Western Corridor NRL bid

[taipan]

So basically it wont happen, and the NRL will be stuck in run-down suburban grounds talking about how good it would be if we had nice ones.

Sounds like a great plan....



If its impossible for people to get out of Manly then why is it meant to be easier for people to get into Manly for the game??

At least when the game is somewhere else, the congestion is limited to thepeople who actually live there. Not the thousands of fans trying to get in.

If its fine to leave entire states without a team (WA, SA) and entire cities with only one (Brisbane, Melbourne), i dont know why we think every suburn in Syndey needs its own team....



Ok, so some fans are dont come to the games and just go to the local Leagues Club instead (literally describing what happens now)....

Every location will inconvenience someone. The question is: how do we maximise crowds? Answer: its ok to piss off 1, if you can gain 10 somewhere else.

You said it won't happen,so you must be right.Think the Sharks have a differing view to you.
The current great plan is having two major (centralised0 stadiums few attend, and look empty .For many reasons scheduling, transport infrastructure.Yeah a great look LOL.


Ac far as you comments re Manly,I again refer to the current two centralised stadiums ,and their "acceptance" by fans.And the poor 10,000 crowd at Manly against Souths on a fine Saturday afternoon, would have hardly been any better at the ANZ.10,000 in a 83,000 seat stadium please.
Look at the poor crowd at the SFS when the Panthers were involved in a semi.

People continue to relate the situation to Melbourne.They have SFA idea of the geographics,transport situation in Sydney.Ever thought how a direct rail service to either the SFS or ANZ would assist crowds.
People go to Adele,G/F one offs in huge numbers, but even then it's a pain to get there.

The congestion, is the bloody pathetic transport system and roads in this city.Regardless of where the stadiums are situated.

Show me where I've suggested there should be no new Interstate teams? I'd love two Brisbane teams, and a Perth side to stop PR's whinging.

My point has always been that I'm all for expansion, but not at the expense of current NRL clubs.The SL war with turfing and merging has been a tactical blunder and a huge boon for fumbleball.So your analogy of pissing off 1 and gaining 10 is way off.Look what happened pissing off Souths.Look what happened to Nth sydney and their juniors.People who lose clubs are not going to follow another, rare if it happens.I've seen it first hand.

You squirt off as Sydney club averaging 13,000 plus now, and gain an Intersate club with the same numbers.Who gains? The new club and the crowds remain the same and fumble ball in Sydney rubs their hands with glee.

Whilst Leagues Licenced clubs nearby benefit , it has to do with one more time, scheduling,transport,weather and infrastructure.You can have a Taj Mahal club, that has zero to do with
people who will attend a game mainly to do with scheduling and access to the ground.

To maximise crowds
1) Scheduling to encourage more families
2)the new Parramatta Stadium and a reconfigured ANZ with cover will help.I can't see the refurbished SFS helping TBH.
3)with the extras 30% money the NRL provides to the clubs, some of that money for suburban clubs should be allocated to new stands with cover .
4) yes expansion will assist.Turfing clubs will not.

 

[Perth Red]

How can afl be so successful with just two teams covering Sydney with their central stadiums yet you feel nrl has to have nine or it will lose ground to those two teams? The argument makes little sense?

 

[siv]

How can afl be so successful with just two teams covering Sydney with their central stadiums yet you feel nrl has to have nine or it will lose ground to those two teams? The argument makes little sense?

Perth

Do this - close all the RL clubs in Perth and tell everyone you have play in Green but only have 1 grade

 

[taipan]

1) Because the bulk of Swan's supporters live within easy access to the SCG"Eastern Suburbs lower Nth Shore,Surry Hills.And in the main their games are scheduled far better.
2) Because Homebush is close to the inner west and beside they(Gnats) hardly fill the showeground their crowds are ordinary.They require the ACT to build up their membership.
3)Maybe you should ask North Sydney fans that question.Many have gone on to fumbelball or union.Some have given up, few only from my experience follow another NRL team.
4) it didn't seem to help the Reds in 1995.,their crowds dwindled down to 8,102,
8462, 9,103 and down to 9108 in a 1996 Match.Now we know the SL war was in the offing, but a big average man have helped their cause.
5) And Sydney's 19th Century transport infrastructure doesn't make sense either.You take 40minutes on a Friday to drive 3 kms near Dolls Point/Brighton and see what I mean.

