WA- did we miss the boat ?

[The Great Dane]

Can Perth happen after Brisbane2 or even maybe Brisbane3/sunshine coast earn the NRL extra $$ in new TV deal ?

The West Coast Pirates are ready to go now, and by rights they should get in before any of the current Brisbane bids.

Expansion would undoubtedly add value to the broadcasting rights, the real question is how much and what would maximise that profit.

Brisbane 3 is a bad idea so long as there are 9 teams in Sydney, it's just to many eggs in to few baskets and you'd almost certainly split the Brisbane market to thin.

Finally, an NRL team based on the Sunshine Coast is a pipedream. It's doesn't have a strong backer to support the club (such as a wealthy league club), and without said backer it's too small to support it on it's own. Even if a wealthy reliable backer could be found the license would still be better given to a team in a larger metropolitan market which will create a bigger return for the league and sport in the long run (i.e. Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, or Melbourne).

 

[flippikat]

The West Coast Pirates are ready to go now, and by rights they should get in before any of the current Brisbane bids.

Expansion would undoubtedly add value to the broadcasting rights, the real question is how much and what would maximise that profit.

Brisbane 3 is a bad idea so long as there are 9 teams in Sydney, it's just to many eggs in to few baskets and you'd almost certainly split the Brisbane market to thin.

Finally, an NRL team based on the Sunshine Coast is a pipedream. It's doesn't have a strong backer to support the club (such as a wealthy league club), and without said backer it's too small to support it on it's own. Even if a wealthy reliable backer could be found the license would still be better given to a team in a larger metropolitan market which will create a bigger return for the league and sport in the long run (i.e. Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, or Melbourne).

That's a really good summary of the current options being talked about.

The AFL have long made a point of focusing on the big metropolitan centers- and while we've been in plenty of mid-sized markets in league heartland (Wollongong, Newcastle, Townsville, an attempt to relocate a team to Gosford), besides Geelong - which was a heritage team anyway - AFL have only gone for the "big fish" - AFL heartland or not.

Sunshine Coast kinda strikes me as "Central Coast V2.0" - just north of a big city, debatable if if can sustain a team of it's own, should be behind bigger cities in the expansion queue. The key thing that the Central Coast has going for it was that it was touted as part of the solution for Sydney's oversaturation (ie moving the Bears, saving a heritage brand, un-cluttering that part of the map a little), but now the Bears have effectively been demoted & no current NRL Sydney club has shown any desire to completely relocate there, the Central Coast is like an answer waiting for it's question.

The Sunshine Coast doesn't have a congested market on it's doorstep, so even that "relocate a team to there" argument (which may have played if Brisbane had 5 or 6 NRL teams) doesn't even exist for it.

 

[ALX25]

With the West Coast Pirates being removed from SG Ball in 2021 it will set the bid back even further.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

What was the situation re: gambling back then?

As well established, NSW clubs (and by extension the NSWRL competition) gained the upper hand over Qld clubs over the decades because they had pokies revenue while Queensland didn't.

Did ALL the AFL heartland states have legalised pokies between the '50s & '80s?
Is that why the VFL clubs had to go the extra mile & borrow for poaching from WA & SA clubs?

Joan Kirner legalised gaming machines for clubs and hotels in Victoria when she became Premier in 1991.

https://theconversation.com/pokies-in-victoria-joan-kirners-difficult-legacy-42689

VFL was arguably forced into expansion due to lack of gaming machine revenue, but lucky enough to have them introduced not long afterwards to keep most of their Melbourne-based clubs afloat. These blokes always seem to fall on the right side of luck.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

With the West Coast Pirates being removed from SG Ball in 2021 it will set the bid back even further.

I genuinely feel sorry for the Western Australian RL community. They've supported the game strongly in a rusted-on AwFuL state, yet are treated poorly by the ARLC and News Ltd.

