ms,
It's tempting not to respond but I must correct the record.
1. Television ratings.
AFL Grand Final '05 - 4.3 million viewers Australia-wide
NRL Grand Final '05 - 4.1 million viewers Australia-wide*
*NRL GF not live in Perth or Adelaide
If ratings are dubious for rugby league, they are dubious across all sport.
Sponsors spend millions of advertising dollars on the say-so of people more clever than you based on those same figures.
2. AFL not jealous of rugby league State of Origin.
Every year, AFL players, coaches and officials bemoan the lack of a State of Origin competition of the calibre of rugby league's. This year, quotes or articles in the press in the name of Jonathon Brown, Leigh Matthews and Andrew Demetriou all cast an envious eye in the direction of rugby league's mid-year showpiece, commenting that it would be fantastic to have such an event in the AFL.
You may even hear whispers from the past such as "I was at the 'G when the big V played the Croweaters and Ablett had a blinder...there was 90,000 there then", if you put your ear close to the ground next May - June.
Now...no more.
The regularly heard (and spun in the AFL press) excuse that the AFL - a club competition - can compare is rather fatuous. Both club-based and state- based competitions can exist in one sport and succeed.
And do in rugby league.
As for comparing AFL crowds and NRL crowds - that has no bearing on this topic and has nothing to do with State of Origin crowds.
3. Crowds at State of Origin rugby league.
It seems you didn't try to get a ticket to the two games in Queensland this year. Otherwise, you would have realised - and I repeat - both games, 105,000 seats in total, were sold out in advance of the first game at Lang Park (never Suncorp Stadium).
The vast majority of tickets went to the paying public. Not sponsors. Not schoolkids. Not the chairman's wife.
The number of tickets sold is but a fraction the games could command, especially in Queensland. The problem is the grounds are too small, not too big (82,500 and 52,500 in NSW and QLD respectively).
Your argument has no logic.
A fictional, (non-)representative team with no supporters and no tradition would also have no chance of survival.
4. Rugby league in Melbourne.
Rugby league in Melbourne is not restricted to the Melbourne Storm (as previous crowds for State of Origin in 1990, 1994 and 1995 demonstrate, ironically for you), but for argument's sake adopting the Storm as the model for Victoria, rugby league in Melbourne:
* is not well publicised or promoted (memo - B.Wahldron/D.Gallop);
* is not given any guarantee of stability (with constant conjecture over its future as a club in the Sydney press and muted mumblings of confidence from the NRL - memo D.Fitzgerald/D.Gallop);
* is not given any concessions of any type based on its position as a "developing area" (cf: the AFL's extensive concessions for the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions - memo E.McGuire/D.Gallop);
* has a cold, harsh and miserable home ground with a pitch that discourages open play (too narrow) and spectators (memo - NZRL);
* (unfortunately!) won a premiership too early in its lifetime (as strange as it may seem), when it won the NRL in 1999 - amazingly early by any standard - to have built up a dedicated following of core supporters through tough times (cf: West Tigers; memo - S.Noyce);
* still generated nearly 600,000 TV viewers for the '05 NRL GF with no local team participating (memo - Channel 9 Melbourne);
* will soon have a new stadium worthy of housing spectators (cf: Olympic Park, memo - S.Bracks);
* will have a State of Origin game next year (irony again, who would have thought?);
* with support and guidance, has a future in the great game that is rugby league.
