WA BEARS

[SirPies&Beers]

Billy Moore is an idiot.

So are you though cob. Least he isn’t stuck on a forum day in days out obsessing over posters

 

[Mother Nature's Son]

one thing nrl could do in the debate is tell WA what it is offering to put in. That would help a lot in public perception. they could be saying that over ten years of the club they will be putting in at least $250mill into the club and game in WA. Helps balance the public perception a bit.

Look I can see your point, but I think the opening line "The Western Bears would deliver a $500 million economic boost over 10 years" covers that point, especially for all the mug punters who won`t read past the first paragraph. Important to get that in there early. It is spelt out in far greater and quite convincing detail later on as well.
I do like your line about the WA govt pushing the falling behind in the rectangular stadium stakes though.

 

[Perth Red]

This is sounding like the stink the Union/AFL media kicked up in Sydney about the NRL upgrading stadiums with tax payers money. The NSW governmant bowed to the pressure.

If the WA government tells the public how much money a team will generate and how money jobs will be created surley the public will be ok with it ? But if it wont win votes its hard to see a team being given the green light.

Anyone here live in Perth and tell us how negative the papers, news, talkpack and talk on the street is ? Im assuming its the right wing media who are putting pressure on ? It wouldnt matter what the left WA gov did they would find fault.

Tbh apart from the newspaper there’s little chat at all. Sen radio is giving it very positive coverage. Most sports fans are either neutral or positve, afl die hards dont like it, non sports fans will never be happy: schools, police, hospitals etc are their priorities.
wa rl fans are frustrated by the shenanigans since October and have a sense of deja vue.

sooner it gets sorted announced and we start building it the better.

 

[Perth Red]

Have been saying for years the WA landscape will just mirror QLD. AFL has a good foothold in QLD despite what some of the code warrior crazies on here report. League can gain a good one in WA, probably reasonably quickly too.

WA is just showing how insular it is fighting against an NRL team. I'm assuming Perth has an islander demographic? maybe not as big as the east coast, but those kids are never going to play AFL. So some people in the WA govt and media don't want these kids to play anything?

Look at what we have done with nrlwa on just $1mill a year and a sporadic annual neutral nrl event.

if wa govt put in what im hoping ie around $1.5 mill for 24 shs programs and 5-10 development officers (we currently only have 5)

and wa govt and nrl put in and increase nrlwa funding from $1mill a year to $11mill a year, the game will go through the roof here.

especially if we can build a well run, well funded competitive nrl club to bring the profile.

 

[Diesel]

It sounds like Stokes at 7/West Aust and his mates at the FLA don’t want any competition yet ARLC says the Western Bears will bring in $500m into the Perth economy.

sounds like FLA would rather the Perth economy struggled over competition

 

[Perth Red]

It sounds like Stokes at 7/West Aust and his mates at the FLA don’t want any competition yet ARLC says the Western Bears will bring in $500m into the Perth economy.

sounds like FLA would rather the Perth economy struggled over competition

Got to love the random roi numbers they come up with lol. Let’s take the supposed $14.4mill a year from visiting fans.

Let’s say each couple that comes for a game stays for 3 nights and spends an avg $2000 a couple in perth to come and watch their team here.( I’m being very generous to suggest an avg $2000 for 3 night spend!)

that’d mean each game would need to have an avg 1200 fans from the opposition fly in to perth. Most games would be lucky to get 100-200 visiting fans I’d suggest,

it’s very fanciful at best.

 

[Mother Nature's Son]

Got to love the random roi numbers they come up with lol. Let’s take the supposed $14.4mill a year from visiting fans.

Let’s say each couple that comes for a game stays for 3 nights and spends an avg $2000 a couple in perth to come and watch their team here.( I’m being very generous to suggest an avg $2000 for 3 night spend!)

that’d mean each game would need to have an avg 1200 fans from the opposition fly in to perth. Most games would be lucky to get 100-200 visiting fans I’d suggest,

it’s very fanciful at best.

