WA BEARS

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

except maybe parra v penrith none of those games get bigger crowds than the norm, I doubt the players care about the rivalry.
To the fans the rivalry maybe gets them to the TV 2 minutes earlier.

I don't think the Sydney teams have any major rivalries with one another. If they did then they would draw 40k or 60k to games during regular rounds. The only game that gets close to that is the Turkeys vs Dragons game that's played on ANZAC Day, but that's only because it's a public holiday and people go for the event, not the rivalry. If it was played on any other day it would get 12k to 15k.

Cowboys vs Broncos is the only real rivalry in our game.

 

[MrE_Assassin]

It doesn’t help when the players and coaches don’t even care or buy into the rivalry. Even origin has lost a bit of that state v state hatred. Everyone tries to choose their words carefully, tries not to say the wrong thing so as not to give the other team any ammo or inspiration to play harder.

Just once I would like to players or coaches say “we hate them and we’re going to take their heads off this weekend”.

 

[Centy Coast]

Tell me why a Perth team would naturally have a rivalry with Melbourne or Brisbane? Is it just because they are the capital cities of states other than NSW? You’re just picking out arbitrary names and locations with little reason.

With Melb you'd naturally think that they jumped in where the Reds were.
The Reds got shafted and the Storm literally took their place in the competition and most of their players to boot.
Not sure what the rivalry is like when the two States come together during State championship matches, Perth Red ?.

 

[Perth Red]

With Melb you'd naturally think that they jumped in where the Reds were.
The Reds got shafted and the Storm literally took their place in the competition and most of their players to boot.
Not sure what the rivalry is like when the two States come together during State championship matches, Perth Red ?.

theres a bit,WA and Vic have been fighting for the state championship titles at all the age groups since forever. WA tends to take out the snrs and Vic the jnr age group titles.

 

[MrE_Assassin]

With Melb you'd naturally think that they jumped in where the Reds were.
The Reds got shafted and the Storm literally took their place in the competition and most of their players to boot.
Not sure what the rivalry is like when the two States come together during State championship matches, Perth Red ?.

I'd say that's more of a rivalry with the RL administration rather than Melbourne. When you have the Reds, Mariners, Rams, GC, Crushers and the merging of 6 teams into 3 (with one of those to eventually die and become Manly again) a lot of those players had to go somewhere and why not roll them into a new team in one of Australia's most populated cities that wasn't represented at all.

The Melbourne Storm didn't shaft the Reds, the ARL/Super League did. Mind you when you look at it; despite the ARL "winning" the ARL/SL battle, it was mostly the teams that stayed loyal to the ARL that lost out in the end (Bears, Manly [at the time], Balmain, Wests, GC Chargers, Crushers, Illawarra, St George) by either being punted or having to merge and lose their individual identities.

 

[Perth Red]

I'd say that's more of a rivalry with the RL administration rather than Melbourne. When you have the Reds, Mariners, Rams, GC, Crushers and the merging of 6 teams into 3 (with one of those to eventually die and become Manly again) a lot of those players had to go somewhere and why not roll them into a new team in one of Australia's most populated cities that wasn't represented at all.

The Melbourne Storm didn't shaft the Reds, the ARL/Super League did. Mind you when you look at it; despite the ARL "winning" the ARL/SL battle, it was mostly the teams that stayed loyal to the ARL that lost out in the end (Bears, Manly [at the time], Balmain, Wests, GC Chargers, Crushers, Illawarra, St George) by either being punted or having to merge and lose their individual identities.

There's no animosity to the Storm here, in fact a lot of Reds fans became supporters due to the players and management going there. One of the reasons I became a Storm member. They always get good crowds when they play here. It wasn't like the Storm were the cause of the Reds demise, that one sits squarely at ARL and News Ltd idiots feet.

In reality News ltd continued to control the game after '97 so its no surprise they continued with their vision to rationalise sydney whilst taking the opportunity to remove their business competition in SE Qlnd.

 

[Centy Coast]

Being a Bears fan its a shame that they stayed loyal to the ARL, I firmly believe if they had joined Super League they would still be playing in the NRL now.
Honestly how could the Bears have sided with anything that Ken Arthurson and Bob Fulton were a part of, the writing was on the wall there and then.

 

[MrE_Assassin]

Being a Bears fan its a shame that they stayed loyal to the ARL, I firmly believe if they had joined Super League they would still be playing in the NRL now.
Honestly how could the Bears have sided with anything that Ken Arthurson and Bob Fulton were a part of, the writing was on the wall there and then.