 

[Perth Red]

That doesn't explain your logic that if, lets say Manly, were closed down or relocated, that those Manly supporters would follow AFL or Union instead. Are you really saying that those fans wouldn't travel to a western Sydney stadium in parra to watch Manly, but that they would travel to SCG or Aliianz to watch another code? That makes no sense!

re North Sydney, there is no evidence of what happened to their fans, or more importantly the next generation down of their fans. Some may have gone to other codes, some may have stopped following the game, some may have followed another team, hopefully most of their kids did even if their parents didn't. We have no evidence to base any argument on. The only fact we have is that more people watch other Sydney clubs than did when the Bears were in the competition. if that is due to Bears fans migrating to other clubs or just natural growth in other clubs is impossible to say.

I know how sht Sydney travel is, one of the reasons I choose not to live there! Takes me abut 45min door to door to nib stadium, I don't consider it a hardship. More weekend games would certainly help the issue.

 

[Perth Red]

Perth

Do this - close all the RL clubs in Perth and tell everyone you have play in Green but only have 1 grade

I have no idea what this means lol

 

[Perth Red]

4) it didn't seem to help the Reds in 1995.,their crowds dwindled down to 8,102,
8462, 9,103 and down to 9108 in a 1996 Match.Now we know the SL war was in the offing, but a big average man have helped their cause.
.

You ever go to the WACA in the 90's? Shocking stadium (I use the term loosely) for RL. combination of poor ground, SL war, impending doom and players acting like tools didn't help. Likely we would have been around the 10-11k standard crowd without all the drama. Not dissimilar to where Storm started and around mid table in NRL clubs at the time. Id have hoped after 20 years that foundation crowd would have grown to around the 16-17k avg mark by now.

 

[siv]

That doesn't explain your logic that if, lets say Manly, were closed down or relocated, that those Manly supporters would follow AFL or Union instead. Are you really saying that those fans wouldn't travel to a western Sydney stadium in parra to watch Manly, but that they would travel to SCG or Aliianz to watch another code? That makes no sense!

re North Sydney, there is no evidence of what happened to their fans, or more importantly the next generation down of their fans. Some may have gone to other codes, some may have stopped following the game, some may have followed another team, hopefully most of their kids did even if their parents didn't. We have no evidence to base any argument on. The only fact we have is that more people watch other Sydney clubs than did when the Bears were in the competition. if that is due to Bears fans migrating to other clubs or just natural growth in other clubs is impossible to say.

I know how sht Sydney travel is, one of the reasons I choose not to live there! Takes me abut 45min door to door to nib stadium, I don't consider it a hardship. More weekend games would certainly help the issue.

Yes Manly fans dont travel out of the Peninsula

Same goes for Cronulla fans

They all like to a good beer and walk home

I have evidence of 5 Bears fans that just walked away. One went to Bowls. One only goes to cricket. The other only associates with local league and 2 never attend games again

Kids not interested in league from the 5 families

 

[Perth Red]

So a sample of 5? Don't think that we can base an argument for persisting with over saturation of Sydney on that sample size lol.

If Manly fans don't travel to watch their own team that they have a lifetime of investment in its hardly likely that they will travel to watch AFL or Union if Manly weren't there then.

Bears were avg around 8000-9000 when cut. Manly avg around 12k, we aren't losing a lot and a new club could and should be more than capable of being much bigger than that. (and before Manly fans do a Sharks fan and lose their sht I am just using them as an example).

If we were being radical and hypothetically speaking Id have Roosters in Gosford playing some at Allianz, Sharks or Dragons covering everything south coast of Sydney to Wollongong, Wests moved to Perth and Souths covering all of Wests region as well as their own, manly in NSW cup. Penrith on notice.

Wests in perth
Brisbane2
NZ2

in a 16 team comp

 

[siv]

Perth you dont get it

Kill half the comp like they did in 1995-9 and it leaves a bitter taste for generations - not a year or two

RL is tribal

As I said have someone kill off 10 local Perth A grade teams and see what happens

The problem with quoting crowds pre stadia days is most grounds only held 10-12k comfortably. So a culture of 8-10k once match of the round days ended in the early 70s

 

[The Great Dane]

My point has always been that I'm all for expansion, but not at the expense of current NRL clubs.The SL war with turfing and merging has been a tactical blunder and a huge boon for fumbleball.So your analogy of pissing off 1 and gaining 10 is way off.Look what happened pissing off Souths.Look what happened to Nth sydney and their juniors.People who lose clubs are not going to follow another, rare if it happens.I've seen it first hand.