The game would probably have more participants and fans around the country if it kept the Reds and Rams, without creating the Melbourne Storm. A struggling Sydney team like the Dragons should have moved to Melbourne in 1998 and let the Sharks absorb St George and Illawarra's territory.

I hate pokies, but history shows they're a necessary evil in RL and fumbleball. BRL died and VFL was forced to expand interstate just to create revenue because they didn't have gaming machines. Ironically, Queensland and Victoria legalised gaming machines in the early 90s. If both states had have done that 10 years earlier then the BRL might still be around, the NRL might still be the NSWRL and AwFuL probably would be the VFL.

By expanding when they did, the VFL and NSWRL killed off their interstate rivals and safeguarded most of their clubs.

 

[mongoose]

The West Coast Pirates are ready to go now, and by rights they should get in before any of the current Brisbane bids.

Expansion would undoubtedly add value to the broadcasting rights, the real question is how much and what would maximise that profit.

Brisbane 3 is a bad idea so long as there are 9 teams in Sydney, it's just to many eggs in to few baskets and you'd almost certainly split the Brisbane market to thin.

Finally, an NRL team based on the Sunshine Coast is a pipedream. It's doesn't have a strong backer to support the club (such as a wealthy league club), and without said backer it's too small to support it on it's own. Even if a wealthy reliable backer could be found the license would still be better given to a team in a larger metropolitan market which will create a bigger return for the league and sport in the long run (i.e. Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, or Melbourne).

I don't think Sunshine Coast should be put in front of other bids but I disagree that it's a pipe dream. It's at least as populous as North QLD and the difference between Sunshine Coast and Central Coast is that Sunshine coast isn't on the doorstep of an already majorly over saturated market.
I think there's potential for a relocation to the Sunshine Coast down the track (not Storm)

 

[Perth Red]

With the West Coast Pirates being removed from SG Ball in 2021 it will set the bid back even further.

where did you hear that? Shame but no point spending our money developing talent for an east coast comp with no ambition.

 

[ALX25]

where did you hear that? Shame but no point spending our money developing talent for an east coast comp with no ambition.

https://nrlwa.com.au/pirates-under-19s-junior-representative-programs/

 

[Perth Red]

https://nrlwa.com.au/pirates-under-19s-junior-representative-programs/

cheers, makes sense covid wise. be interesting to see if they give it up permanently as part of nrl cost cutting.

 

[ground zero]

Perth Reds had a spot in the Nswrl. Invited to play but jumped into the superleague bed 12 months later. Backstabbed the Nswrl an got what they desevre. well Rupert f**ked them off real quick. judas at its best.

 

[MugaB]

Perth Reds had a spot in the Nswrl. Invited to play but jumped into the superleague bed 12 months later. Backstabbed the Nswrl an got what they desevre. well Rupert f**ked them off real quick. judas at its best.

Not the whole story, it was the ARL, who got them flying the opposition teams in and accommodation plus fly themselves around the country, just to get a licence..
Problem was when reserve grades got included into the following year, they went into debt, news ltd and SL was their only option of some sort of survival, blame the ARLC for perths non inclusion, due to that stupid rule of paying for away teams, that should be upto that team or arl to fund

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Not the whole story, it was the ARL, who got them flying the opposition teams in and accommodation plus fly themselves around the country, just to get a licence..
Problem was when reserve grades got included into the following year, they went into debt, news ltd and SL was their only option of some sort of survival, blame the ARLC for perths non inclusion, due to that stupid rule of paying for away teams, that should be upto that team or arl to fund

VFL did the same to the West Coast Eagles and it sent them broke in the late 80s. They were bailed out by a company called Indian Pacific. NSWRL should have realised that if a Perth based team in the VFL couldn't afford to fund the travel expenses of visiting teams then there was no way an RL team could.

It was also bone headed stupid of Quayle and Arthurson to admit 4 teams at once. Those two idiots set the game back 25-30 years.

