Where should the next NZ NRL team be?

[Perth Red]

Ia ma guessing since we have heard zero about any bid that they have put it on the backburne

 

[Noa]

thanks for the piece iafeta. If it was up to me perth and a 2nd nz team would be coming in. Provides the most growth opportunity for the game. And 3 nz teams would be awesome, im a outsider with absolutely no idea but i dont know how union competes with that on a week to week basis.

 

[Sam H]

Ia ma guessing since we have heard zero about any bid that they have put it on the backburne

I dunno about 'backburner' Perth Red. You do see them getting a bit of press every now and then.

The impression Hemson gives in that interview - which incidentally was conducted by a mate of mine for our blog, so I'm glad to see people are finding it interesting - is that they are still working away pretty hard behind the scenes.

The PR machine isn't exactly in overdrive though, unlike some other bids (not that this is a bad thing - the Bears and Reds have done a great job selling their credentials).

Reading between the lines it seems like they are resigned to being overlooked this time around but are making sure they have a set up in place looking a bit further down the track.

On the merits, once they have have the financial side of things sorted out, it's hard to see how the NRL could say no given all the positives covered on this thread.

 

[flippikat]

The most eye-popping thing from the interview was this snippet:


FFF: How important is the crowd for the upcoming test match going to be for your bid? [Note: the New Zealand v England game in Wellington ultimately drew a crowd of 20,681].

JH: I think it will be a fairly good indicator as to whether there are people willing to support rugby league at that level. There’s a couple of things we’ve got going against us with the timing of the Test match. It’s over the Labour weekend, Wellington tends to pour away over the Labour weekend. It’s against the English as well, as opposed to Australia. But given all those things I’m confident we’ll get a fairly good crowd here. Previously, when there have been NRL games here with the likes of the Bulldogs and Canberra, the crowd support was really good. It was only when the Warriors weren’t competitive for a couple of seasons that the crowds dropped down to 12,000 or 15,000. We will be looking to use another venue apart from Westpac in the Wellington area as well, which would be more purpose built for RL – a rectangular stadium, seating 15,000. We’d probably be using a facility like that for eight or so of the games a season as well.


A new stadium in Wellington????

I know we've been discussing the "lighted event" limits of Westpac stadium, but this still took me by surprise!

Wonder where it would be built, and what transport plan would need to be made for it.

 

[Iafeta]

Ia ma guessing since we have heard zero about any bid that they have put it on the backburne

It's never been on the backburner. Central Coast and Perth have obviously had the media leverage in Australia but to suggest that its 'silent' its dead is wrong. The Orcas bid has been around for a fair while now.

That interview was undertaken mid 2010. They're still applying.

 

[Perth Red]

Good to hear but somehow I think if they were srrious about bidding for 2013 they would have been getting more publicity by now and working hard to get corporate and fan support behind the bid to keep pace with the two leading contenders.

I hope they work with the NRL to make sure they are ready for future opportunities and that the NRL invest some of its NZ $'s in helping them get ready.