You’re a bears fan?

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Nswrl vs sl lol

home and away
Top five finals system
One grand final in Sydney other in Brisbane
Superbowl to be rotated

haha - I like it

SL Conference:
North QLD Cowboys
Brisbane Broncos
NZ Warriors
Canterbury Bulldogs
Cronulla Sharks
Penrith Panthers
Canberra Raiders
Melbourne Storm
West Coast Pirates (in honour of the Reds, can't be WC Bears as that would give them a foot in each camp - lol)

ARL Conference:
Manly Sea Eagles
Sydney Roosters
South Sydney Rabbitohs
St George Illawarra Dragons
Paramatta Eels
Wests Tigers
Dolphins (QRL club and the QRL was aligned with the ARL)
Gold Coast Titans (in honour of the Chargers)
Newcastle Knights

 

[Centy Coast]

Love it, great idea lol

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Firstly, who gives a f**k what a Swans chairman's opinion is. Whether or not he's another dumb merkin that doesn't understand the difference between correlation and causation is irrelevant to the discussion.

Secondly, "relative lack of growth since"! The f**k are you talking about!

For simplicities sake we'll just look at members-

The Swans had 3,327 members in 1994.
1995- 6,088.
1996- 9,525.
1997- 22,109.

Jumping ahead to today (2022) they have 51,642, however they had their highest membership numbers in 2019 (pre-covid) with 61,912 members.
http://www.footyindustry.com/?page_id=228

Almost all their metrics see pretty consistent growth from the early 90s to 2019, with the exception of a few spurts after GF appearances in the late 90s, mid 00s, and early to mid 10s.
The sole exception to that pattern of consistent growth is their crowds, that have been pretty up and down since 1997, but also follow a pattern of their competitiveness on the field.

TL;DR- it's utter nonsense to suggest that the Swans growth stagnated after the SL war.

Firstly, Super Rugby's peak in Australia was 96-04. So they didn't have a great deal of time to do much growing after SL before SR started to decline did they...

Secondly, Super Rugby and the A-league's successes and failures can easily be patterned by decisions they made within their own games. As such it's not necessary to add in unprovable airy-fairy nonsense like "they were only successful because of SL", so why attempt to force that factor to fit when Occam's Razor would suggest that it's not the case.

Furthermore, the A-league didn't see any real mainstream success until 2014, and SR didn't start to totally collapse until the mid 2010s either, by which time RL had already been well on the road to recovering from SL for a decade. So your assertion doesn't even make sense on that level.

Who gives a f**k about the opinion of the Chairperson of the club in question? Well, I'd take his over yours any day of the week because he's actually involved.

Re: Swans lack of growth don't quote AFL's rubbery membership numbers at me and don't lie about all their metrics showing consistent growth. Their average crowds and TV ratings have shown stagnation after a sudden jump in the 90's around the time of the SL war. Attendances particularly show this quite starkly:

In the early 90's prior to 1995 they'd quite often hover around the 10k mark then...

1995: 17k average
1996: 27k average
1997: 39k average
During the 2000's: 33k average
Duing the 2010's: 33k average

Sure the mid 90's success probably boosted them a little bit but no club goes from 10k to 39k average in 3 years. They didn't even win a premiership in that time. It was a rebellion by Sydney sports fans against RL. They Swans have won premierships since... why not a boost up over 40k since success has such a huge effect? Reason: because it wasn't just the success of the mid 90's it was the SL war. They got a boost to their popularity and their average crowd for a single season is still their 1997 season to this day despite being a finals contender most years.

Don't get caught up in being right and let it blind you to what's actually happening.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

The point is in the principle... And frankly SEQ wouldn't need more club's if the NRL hadn't f**ked up expansion in Brisbane.

How exactly did they f**k it up? You have been dodging the question since the Dolphins entry announcement... which of the bids was better than the Dolphins'?

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Lol, lions are nearly as big as broncos for crowds and members as are suns with titans. At the top level at least they are doing ok with the i vestment they are making. Given how paranoid nrl seem to be about competing with afl in qlnd they must be doing something right?

Lions are nowhere near as popular as the Broncos as the TV ratings clearly show. What you see with the Lions and the Swans is basically all the AFL fans in the city pooled into one team. That's it, that's their niche and there is little outside of that. The Broncs pull bigger crowds than the Lions and there is a massive RL fan base outside of that in Brisbane.