The SL war is a flawed example and you know it, how about looking at the effects that removing Newtown, Glebe, or Annandale had!?
But we don't talk about that because the removal of these small struggling clubs lead directly to immense growth in new larger markets such as St. George, Canterbury, etc and also opened up business opportunities for the clubs that were left behind.

And besides nobody has ever presented an even half decent case that Sydney clubs being dropped lead to a measurable direct rise in support for other sports clubs, it's just something that is asserted over and over.

And even if a Sydney club being dropped to the NSWcup did lead to a small generational rise in support for the Swans, Waratahs, or whoever, who gives a sh!t if you're replacing 20 thousand supporters with 40 thousand supporters in a new area.

You squirt off as Sydney club averaging 13,000 plus now, and gain an Intersate club with the same numbers.Who gains? The new club and the crowds remain the same and fumble ball in Sydney rubs their hands with glee.

Who gains?

The NRL, every club left in the competition, and RL as a whole in this country, because by replacing a small Sydney club with an interstate club we have taken pressure off the Sydney market, we have added an untapped market without diluting the talent pool further, which leads to more TV money, more advertising money, more sponsorship money, etc, etc, we've replaced a market with potential growth in the hundreds of thousands with a market with potential growth in the millions, we've grown the geographical footprint of the sport, we've added a new juniors area with a direct path to the NRL thus also growing the talent pool overtime, etc, etc, do I need to go on!?

And besides regulating a club isn't killing it! If hardcore Bears or Newtown fans still want to watch them, guess what, they still can! And it'd be exactly the same for any other team that is removed from the NRL.

Just because you're in the NRL doesn't mean you have a divine right to always be in the NRL, no club is bigger then the game, unfortunately at the moment a handful of powerful clubs have the powers that be convinced that they are and it's slowly strangling the game to death or fating it to obscurity.

 

[The Great Dane]

Perth you dont get it

Kill half the comp like they did in 1995-9 and it leaves a bitter taste for generations - not a year or two

RL is tribal

As I said have someone kill off 10 local Perth A grade teams and see what happens

The problem with quoting crowds pre stadia days is most grounds only held 10-12k comfortably. So a culture of 8-10k once match of the round days ended in the early 70s

Who's suggesting that we kill half the comp??
Nobody here is.

Again the SL war is a flawed example because it was rushed, ill thought out, and completely corrupted by the self interest off a handful of groups and companies trying to make it look like they won the 'war' and not doing what was in the best interests of the sport and competition as a whole. I mean the mere fact that Perth, Adelaide, and the Crushers were allowed to die shows you that it was a complete f##king sh!t show and not representative of a good rationalisation plan.

And the history shows that rationalisation leaves a bitter taste for one maybe two generations in a small group of hardcore fans, and that after 10-20 years that wears off with no real long term effects. And besides if it was well handled we may be able to negate that effect completely.

 

[Perth Red]

Perth you dont get it

Kill half the comp like they did in 1995-9 and it leaves a bitter taste for generations - not a year or two

RL is tribal

As I said have someone kill off 10 local Perth A grade teams and see what happens

The problem with quoting crowds pre stadia days is most grounds only held 10-12k comfortably. So a culture of 8-10k once match of the round days ended in the early 70s

Sorry I don't buy the tribal RL thing in the modern era. People live all over Sydney and support Sydney teams not even close to the suburb they live in. Not surprisingly the biggest clubs are the ones who have cast off their tribal suburban shackles and embraced fans from right across the city. Kids go for a team for a range of reasons, usually mum or dads preference is one of the last lol

Teams in Sydney are cannibalising themselves in terms of sponsors and fans, didn't matter so much in the 70'sand 80's when the game was run on a chuck raffle and then pokie machines but then came the 90's. the game started to grow and spread its wings, suddenly being restricted to a small region when you were up against the likes of Brisbane, Auckland. Perth and then Melbourne caused massive problems. Some clubs adapted, some got lucky, some are still in dire straights. The latest fix all is the hope that the NRL can generate enough TV $'s to make up for the over saturation, it will last a short time but they will soon learn that Brisbane etc are getting just as much an increase and the gap will remain the same, and attendances will die leaving even larger revenue gaps as NRL seels its soul for more TV $'s to keep everyone afloat.