Where does it say they have to be interstate. Cashed up FIFO`s who fly in from within WA, other NRL fans from within WA, interstate travellers that go on to spend a week or more travelling, Perth attracting more event games once they have an NRL team like the Indigenous-Allstars games, Test matches, etc. will add a chunk of money.
I don`t think the numbers they attach to having an NRL team will be too far of the mark, a bit of hyperbole, but not too bad.

 

[Perth Red]

Where does it say they have to be interstate. Cashed up FIFO`s who fly in from within WA, other NRL fans from within WA, interstate travellers that go on to spend a week or more travelling, Perth attracting more event games once they have an NRL team like the Indigenous-Allstars games, Test matches, etc. will add a chunk of money.
I don`t think the numbers they attach to having an NRL team will be too far of the mark, a bit of hyperbole, but not too bad.

Lol, if you can break down how you think 12 games a year can bring in $14.4 mill to state revenue from ‘visitation expenditure’ I’m all ears. That’s $1.2million a game. It’s bs. In fact forgot we aren’t even getting 12 games. With 11 games it’s actually $1.3mill a game.
a week travelling? How many fans are doing that.
fifos? They live in Perth.
?regional fans. Vast majority of people in wa live within a drive of Perth
And if a cursory glance pokes holes in the first line I’m sure we can expect the other lines to be equally ‘hyperbole’ as you put it.

but sure if they want to spin an nrl club being worth $500mill a year go for it. let’s just hope no one actually questions it.

 

[SirPies&Beers]

Editorial: Bluster surrounding the NRL is all hot air
The NRL, which is the governing body of Sydney’s “national” rugby league competition, is so desperate to claim relevance outside of its traditional two States that it will do and say anything to convince its fan club on the east coast that a Perth-based team is a thing in this town.
Premier Roger Cook is a self-confessed rugby league nuffy, we know that.
If he were not, this ridiculous conversation about the North Sydney Bears — a dud, third-grade club, based over the other side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, yes, in Sydney in case you’re confused — being revived into the big leagues as Perth’s Western Bears would have ended long ago.
Mr Cook is one of a handful of blokes in WA who support rugby league and reckon it’s a goer in our State. They think there are lots of die-hard fans just waiting to come out of the woodwork, if only there were some first-grade boofheads from Sydney and Brisbane we could watch here each week give each other concussion for a living.
The problem for NRL boss Peter V’Landys, determined to extend the reach of his broadcast rights to another time zone, is that no one is buying it. And no one with any pull in WA, except Mr Cook and his Sports Minister and Treasurer Rita Saffioti, are willing to reach into their pockets to pay for something that has no popular local support, no grassroots presence and no hope.
Mr V’Landys, a charming negotiator and master showman, knows the brains trust behind rugby league in this town is so underwhelming that he doesn’t want a private owner, he wants the State Government to take on the risk and outlay the cash to back a team for a sport that simply should not have any significant taxpayer funds spent on it.
If the NRL was a viable proposition in Perth, then why would it need any State Government money to fund it to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars?
Rita Saffioti says NRL deal not a priority as four-week deadline details emerge
WA election 2025: Premier Roger Cook warns ‘ambitious’ Peter V’landys the Western Bears deal is no sure thing
Making matters worse for the NRL’s ambitions is this incessant switch-and-bait game being played out in the Sydney and Brisbane media.
Mr V’Landys is too smart for this silliness. So someone in his team must be to blame for the strategy.
Part of the argument, as outlined in the east coast press on the weekend, was that a Bears team in WA would create enormous economic activity — $50 million a year.
Rugby league can’t even get fans to games in its heartland States, how on earth would it have any chance of convincing viable numbers to games here?
Another common theme is that rugby league is on the march and AFL is in decline. Putting aside that the Eagles and Dockers currently reside 17th and 18th on the ladder, it is absurd and juvenile.
It is an insult to everyone’s intelligence, which is why it surely can’t be a strategy devised or approved by Mr V’Landys, he is way too clever to attempt to bully the WA Government into wasting our money.
‘It’s got to happen quickly’: Peter V’landys mounts post-election pressure on Roger Cook over WA NRL side
Optus Stadium to host ‘smorgasbord’ of sport across packed winter, summer in 2025, says CEO Mike McKenna

