WA BEARS

[Wb1234]

Pennant hills was norths. Castle hill parra, so yeah north of parra river

Didn’t know that about pennant hills

they really had a way bigger area than I thought

 

[Pippen94]

Didn’t know that about pennant hills

they really had a way bigger area than I thought

Growing up Hornsby & pennant hills ppl were always norths fans. That's what non Sydney ppl don't realize - huge catchment (& including central coast) left without a team

 

[The Great Dane]

Best thing bears have going for them is north shore of Sydney. Old mate wants them to be based elsewhere - great

I don't think they should be allowed back into the NRL at all lmao.

They'd never agree to do it in a sensible way, and as such it'd cause more problems than it fixes. It's also extremely difficult to move forward when you're always looking backwards.

 

[The Great Dane]

So which tiny suburb do the bears represent ?

mosman ?

chatswood ?

lane cove ?

Asquith ?

balmoral ?

clifton gardens ?

oh look I just literally named the richest suburbs in Sydney with basically unlimited wealth

if I were in your shoes I would dust off my old north Sydney bears heritage jersey and go back to nso for the annual derby vs manly

I bet if reconnects you again

Mix and match them however you like, the club still wouldn't have the commercial and corporate pull that clubs in one of the other large metropolitan markets would have. Sydney's oversaturated, and adding more pressure on the market isn't going to change that. The NRL also already has a struggling club perfectly positioned to try and capitalise on those regions, and would have been assisting them to do that for the last 20 years if the sport was well run.

Besides the truly rich yuppies that live in those parts are almost exclusively snobs and/or expats from other parts of the city and country, and wouldn't be inclined to support the club for the most part anyway. It's no coincidence that those parts of the city are traditionally where you find some of the strongest support for RU and Aussie Rules in Sydney.

It's actually quite funny that people bring this up as a benefit of NS, when 25 years ago it was being used as one of the main reasons why the club needed to relocate. The argument went that gentrification in large parts of the Bears catchment was leading to NS being a much tougher market for RL, and if the club was to survive it needed to find a way to tap into a market with a larger working - lower middle class population.

Now personally I think that argument is extremely over simplistic on the whole, but I still find it ironic that people whom had they been around 20 years ago would have been making that argument are making the exact opposite now. It's almost as if this isn't actually about the reality of the situation or what is for the best, and is just some weird partisan ploy...

 

[Wb1234]

Mix and match them however you like, the club still wouldn't have the commercial and corporate pull that clubs in one of the other large metropolitan markets would have. Sydney's oversaturated, and adding more pressure on the market isn't going to change that. The NRL also already has a struggling club perfectly positioned to try and capitalise on those regions, and would have been assisting them to do that for the last 20 years if the sport was well run.

Besides the truly rich yuppies that live in those parts are almost exclusively snobs and/or expats from other parts of the city and country, and wouldn't be inclined to support the club for the most part anyway. It's no coincidence that those parts of the city are traditionally where you find some of the strongest support for RU and Aussie Rules in Sydney.

It's actually quite funny that people bring this up as a benefit of NS, when 25 years ago it was being used as one of the main reasons why the club needed to relocate. The argument went that gentrification in large parts of the Bears catchment was leading to NS being a much tougher market for RL, and if the club was to survive it needed to find a way to tap into a market with a larger working - lower middle class population.

Now personally I think that argument is extremely over simplistic on the whole, but I still find it ironic that people whom had they been around 20 years ago would have been making that argument are making the exact opposite now. It's almost as if this isn't actually about the reality of the situation or what is for the best, and is just some weird partisan ploy...

Yes every rugby league fan is from a working class background

maybe the demise of the bears is what gave the Waratahs and swans a huge leg up

I’ll tell you what if I was in charge of the nrl I would be bringing back the bears with a even split of games between Gosford and nso

and I’ll bet the club would be massive

but since it’s a given that nsw shouldn’t have any more clubs lumping them with Perth is a second best solution

 

[Perth Red]

It’s not like the bears are some financial powerhouse LC either like Redcliffe or tigers.
from 2019 annual report
revenue $58mill
profit $781k
Assets $75mill mostly tied up in buildings to run the pokie operations.
-$119k cash flow
$22mill current and non current loans

they dont seem to be making lots of surplus cash to be throwing at an nrl club if needed.

Norths Collective Annual Accounts 2020

Read Norths Collective Annual Accounts 2020 by North Sydney Leagues Club on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start...

issuu.com

 

[Jamberoo]

It’s not like the bears are some financial powerhouse LC either like Redcliffe or tigers.
from 2019 annual report
revenue $58mill
profit $781k
Assets $75mill mostly tied up in buildings to run the pokie operations.
-$119k cash flow
$22mill current and non current loans

they dont seem to be making lots of surplus cash to be throwing at an nrl club if needed.

