accepted by the ARL. The best thing to come out of it was the switch to summer of English RL and the funding for the English clubs to go fulltime.

The only good thing out of Super League in Australia was the Melbourne Storm. That's it . The rest was and has been negative for the code and premier competition.

 

[Shark62]

Superleague at its initial plan was a great idea. Sadly we just couldn't get our sht together enough to play Murdoch so he bulldozed his way over the game. Would be fascinating to see what the game would look like now if that initial 1995 proposal had been accepted by the ARL. The best thing to come out of it was the switch to summer of English RL and the funding for the English clubs to go fulltime.

Would it help if we brought back the Bears?

 

[LeagueXIII]

Superleague at its initial plan was a great idea. Sadly we just couldn't get our sht together enough to play Murdoch so he bulldozed his way over the game. Would be fascinating to see what the game would look like now if that initial 1995 proposal had been accepted by the ARL. The best thing to come out of it was the switch to summer of English RL and the funding for the English clubs to go fulltime.

Murdoch took his play from Packer....when Packer couldn't get TV rights in the 70's he formed a breakaway.
And Nine held cricket rights from the late 70's to 2 years ago.

 

[Perth Red]

Murdoch took his play from Packer....when Packer couldn't get TV rights in the 70's he formed a breakaway.
And Nine held cricket rights from the late 70's to 2 years ago.

True but the offer Murdoch made was a joint ownership model of the top tier with ARL continuing to run everything else. A bit of tweaking of the board make up would have seen ARL still hold most of the power, get a shed load of money, get national and international expansion and who knows where the game would be at today. Pretty sure we would have AFL in our shadows for one. The rationalisation of Sydney into 4-5 super clubs being jointly owned by the existing clubs is what would have been interesting to see if it worked better than what we have ended up with.

 

[Stallion]

True but the offer Murdoch made was a joint ownership model of the top tier with ARL continuing to run everything else. A bit of tweaking of the board make up would have seen ARL still hold most of the power, get a shed load of money, get national and international expansion and who knows where the game would be at today. Pretty sure we would have AFL in our shadows for one. The rationalisation of Sydney into 4-5 super clubs being jointly owned by the existing clubs is what would have been interesting to see if it worked better than what we have ended up with.

The rationalisation chatter is the bit that doesn't work. It's the bit that doesn't take into existing and longtime fan loyalties and relevance. This matters bigtime!

 

[LeagueXIII]

True but the offer Murdoch made was a joint ownership model of the top tier with ARL continuing to run everything else. A bit of tweaking of the board make up would have seen ARL still hold most of the power, get a shed load of money, get national and international expansion and who knows where the game would be at today. Pretty sure we would have AFL in our shadows for one. The rationalisation of Sydney into 4-5 super clubs being jointly owned by the existing clubs is what would have been interesting to see if it worked better than what we have ended up with.

Agreed. The loyalty shown to Packer by Arthurson and Quayle was one of the few mistakes made by these guys as they took the game forward throughout the 80's and 90's.

Their policy was that Sydney clubs would fade through natural attrition ie. if clubs were sustainable they could continue.

The slash and burn policy of SL did the game massive damage and killed off alot of goodwill built up over decades.

 

[Stallion]

Agreed. The loyalty shown to Packer by Arthurson and Quayle was one of the few mistakes made by these guys as they took the game forward throughout the 80's and 90's.

Their policy was that Sydney clubs would fade through natural attrition ie. if clubs were sustainable they could continue.

The slash and burn policy of SL did the game massive damage and killed off alot of goodwill built up over decades.

Agree the public goodwill is the big concern in all of this disaster. Frittering away established fan loyalty made no sense and was so disrespectful to this already envied competition.

 

[ULYSSES]

Interesting to note that the Knights are now owned by the Wests group who owned or were the major backers of the Mariners in SL. The wheel turns.

 

[Stallion]

Interesting to note that the Knights are now owned by the Wests group who owned or were the major backers of the Mariners in SL. The wheel turns.

Yes. Very ironic. Wests being one of the inner city clubs left that have disenfranchised themselves from most local fans . The constant playing of home games on Sundays over-the-past three/four decades has taken its toll. I know of plenty of junior rugby league players moving to other codes like union due to the "anti social " stance of senior district inner city clubs playing most games on Sundays. Remembering most players work as tradies and the playing of most games on Sundays has inhibited player recovery as well. It's a real shame: both from an employment and social relevance point of view for most inner city district rugby league players.

 

[Mr Angry]

Lets see 1997 ARL teams (to some the winners lol)

Balmain Tigers
Merged

Gold Coast Chargers
Died, back as the Titans, privately owned.

Illawarra Steelers
Merged

Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles
merged came back then sold out now privately owned

Newcastle Knights
Sold out to Tinkler, now owned by a private company

North Sydney Bears
Dead to top grade, now Souths reserve grade team

Parramatta Eels
Eels should be proud, stayed true.

South Queensland Crushers
Dead

South Sydney Rabbitohs
Kicked out then sold out to a kiwi

St. George Dragons
Merged

Sydney City Roosters
Still kicking and successful

Western Suburbs Magpies
Merged

_____________

lol people still to this day think the ARL won and was right.

Chooks raffle kings!!!!