Bluster surrounding the NRL is all hot air

The NRL is so desperate to claim relevance outside of its traditional two States that it will do and say anything to convince its fan club on the east coast that a Perth-based team is a thing in this town.

thewest.com.au

The West Still trying hard to bring it down. Just gives badels article more power

 

[BuffaloRules]

They are clutching at straws now … a lot of that editorial is easily rebuffed …”rugby league can’t get fans to games in its heartland states “ … lol .. what are they saying about Union and the A League?

 

[taste2taste]

WE HAVE RATTLED THE AFL

Peter Badel
ARL Commission boss Peter V’landys has launched a savage attack on AFL CEO Andrew Dillon and sensationally accused the rival code of attempting to sabotage the NRL’s expansion push to Perth.
Dillon rubbished suggestions the NRL had overtaken the AFL as Australia’s most-watched sport.
He said on Melbourne radio: “We measure ourselves on traditional metrics, like people turning up to games.”
V’landys slammed Dillon’s comments and said the AFL was so fearful of the NRL’s uprising it was trying to shut rugby league out of Western Australia.
The NRL believes a smear campaign is being waged to prevent rugby league setting up an 18th franchise, the Western Bears, in Perth from 2027.
“They always look down their nose at us and now we are giving them competition. The AFL are rattled,” V’landys said on Triple M’s Sin Bin show on Sunday. “The figures and the facts speak for themselves.
“Last year, just the premiership matches, the NRL had 154 million viewers compared to the AFL’s 140 million viewers.
“When you add the State of Origin and international games, we had 187 million viewers to the AFL’s 149 million viewers.
“On social media, the NRL has 6.8 million, the AFL has 4.6 million, so what metrics do they actually want?
“What’s the traditional metrics ... the ones you make up.”
The NRL is eyeing a record $3 billion-plus TV rights deal and V’landys has said, for the first time, the AFL was playing second fiddle and being outmanoeuvred by rugby league.
“They have always looked down their nose at us and for the first time we are giving them competition,” he said.
“I remember five years ago, we shut down the competition (because of Covid) and we said we’re going to start on the 28th of May.
“One AFL club chairman called us out as delusional, reckless and stupid, that will be starting in August or September.
“We started on the 28th of May and then two weeks later they followed us.
“We have a thing called Magic Round. All of a sudden, the AFL has a Gather Round. What are they gathering, sticks and stones?
“I read in the paper this week that they have a new investment policy. It’s the NRL’s investment policy.
“Keep copying us. You won’t beat us, but keep copying us. That’s fine. They always treat us as second-class citizens but we will always look after the fans. And we have the best CEO in Australian sport in Andrew Abdo.
“They can keep taking the snipes, we will keep batting them back.”
Despite political roadblocks, V’landys is keen to push on and establish an NRL foothold in Perth via the Western Bears.
The AFL has had unfettered control of that state via the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers but the NRL will resume talks with the WA premier Roger Cook in coming weeks in the hope of clinching a $320 million expansion deal.
Not a cent of the $320m will go to the NRL, which will pump WA government money back into the state’s grassroots and infrastructure to build a bedrock for rugby league in the west.
V’landys claims the AFL is trying to derail the expansion drive to Western Australia.
“The information is there is concern by the AFL in our ambition to get into Western Australia,” V’landys said.
“I think they would be concerned because then we would become national but they also haven’t got the Pacific, England and France.
“I can understand (how the AFL feels) but competition lifts all ships.
“We don’t object to the Swans or GWS being here in Sydney because that only improves our performance, so I don’t understand why they are so adamant in trying to keep us out of WA.”
V’landys also hit out at media reports from the West Australian, whose owner Seven West Media is part of the AFL’s $4.5 billion broadcast deal, that he had done a secret deal with Cook.
“There’s a pretty massive campaign to keep us out of Western Australia,” he said.
“There was no agreement reached. He (Cook) was very professional.
“When the election was called, we stopped discussions. It wasn’t appropriate ... there is nothing set in stone.
“We abided by the premier. He said, ‘I’m going to an election, can you wait until after the election and we will resume discussions’.
“This stuff that we had deals done is all wrong. If we can reach an agreement, we will, but we won’t sell rugby league short and we will move forward with or without them.”
The NRL has been criticised for failing to match the AFL’s broadcast deal but V’landys is confident rugby league’s next TV rights contract from 2028-32 will trump the rival code.
V’landys is armed with statistical evidence that shows the NRL is Australia’s No.1 sport with viewers and it will be tabled in negotiations to achieve the biggest broadcast deal in rugby league’s 117-year history.
“I am very confident of our ability to get the biggest broadcast deal ever,” he said.
“The players, coaches and clubs deserve credit ... for the first time league is working as a unit together.
“We beat all sports on Foxtel and free-to-air (networks). We will not undersell the product.”