 

[flippikat]

It was also bone headed stupid of Quayle and Arthurson to admit 4 teams at once. Those two idiots set the game back 25-30 years.

Spot on. To be honest, in hindsight, the best 2 expansion options in 1995 would have been Auckland & Melbourne, then a 2nd Brisbane team & Perth in the late 1990s-early 2000s.

That's if the NRL followed a similar "big city" approach to the AFL.

It would have given time for depth to grow to accommodate those teams.

 

[Perth Red]

Perth Reds had a spot in the Nswrl. Invited to play but jumped into the superleague bed 12 months later. Backstabbed the Nswrl an got what they desevre. well Rupert f**ked them off real quick. judas at its best.

Reds had a business plan covering all travel and accomodation of one team, arl added reserves at the 11th hour which financially fcked them, they had no choice, and quite frankly the SL vision being sold was far more exciting than an expanded nswrl comp on offer that had no money to support expansion

 

[The Great Dane]

I don't think Sunshine Coast should be put in front of other bids but I disagree that it's a pipe dream. It's at least as populous as North QLD and the difference between Sunshine Coast and Central Coast is that Sunshine coast isn't on the doorstep of an already majorly over saturated market.
I think there's potential for a relocation to the Sunshine Coast down the track (not Storm)

The difference between NQ and the SC is that NQ has a wealthy leagues club to back it, SC doesn't, so they'd have to find stable backing from somewhere else which is very unlikely to happen in our lifetime.

They've also got Brisbane on the doorstep and will suffer from a lot of similar issues that the CC has, such as being reliant on sponsorship from the bigger market, which isn't sustainable long term.

Basically unless there's massive local growth, which is unlikely to happen in the current structure (especially if NRL clubs keep playing games there) an NRL team on the SC is a fantasy.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Spot on. To be honest, in hindsight, the best 2 expansion options in 1995 would have been Auckland & Melbourne, then a 2nd Brisbane team & Perth in the late 1990s-early 2000s.

That's if the NRL followed a similar "big city" approach to the AFL.

It would have given time for depth to grow to accommodate those teams.

That would have been better than the way they way they went about things. Cowboys and Warriors were drawing great crowds back then, so I would have added them. Both teams would have been more competitive and probably wouldn't have needed bailing out by 2000. Brisbane 2 and Perth would have followed in 2005, with Perth playing in the Queensland Cup and its lower age divisions from 1995 to generate enough local talent for the team's eventual introduction into the ARL.

Melbourne and Adelaide could have been reserved for struggling Sydney teams like Balmain Tigers, Wests Magpies, Illawarra Steelers, North Sydney Bears and South Sydney Rabbitohs. It could have led to the Bears moving to Gosford, Souths relocating to Melbourne and St George ending up in Adelaide. Canterbury and Magpies might have merged to become the Western Sydney Bulldogs and Parramatta and Tigers merging to become the Parramatta Tigers.

 

[flippikat]

That would have been better than the way they way they went about things. Cowboys and Warriors were drawing great crowds back then, so I would have added them. Both teams would have been more competitive and probably wouldn't have needed bailing out by 2000. Brisbane 2 and Perth would have followed in 2005, with Perth playing in the Queensland Cup and its lower age divisions from 1995 to generate enough local talent for the team's eventual introduction into the ARL.

Melbourne and Adelaide could have been reserved for struggling Sydney teams like Balmain Tigers, Wests Magpies, Illawarra Steelers, North Sydney Bears and South Sydney Rabbitohs. It could have led to the Bears moving to Gosford, Souths relocating to Melbourne and St George ending up in Adelaide. Canterbury and Magpies might have merged to become the Western Sydney Bulldogs and Parramatta and Tigers merging to become the Parramatta Tigers.

Great points, and well made.

Keeping Melbourne, Perth & Adelaide as relocation targets would mirror what AFL did with Sydney & Brisbane - moving a traditional club, a traditional brand to a new frontier.