 

[Stallion]

Lets see 1997 ARL teams (to some the winners lol)

Balmain Tigers
Merged

Gold Coast Chargers
Died, back as the Titans, privately owned.

Illawarra Steelers
Merged

Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles
merged came back then sold out now privately owned

Newcastle Knights
Sold out to Tinkler, now owned by a private company

North Sydney Bears
Dead to top grade, now Souths reserve grade team

Parramatta Eels
Eels should be proud, stayed true.

South Queensland Crushers
Dead

South Sydney Rabbitohs
Kicked out then sold out to a kiwi

St. George Dragons
Merged

Sydney City Roosters
Still kicking and successful

Western Suburbs Magpies
Merged

_____________

lol people still to this day think the ARL won and was right.

Chooks raffle kings!!!!

Rugby league was the ultimate loser!

 

[Mr Angry]

Rugby league was the ultimate loser!

Yeah players earn less than ever...…..clubs are smaller than ever..player are not full time pros...

bizarre are some peeps.

Carry on the good fight.

 

[mave]

Who has said the ARL won ?

Superleague won the war convincingly, as evidenced by the "entertainment product" we watch today.
If I want to watch a game of real Rugby League, I head down to the local A grade comp.

 

[The Great Dane]

Interesting to note that the Knights are now owned by the Wests group who owned or were the major backers of the Mariners in SL. The wheel turns.

Wests were going to own the club that eventually became the Mariners but pulled out after they and many of their board members were threatened with reprisal.

In other words they succumbed to threats and pressure made by a noisy minority (led mainly by a group I think was called Aussies against SL, I’m struggling to remember their name ATM) posing as representatives of the majority public opinion.

To be fair to Wests though I can’t really blame them for crumbling under the pressure, they were just local businessmen who weren’t expecting that kind of backlash and didn’t know how to respond.

But yeah, they were literally threatened by a aggressive and violent mob posing as a protest group until they pulled out, and at the time that was largely celebrated... Frankly it was a one of the most disgusting periods during the “war”, and that is coming from somebody that was no fan of News.

 

[taipan]

Who has said the ARL won ?

Superleague won the war convincingly, as evidenced by the "entertainment product" we watch today.
If I want to watch a game of real Rugby League, I head down to the local A grade comp.

It cost the ARL all the money they had in the bank.About $25m ATT estimated.In today's money $50-60m at least.
Rupert got his pay TV and if he didn't get rugby league, his entry into Pay TV would be stuffed.
It put rugby league back 10 years, gave other codes a leg up, only now with new stadiums coming on board, and more interest in promoting International rugby league, is the game starting to move forward.

 

[mave]

It cost the ARL all the money they had in the bank.About $25m ATT estimated.In today's money $50-60m at least.
Rupert got his pay TV and if he didn't get rugby league, his entry into Pay TV would be stuffed.
It put rugby league back 10 years, gave other codes a leg up, only now with new stadiums coming on board, and more interest in promoting International rugby league, is the game starting to move forward.

I'm well aware of the cost. My club just about went under spending all our $ too.

The product today is just another area where SL won. They got their super fast rucks, days of our lives style soap opera news, and Big Mal finally got his just rewards.

Pit that ET and Laurie Daley never got a gig in China, but we cant have everything, can we.

 

[Perth Red]

Lets see 1997 ARL teams (to some the winners lol)

Balmain Tigers
Merged

Gold Coast Chargers
Died, back as the Titans, privately owned.

Illawarra Steelers
Merged

Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles
merged came back then sold out now privately owned

Newcastle Knights
Sold out to Tinkler, now owned by a private company

North Sydney Bears
Dead to top grade, now Souths reserve grade team

Parramatta Eels
Eels should be proud, stayed true.

South Queensland Crushers
Dead

South Sydney Rabbitohs
Kicked out then sold out to a kiwi

St. George Dragons
Merged

Sydney City Roosters
Still kicking and successful

Western Suburbs Magpies
Merged

_____________

lol people still to this day think the ARL won and was right.

Chooks raffle kings!!!!

SL clubs

Perth Reds
Closed down

Adelaide Rams
Closed down

Hunter Mariners
Closed down

Auckland Warriors
Got into financial strife and sold to private owner

NQ Cowboys
Got into financial strife, bailed out by news Ltd

Broncos
As is

Bulldogs
As is

Canberra
As is

Cronulla
As is

I wouldn’t say many SL clubs fared that much better than the arl clubs Tbf.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

The only good thing out of Super League in Australia was the Melbourne Storm. That's it . The rest was and has been negative for the code and premier competition.

And the partial rationalisation of Sydney. It had to happen at some stage, it probably would have been preferable to just finish the job rather than revisit it 22 years later.

Sydney Roosters
South Sydney Rabbitohs
St George Illawarra Dragons
Cronulla Sharks
Penrith Panthers
Parramatta Eels
Canterbury Bulldogs
Canberra Raiders
Brisbane Broncos
NQ Cowboys 1995
SQ Crushers 1995
Auckland Warriors 1995
Perth Reds 1995
Adelaide Rams 1997
Melbourne Tigers (Wests-Balmain merged and relocated) 1998
Central Coast Bears (North Sydney Bears relocated) 1998
Gold Coast Seagulls (bring back the Seagulls ) 2007
Wellington Orcas 2012