 

[Colk]

Lions are nowhere near as popular as the Broncos as the TV ratings clearly show. What you see with the Lions and the Swans is basically all the AFL fans in the city pooled into one team. That's it, that's their niche and there is little outside of that. The Broncs pull bigger crowds than the Lions and there is a massive RL fan base outside of that in Brisbane.

You’re probably right. Although perhaps too early to tell, AFL may have overstretched themselves. They are going to need a lot of long term investment to make the Giants and Suns work

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Finances, they were on par, tigers have as much revenue and asset base as dolphins.

they would have been a genuine brisbane2 team playing ft out of Suncorp, not some hybrid manly/dragons outer suburb team playing across three locations. This would have meant no need for discussions about the need for brisbane3

the club funded study Showed the north corridor had the largest number of fans who followed the broncos or another team already

bringing in the firehawks would have meant they could have become brisbanes south club and broncos north club, similar to how perth ended up split between eagles and dockers. then no need for brisbane3 and the ltd license could have been used for a market with zero clubs.

but we all know news ltd didn’t want the competition for the corporates for the broncos, hence why they directed Vlandys to Pick a club based 40km away from the city.

The Firehawks, although impressive, weren't a better bid and they do not have the same asset base the Dolphins have. The south / north thing with the Broncos isn't really the case. They are both based in inner city suburbs but obviously represent wider Brisbane. The Firehawks is basically the Broncos all over again and that's not what the NRL wanted.

Abdo also spoke about a strategy for QLD that covers all corners of the state. As SEQ grows, the Broncos can only do so much and the Northern and Western corridors will need some more specific love. Dolphins cover the North and I have no doubt we will see another side brought in to cover the West while the Broncos focus on Brisbane.

The bigger picture here is that for now the Dolphins will play at Suncorp, but down the track, they will get a 25 / 30k stadium in Moreton Bay and be the true team representing the Northern Corridor of SEQ. The Western corridor team that gets brought in may begin at Suncorp also but will also push to get a 25 / 30k stadium at Ipswich or Springfield. Abdo alludes to this when he refers to wanting teams that don't overlap with the Broncos. They are learning their lessons from Sydney and spreading the teams around SEQ far enough away from each other to and allowing RL to stay top dog as the region rapidly grows.

 

[Perth Red]

we wanted another broncos, we’ve got another manly.

 

[Perth Red]

Lions are nowhere near as popular as the Broncos as the TV ratings clearly show. What you see with the Lions and the Swans is basically all the AFL fans in the city pooled into one team. That's it, that's their niche and there is little outside of that. The Broncs pull bigger crowds than the Lions and there is a massive RL fan base outside of that in Brisbane.

I never said they was, I said their active fanbases are on par. I’d say there is a lot more nrl fans obviously in brisbane but in terms of active fan base for clubs they are not miles apart At this point In brisbane or on the gold coast. Probably as much a reflection of our games failures as much as their success’s.

 

[MugaB]

Lions are nowhere near as popular as the Broncos as the TV ratings clearly show. What you see with the Lions and the Swans is basically all the AFL fans in the city pooled into one team. That's it, that's their niche and there is little outside of that. The Broncs pull bigger crowds than the Lions and there is a massive RL fan base outside of that in Brisbane.

Its their equivalent to the Melbourne Storm... niché

 

[MugaB]

You’re probably right. Although perhaps too early to tell, AFL may have overstretched themselves. They are going to need a lot of long term investment to make the Giants and Suns work

You dont think they've already invested enough? Redcliffe just making the 8 will make both the suns and giants look like a wasted effort... especially since dolphins have been given no leg ups

 

[Colk]

You dont think they've already invested enough? Redcliffe just making the 8 will make both the suns and giants look like a wasted effort... especially since dolphins have been given no leg ups

It is not really an apt comparison. The Dolphins expansion is more akin to the Dockers or Port Adelaide in the AFL i.e putting a second side in a large area where the game is already popular. Essentially it is a no brainer.

I think there is really no comparison in league to what AFL are trying to do with the Suns or Giants (putting a second side in an area which is not a sttonghold).

The argument you could level at the AFL is that perhaps they have gone too far, although they are playing a very long game. The argument you could level against the NRL is that we haven’t done enough. Now part of that is the Super League war but a large part has also come from a conservative mindset, largely stoked in terms of the arguments they put forth, by what was the result of that war whilst ignoring the circumstances or contexts of that war.

Nevertheless, we are so timed that a lot of people are arguing relatively low risks/higher benefits like Perth and even a second NZ team for conservative low risk low reward options like CC or a third Brisbane side.