The real shame is that the ARL administration got spooked into a "big bang" expansion in 1995 which severely tested the depth of the competition (player base, coaching ranks, sponsorship, you name it).

With 18 teams (add Auckland & North Queensland in 1995), plus some decent assistance/incentives for relocations - even making bailouts conditional on relocation - would have got the ARL competition on a great footing for the turn of the century.

 

[MugaB]

Great points, and well made.

Keeping Melbourne, Perth & Adelaide as relocation targets would mirror what AFL did with Sydney & Brisbane - moving a traditional club, a traditional brand to a new frontier.

The real shame is that the ARL administration got spooked into a "big bang" expansion in 1995 which severely tested the depth of the competition (player base, coaching ranks, sponsorship, you name it).

With 18 teams (add Auckland & North Queensland in 1995), plus some decent assistance/incentives for relocations - even making bailouts conditional on relocation - would have got the ARL competition on a great footing for the turn of the century.

This is all hindsight talking, what they did in 1995 was incredible, who the f**k does that, they had the balls to expand, and if superleague didn't swoop in, league wouldn't be following the ALF in all metrics, participation would be 100 fold in WA, had they kept the reds going, and what happened in brisbane or SEQ was deplorable and plain greedy from the broncos, more teams in foreign cities would have strengthened the code for generations to come, only drawback was the lack of presence in Victoria and South Australia, but that came soon after with SL, and if they could only be patient with the newly formed expansion teams, we'd all be talking about a Fremantle Port Adelaide and Geelong rival type teams, the whole sydney has too many clubs is moot, when you have 20 club comp, its the biggest city in Australia, and probably by the time we have that many clubs spread out around the pacific, we might be down to a 6/14 split between sydney V rest

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

The standard of play in 95 was awful because reserve graders who weren't ready for A grade were thrust into the Cowboys, Crushers and Reds. The other 16 clubs signed their best players well in advance so that they weren't available for the new teams.

Auckland fared the best as they had a base of quality players from the NZ competition to select from.

Perth managed to sign a few players who weren't happy at their previous clubs, plus bad boys who were discarded for off field indiscretions, like Julian O'Neill.

Crushers signed a young squad made up of fringe players from the Broncos, BRL and a few older blokes like Mark Hohn and Gillmeister. RU flops were also targeted.

Cowboys signed rejects, local talent playing park football and brought Laurie Spina out of retirement. They were the Central Queensland Capras of the ARL.

It was never going to work. This was when a national reserve grade competition also existed.

News Ltd introduced the Rams and Mariners because they needed 10 teams for Super League. ARL conceded after 97 because it was on the ropes. Another year of Super League would have devastated Sydney's weakest ARL clubs. News Ltd won the war and got to dictate terms during the merger. They wanted Crushers and Chargers gone so that their Broncos could own SEQ. Adelaide and Perth were costly and netted few returns for Foxtel, so they weren't in their plans. Mariners were only there to make up the numbers in 97, so they were canned.

We've been without Brisbane 2, Adelaide and Perth ever since because they're not in News Ltd's plans. V'landys convincing a struggling Foxtel to sign until 27, with Ch9 only booked in until 23, is the first time since 98 that the ARLC can think about expansion without needing to get News Ltd to agree. Ch9 want Brisbane 2 but not Perth and are against a 9th game, so that's the reason for a 17th team and for it to be in Brisbane. Let's hope Stan Sport takes off and is in a strong enough position to challenge Foxtel for the rights in 28, as it's the only way I can see a 9th game being added. If everything is on Ch9/Stan Sport from 28 then teams will be broadcast into their local markets on FTA, like AwFuL does now on 7mate, to boost ratings for Ch9.

 

[Perth Red]

Not true for the the Reds, our team in 1995 had plenty of experience mixed with some very good youngsters. Avg age was about 26

https://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/seasons/arl-1995/western-reds/summary.html