You don't cut 1/2 the Sydney teams. you locate 3 or 4 of them differently, drop them to 2nd tier or let them merge. Its the only way the game is going to get over its current stagnation.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

I used to have a mate who was a Bears tragic.

Souths got culled; Bears got merged.

I got my team back. And 26,000-30,000 members did too.

He didn't. Went to a far too early grave wanting his Bears back.

In fact, because of Super League I know literally 100 people who don't have much, to very little, to no interest in RL anymore. Just because of what went on.

Hell, I have family members who were all staunch St George fans and half of them support the merger, the other half think Saints are dead and just watch NRL as a neutral. So it happens.

I've said it before, in the present state, the clubs probably can't all survive. Strategise, locate and promote and manage them all properly and you pretty much can.

 

[The Great Dane]

I used to be a Bears fan and I'm still here watching the footy! Admittedly I had jumped to the Raiders being my main team long before the Bears dropped out of NRL but I was still a Bears fan when they went and I will be till the day I die.

I know/knew plenty of old Bears, Magpies, Steelers and Jets fans, I even knew an old Glebe fan, and yeah some of them stopped following the NRL after their clubs went, some of them continue to follow their clubs to this day in the NSWcup, or continued to follow their clubs until they were swallowed up completely in the case of the Pies and Steelers.
Some of them follow the joint ventures till this day, however most of the ones whos' clubs became the minor club in a joint venture chose not to follow the joint ventures, some of them became more interested in other sports then they used to be before their team dropped out, however those people to a man/woman were already interested in those other sports before their team went, not one that I can remember spontaneously grew an interest in RU, netball, AFL, etc, etc, overnight after their team dropped.

Some of them swore to never watch another game of RL until their club was reinstated into the NRL as an independent club, but that was a very small minority, and a few of them kept that promise for the rest of their lives, but most of them broke that vow, and some of them brushed off their club being dropped/folding/merging like it was nothing and continue to watch any and all RL put in front of them right up until this day (or sadly until they died).
Many of my old Bears friends that I'm still in contact with have become very excited by the rumors over the past year or so that they might come back on the GC, hell I'm pretty excited by the prospect, though I try to keep that excitement in check when it comes to the talking about what is best for the game, however others see it as making a mockery of what the Bears were by them playing outside of NS Oval/ Sydney/ NSW.

The point is people are going to react completely unpredictably to everything that we do, we can't control them, however we can control giving our clubs and the sport as a whole the best chance at growing as big and as powerful as possible. So maybe we should focus on making our sport as big and as powerful as possible then worry about those that are left behind, not worry about those that may be left behind at the expense of the sport as a whole.

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

1) Because the bulk of Swan's supporters live within easy access to the SCG"Eastern Suburbs lower Nth Shore,Surry Hills.And in the main their games are scheduled far better.
2) Because Homebush is close to the inner west and beside they(Gnats) hardly fill the showeground their crowds are ordinary.They require the ACT to build up their membership.
3)Maybe you should ask North Sydney fans that question.Many have gone on to fumbelball or union.Some have given up, few only from my experience follow another NRL team.
4) it didn't seem to help the Reds in 1995.,their crowds dwindled down to 8,102,
8462, 9,103 and down to 9108 in a 1996 Match.Now we know the SL war was in the offing, but a big average man have helped their cause.
5) And Sydney's 19th Century transport infrastructure doesn't make sense either.You take 40minutes on a Friday to drive 3 kms near Dolls Point/Brighton and see what I mean.

The people that go to these games arent some kind of natural AFL area. The AFL invested in these areas because they are they places they can get heaps of people to games...

These suburban sydney clubs have had decades to develop these fans, yet we are still stick at 10k per game. You cant compare that to a one-off game in a different location where a club just turns up for one week.

How about a club commits to this area, develops support and uses the superior transport and infintely better stadiums to grow crowds over a long period?

Or we can just stick with the run down suburban grounds in areas that arent designed for huge crowds and we can continue wondering why no one goes to games........

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

Perth you dont get it

Kill half the comp like they did in 1995-9 and it leaves a bitter taste for generations - not a year or two

RL is tribal

As I said have someone kill off 10 local Perth A grade teams and see what happens

The problem with quoting crowds pre stadia days is most grounds only held 10-12k comfortably. So a culture of 8-10k once match of the round days ended in the early 70s

It didnt worry people in Brisbane when they killed the entire BRL and gave the the Broncos....