 

[taste2taste]

Editorial: Bluster surrounding the NRL is all hot air
The NRL, which is the governing body of Sydney’s “national” rugby league competition, is so desperate to claim relevance outside of its traditional two States that it will do and say anything to convince its fan club on the east coast that a Perth-based team is a thing in this town.
Premier Roger Cook is a self-confessed rugby league nuffy, we know that.
If he were not, this ridiculous conversation about the North Sydney Bears — a dud, third-grade club, based over the other side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, yes, in Sydney in case you’re confused — being revived into the big leagues as Perth’s Western Bears would have ended long ago.
Mr Cook is one of a handful of blokes in WA who support rugby league and reckon it’s a goer in our State. They think there are lots of die-hard fans just waiting to come out of the woodwork, if only there were some first-grade boofheads from Sydney and Brisbane we could watch here each week give each other concussion for a living.
The problem for NRL boss Peter V’Landys, determined to extend the reach of his broadcast rights to another time zone, is that no one is buying it. And no one with any pull in WA, except Mr Cook and his Sports Minister and Treasurer Rita Saffioti, are willing to reach into their pockets to pay for something that has no popular local support, no grassroots presence and no hope.
Mr V’Landys, a charming negotiator and master showman, knows the brains trust behind rugby league in this town is so underwhelming that he doesn’t want a private owner, he wants the State Government to take on the risk and outlay the cash to back a team for a sport that simply should not have any significant taxpayer funds spent on it.
If the NRL was a viable proposition in Perth, then why would it need any State Government money to fund it to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars?
Rita Saffioti says NRL deal not a priority as four-week deadline details emerge
WA election 2025: Premier Roger Cook warns ‘ambitious’ Peter V’landys the Western Bears deal is no sure thing
Making matters worse for the NRL’s ambitions is this incessant switch-and-bait game being played out in the Sydney and Brisbane media.
Mr V’Landys is too smart for this silliness. So someone in his team must be to blame for the strategy.
Part of the argument, as outlined in the east coast press on the weekend, was that a Bears team in WA would create enormous economic activity — $50 million a year.
Rugby league can’t even get fans to games in its heartland States, how on earth would it have any chance of convincing viable numbers to games here?
Another common theme is that rugby league is on the march and AFL is in decline. Putting aside that the Eagles and Dockers currently reside 17th and 18th on the ladder, it is absurd and juvenile.
It is an insult to everyone’s intelligence, which is why it surely can’t be a strategy devised or approved by Mr V’Landys, he is way too clever to attempt to bully the WA Government into wasting our money.
‘It’s got to happen quickly’: Peter V’landys mounts post-election pressure on Roger Cook over WA NRL side
Optus Stadium to host ‘smorgasbord’ of sport across packed winter, summer in 2025, says CEO Mike McKenna

Bluster surrounding the NRL is all hot air

The NRL is so desperate to claim relevance outside of its traditional two States that it will do and say anything to convince its fan club on the east coast that a Perth-based team is a thing in this town.

thewest.com.au

The West Still trying hard to bring it down. Just gives badels article more power

I get the sinking feeling this Perth team won’t be going ahead, at least not with tax payers money.