Norths Collective Annual Accounts 2020

Read Norths Collective Annual Accounts 2020 by North Sydney Leagues Club on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start...

issuu.com

They have about 500 financial (football) members. That tells the true tale.

 

[The Great Dane]

Yes every rugby league fan is from a working class background

That's totally untrue.

maybe the demise of the bears is what gave the Waratahs and swans a huge leg up

NS had a higher percentage of RU and Aussie Rules fans for a long time before the Tahs existed or Swans moved to Sydney, it's just that the advent of those two clubs untied that support behind single entities instead of the split allegiances that existed before hand.

It's really no different to any expansion market. Every RL fan in Canberra/Queanbeyan supported a NSWRL team before the Raiders won a license, then over time most of those people came to support the Raiders at least in some capacity. It's no different in the case of RU and AFL in NS.

I’ll tell you what if I was in charge of the nrl I would be bringing back the bears with a even split of games between Gosford and nso

and I’ll bet the club would be massive

I can guarantee that you're wrong.

After the initial novelty effect wore off they'd be a middling club at best by Sydney standards, and the knock on effects of reintroducing them into the Sydney market would be significant and pretty unpredictable.

but since it’s a given that nsw shouldn’t have any more clubs lumping them with Perth is a second best solution

Almost certainly not if the Bears are going to be involved.

Say hypothetically that the NRL were forced to reintroduce the Bears, then the safest option would be for them to return on the CC or somewhere else in NSW within driving distance of NS. Anything else would be undermined by the desires of some within the club to try it again in Sydney and constant speculation of relocation back to NS within a generation.

 

[The Great Dane]

They have about 500 financial (football) members. That tells the true tale.

I can't remember the exact number, and can't find it either though I know it's out there somewhere, but their membership numbers are a few thousand now and growing by more than 100% each year. Still embarrassingly small for a club that claims to have hundreds of thousands of fans just waiting for an opportunity to support the club.

For a long time it was actually quite difficult to become a Bears member, not like today when you can do it online in 10 minutes. Also a lot of people didn't see the point in spending their hard earned to become a member of a "dead" club, but now that it seems like there's a chance that the Bears could get back into the NRL a lot of people are jumping back on.

Another thing that isn't talked about is that a lot of the Bears fanbase are still very old school and don't really understand the concept of becoming a member of the football club, or that there's a difference between a leagues club and football club membership.

If the Bears ever get back into the NRL a lot of them will be utterly appalled at the cost of becoming an NRL club member as well. A lot of the older guys are pretty clueless as to the average costs of supporting an NRL side in this day and age, and are very much stuck in the times when you could sit on the hill for less than a tenner.
A lot of those guys are currently claiming that they'll be members and attend every game if the Bears get back in, but will be out as soon as they come to understand just how expensive it'll be annually.

 

[Pippen94]

Lol, funny listening to "expansionists" talking about giving up on large lucrative region where the game dominates the media & mind of most sports fans. Makes you realize they more interested in points on map than growing game.

 

[Pippen94]

It’s not like the bears are some financial powerhouse LC either like Redcliffe or tigers.
from 2019 annual report
revenue $58mill
profit $781k
Assets $75mill mostly tied up in buildings to run the pokie operations.
-$119k cash flow
$22mill current and non current loans

they dont seem to be making lots of surplus cash to be throwing at an nrl club if needed.

Norths Collective Annual Accounts 2020

Read Norths Collective Annual Accounts 2020 by North Sydney Leagues Club on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start...

issuu.com

How's western reds club going since they been out of league for about same amount of time

 

[Pippen94]

Mix and match them however you like, the club still wouldn't have the commercial and corporate pull that clubs in one of the other large metropolitan markets would have. Sydney's oversaturated, and adding more pressure on the market isn't going to change that. The NRL also already has a struggling club perfectly positioned to try and capitalise on those regions, and would have been assisting them to do that for the last 20 years if the sport was well run.

Besides the truly rich yuppies that live in those parts are almost exclusively snobs and/or expats from other parts of the city and country, and wouldn't be inclined to support the club for the most part anyway. It's no coincidence that those parts of the city are traditionally where you find some of the strongest support for RU and Aussie Rules in Sydney.

It's actually quite funny that people bring this up as a benefit of NS, when 25 years ago it was being used as one of the main reasons why the club needed to relocate. The argument went that gentrification in large parts of the Bears catchment was leading to NS being a much tougher market for RL, and if the club was to survive it needed to find a way to tap into a market with a larger working - lower middle class population.

Now personally I think that argument is extremely over simplistic on the whole, but I still find it ironic that people whom had they been around 20 years ago would have been making that argument are making the exact opposite now. It's almost as if this isn't actually about the reality of the situation or what is for the best, and is just some weird partisan ploy...