Yes Manly fans dont travel out of the Peninsula

Same goes for Cronulla fans

They all like to a good beer and walk home

I have evidence of 5 Bears fans that just walked away. One went to Bowls. One only goes to cricket. The other only associates with local league and 2 never attend games again

Kids not interested in league from the 5 families

You can make this exact arguament for a million places across Australia (people dont travel out of Alice Springs to our games, should we have another team there?) Take the team out of Manly and they have 8 other teams within 50km, add a team in Perth and there are 2million people who can now go to games who previously couldnt.

If the only way for RL to survive is to have an NRL team in every postcode, then the game is basically terminal. Otherwise, we need to deal with the reality that not everyone can have an NRL team 2 streets away. Maybe 6 teams in your home city is ok.

Remember, there is always TV (given suburban clubs only get around 10k to games, that seems to be what most of these suburban fans prefer anyway...)

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

The crazy thing is that a suburban team like sharks might have 200k followers, yet they ony get 10k to their game...

That means to other 190k watch it on TV so it doesnt matter whether the game is in Cronulla or in Brisbane or Perth.

Yet if the game was in Brisbane or Perth rather than Cronulla, we could be getting crowds of 20/30k rather than 10k

 

[Marlins]

Sorry I don't buy the tribal RL thing in the modern era. People live all over Sydney and support Sydney teams not even close to the suburb they live in. Not surprisingly the biggest clubs are the ones who have cast off their tribal suburban shackles and embraced fans from right across the city. Kids go for a team for a range of reasons, usually mum or dads preference is one of the last lol

Teams in Sydney are cannibalising themselves in terms of sponsors and fans, didn't matter so much in the 70'sand 80's when the game was run on a chuck raffle and then pokie machines but then came the 90's. the game started to grow and spread its wings, suddenly being restricted to a small region when you were up against the likes of Brisbane, Auckland. Perth and then Melbourne caused massive problems. Some clubs adapted, some got lucky, some are still in dire straights. The latest fix all is the hope that the NRL can generate enough TV $'s to make up for the over saturation, it will last a short time but they will soon learn that Brisbane etc are getting just as much an increase and the gap will remain the same, and attendances will die leaving even larger revenue gaps as NRL seels its soul for more TV $'s to keep everyone afloat.

You don't cut 1/2 the Sydney teams. you locate 3 or 4 of them differently, drop them to 2nd tier or let them merge. Its the only way the game is going to get over its current stagnation.

Your actually spot on Sydney has way to many teams let's bring in the Bears

 

[taipan]

That doesn't explain your logic that if, lets say Manly, were closed down or relocated, that those Manly supporters would follow AFL or Union instead. Are you really saying that those fans wouldn't travel to a western Sydney stadium in parra to watch Manly, but that they would travel to SCG or Aliianz to watch another code? That makes no sense!

re North Sydney, there is no evidence of what happened to their fans, or more importantly the next generation down of their fans. Some may have gone to other codes, some may have stopped following the game, some may have followed another team, hopefully most of their kids did even if their parents didn't. We have no evidence to base any argument on. The only fact we have is that more people watch other Sydney clubs than did when the Bears were in the competition. if that is due to Bears fans migrating to other clubs or just natural growth in other clubs is impossible to say.

I know how sht Sydney travel is, one of the reasons I choose not to live there! Takes me abut 45min door to door to nib stadium, I don't consider it a hardship. More weekend games would certainly help the issue.

Ok.I spent 4 years of my life Marketing Services for a shipping Company in the Northern suburbs of Sydney .In that very short space of time,.I met a number of Bear's fans during this stint, some I kept in touch with.
None of the ones watch or follow the NRL to nay great degree now.A couple follow union, and I have since found out another who follows the Swans.Now that admittedly is a minor sample, but who knows what it would be extrapolated.They certainly don't follow Manly.
Since the Bears were turfed, grassroots rl on the North Shore(North Sydney) is barely there.

Your last paragraph is probably the first bit of honesty you have thrown up of late.
The only bit of BS is your comment about hardship.If one could get door to door to ANZ on a weeknight or even Saturday night in 45minutes we'd be laughing ,from Penrith,Manly or Cronulla.

I used to be regular many years ago going to the SCG for match of the day.Sydney road infrastructure is getting to the Bangkok stage, stop start.

I agree more Sunday arvos would be a big help