Politicians usually bow to media pressure, in NSW the Telegraph and 2GB basically run the state.

 

[Red&BlackBear]

I get the sinking feeling this Perth team won’t be going ahead, at least not with tax payers money.

Politicians usually bow to media pressure, in NSW the Telegraph and 2GB basically run the state.

I wouldn’t worry about the West (or the opinion of unnamed journalists typing up dribble editorials).

Their pull is minimal. See their huge push for Liberals and their anti-Labor and anti-Cook agenda during the states election. How did that go for them?

What’s going on here between these corporations goes beyond Perth having an NRL side.

Sure, Perth might be the battle ground but you’ll find that this is based on the fact that AFL is essentially maxed-out as far as expansion and therefore commercial reach goes.

Whilst the NRL still have, at the very least, half a dozen markets that are essentially untapped. As the NRL taps into these markets their market share growth rises and ditto the overall commercial value of the game rises as well.

Eventually a disparity and gap will start to grow between the codes reach and value. This journalistic garbage would also be happening if the NRL were trying to get something up and running in SA as opposed to WA.

 

[AlwaysGreen]

Good stuff from V'landys.

 

[BuffaloRules]

I wouldn’t worry about the West. Their pull is minimal. See their huge push for Liberals and their anti-Labor and anti-Cook agenda during the states election. How did that go for them?

The West rag is doing the bidding of the AFL … and the AFL have a vice like grip on that city … I wouldn’t be underestimating them…

But having said that ..the time for the NRL to shit or get off the pot has come for Perth … they will never have a more sympathetic Premier than this one… just expect the AFL to fight them every step of the way ….

 

[Red&BlackBear]

The West rag is doing the bidding of the AFL … and the AFL have a vice like grip on that city … I wouldn’t be underestimating them…

But having said that ..the time for the NRL to shit or get off the pot has come for Perth … they will never have a more sympathetic Premier than this one… just expect the AFL to fight them every step of the way ….

I’m not underestimating them but by that same token it’s 2025 and these mainstream media mediums simply don’t have the same pull that they had in 2005. Thinking otherwise is very much overestimating them.

If these publications keep on their “we shouldn’t be doing this” crusade then the likely outcome is people will want to do it. Being so anti-something in the media doesn’t usually end well for whatever medium is pushing that anti-something agenda.

 

[BuffaloRules]

I’m not underestimating them but by that same token it’s 2025 and these mainstream media mediums simply don’t have the same pull that they had in 2005. Thinking otherwise is very much overestimating them.

If these publications keep on their “we shouldn’t be doing this” crusade then the likely outcome is people will want to do it. Being so anti-something in the media doesn’t usually end well for whatever medium is pushing that anti-something agenda.

We’ll see how big the crowd is in a couple of weeks … people will respond to negative messaging ( if ultimately lies) about handouts of taxpayer money …

 

[AlwaysGreen]

Unless we see mass protests in the streets of Perth opposing an NRL then the media blitz won't have an effect.

The problem will be when a team is in Perth and the lack of coverage this particular media organisation will provide. Unless the bears are successful then they'll bandwagon them.

 

[T to the T]

I’m not underestimating them but by that same token it’s 2025 and these mainstream media mediums simply don’t have the same pull that they had in 2005. Thinking otherwise is very much overestimating them.

If these publications keep on their “we shouldn’t be doing this” crusade then the likely outcome is people will want to do it. Being so anti-something in the media doesn’t usually end well for whatever medium is pushing that anti-something agenda.

What timeframe we are looking at now until the big announcement?

The recent concerted press with PVL on the attack across various mediums and reiterating no license fee seems to indicate that we are getting close.

 

[wb2027]

Billy Moore is an idiot.

When did Billy Moore hurt you?