You don't know & understand Sydney. Should be apparent when you guys all agree chatswood with it's skyscrapers is a small suburb.
Manly is hated rival to north Sydney region & has never stood chance of growing it's support there. Interesting ppl under playing support bears have been old rivalry dies hard.

 

[Wb1234]

That's totally untrue.

NS had a higher percentage of RU and Aussie Rules fans for a long time before the Tahs existed or Swans moved to Sydney, it's just that the advent of those two clubs untied that support behind single entities instead of the split allegiances that existed before hand.

It's really no different to any expansion market. Every RL fan in Canberra/Queanbeyan supported a NSWRL team before the Raiders won a license, then over time most of those people came to support the Raiders at least in some capacity. It's no different in the case of RU and AFL in NS.

I can guarantee that you're wrong.

After the initial novelty effect wore off they'd be a middling club at best by Sydney standards, and the knock on effects of reintroducing them into the Sydney market would be significant and pretty unpredictable.

Almost certainly not if the Bears are going to be involved.

Say hypothetically that the NRL were forced to reintroduce the Bears, then the safest option would be for them to return on the CC or somewhere else in NSW within driving distance of NS. Anything else would be undermined by the desires of some within the club to try it again in Sydney and constant speculation of relocation back to NS within a generation.

A middling club by Sydney standards is what I said they’d be

so after almost 25 years of being kicked out they would be bigger than many other clubs that never got kicked out and have been getting ten million plus from the arlc for years

they could boot manly today and a central coast bears team would add far more to the game

wa bears won’t be the disaster you make it out to be

wa gains a lot by linking with the bears with little lost

 

[Wb1234]

Lol, funny listening to "expansionists" talking about giving up on large lucrative region where the game dominates the media & mind of most sports fans. Makes you realize they more interested in points on map than growing game.

This in a nutshell

Sydney is the home of rugby league

but let’s ignore some of the best and richest bits so rival codes can thrive here

 

[Colk]

Growing up Hornsby & pennant hills ppl were always norths fans. That's what non Sydney ppl don't realize - huge catchment (& including central coast) left without a team

You’ve had a go at other posters for exaggerating support. Also, were is the operative word here. People in North Sydney literally have nine NRL teams in Sydney that they could support and if they don’t support any of them, they don’t like the game.

It’s time to move on.

 

[Colk]

Lol, funny listening to "expansionists" talking about giving up on large lucrative region where the game dominates the media & mind of most sports fans. Makes you realize they more interested in points on map than growing game.

No they are not. They just realise that there are already nine clubs in Sydney, some of which don’t have a lot of support and adding another side to that market is simply impractical.

 

[Pippen94]

No they are not. They just realise that there are already nine clubs in Sydney, some of which don’t have a lot of support and adding another side to that market is simply impractical.

No, that's not argument ppl putting forward. Can't grow in Sydney where there's NRL fans everywhere, but will in Perth on gem channel

 

[Colk]

You don't know & understand Sydney. Should be apparent when you guys all agree chatswood with it's skyscrapers is a small suburb.
Manly is hated rival to north Sydney region & has never stood chance of growing it's support there. Interesting ppl under playing support bears have been old rivalry dies hard.

Are you comparing Manly and North Sydney to say India and Pakistan? That’s real hatred.

Nevertheless, the idea that a 7 or 8 year old in North Sydney who could start to follow the game and who has never seen the Bears play won’t follow Manly or any other club or indeed the sport because the Bears aren’t in the competition is not founded in any logic. People in North Sydney, like the rest of Sydney are literally swamped by wall to wall pro-League media. If they choose not to consume or follow the game, it’s because they don’t want to. It’s not like they don’t have the choice.

 

[Colk]

No, that's not argument ppl putting forward. Can't grow in Sydney where there's NRL fans everywhere, but will in Perth on gem channel

Again that’s an exaggeration. If there were supporters of the game everywhere in Sydney as you contest then you wouldn’t have some clubs in Sydney with minor support.

 

[Pippen94]

Are you comparing Manly and North Sydney to say India and Pakistan? That’s real hatred.

Nevertheless, the idea that a 7 or 8 year old in North Sydney who could start to follow the game and who has never seen the Bears play won’t follow Manly or any other club or indeed the sport because the Bears aren’t in the competition is not founded in any logic. People in North Sydney, like the rest of Sydney are literally swamped by wall to wall pro-League media. If they choose not to consume or follow the game, it’s because they don’t want to. It’s not like they don’t have the choice.

Sydney & the NRL doesn't work like that, it's a collection of regions & rivalries. Ppl supporting team without no connect to area is rare. Even rarer for kids to take up game if parents aren't fans themselves.