Ah, the memories…

AFL fans live across the whole of metropolitan Melbourne from inner to outer suburbs.

The transport system is sort of better than Sydney (marginally) and it is easier to get around. The AFL moved away from suburban grounds due to their lack of capacity and run down facilities.

Redb

Personally, I don’t think the NRL can ever replicate the success that the major American sports had in the early 90s in terms of global expansion. It was right around that time that the rest of the world started getting satellite TV access and coincided with Jordan, the Dallas Cowboys and other hugely marketable teams/stars. Needless to say, Australian culture doesn’t have the potential for globalisation that American culture has shown.

That said, Parramatta stadium is reasonably central, and is in a transport hub – I imagine it could be a candidate for redevelopment (at least for the Western sides like Parra, Pen, Canterbury, Tigers). Even a 35/40,000 capacity would be great.

apart from Football Park, which stadiums does AFL own at the moment. I understand in a few years it will own Etihad Stadium, and in the past the AFL owned Waverley Park. Does the AFL own Carrara, SCG, MCG or the Gabba? That is not to say that the AFL are not important tenants, because the AFL is what makes these venues viable venues.

And in any case, the difference is that the AFL as a commission owns the stadiums, not the individual teams. In the NFL, the teams own the stadiums. In South African rugby, the individual provincial unions own their own grounds, not the South African Rugby Union.

In Australia, it does not make sense for stadium ownership, especially in NSW and QLD, as largely you will find a large degree of ground sharing between rugby, futbol and rugby league.

Plus where teams are privately owned, the team must pay the land tax on the stadium it owns, which would make it more expensive.

You’ve got plenty of slogans and no content.

Please give us your grand plan on how “breaking” your constituents empowers the code as presently you sound like some crazed South American dictator whose planning to repatriate all of the privately owned assets in his country.

What does some grand stadium expansion program do for the clubs based in Sydney?

Get a map and look at Melbourne and look at the location of the clubs and then do the same with Sydney and tell me how we emulate the AFL’s stadium structure of a couple of centrally located grounds when

- there is no centrally available land in Sydney for the development of a new stadium; and
- how a centrally located stadium would service the more geographically dispersed Sydney based clubs

This is before even factoring in the Sydney are not as big a consumer of live sports as their Melbourne counter parts

Your point is the entire point.

No club can afford it. But the code could.

So break the clubs, and empower the code.

Randwick ? Powerless. Brothers ? Gutless. NSW ? An incitement to fraud. Queensland ? Is, does, and will only look out for it’s own interests (and I dont care about what code for this point – there’s something in the water, and they can, will and will always act like that, whether it’s cricket, league or union).

Break the clubs. Empower the code.

If you’re unwilling to do that, well, then, see the thriving future basketball has in Australia.

It’s posts like yours that remind me just why Rugby Union is administered as badly as it is – it’s an entire code full of adminstrators who think just like you.

The AFL not merely owns large chunks of it’s own stadiums, it also now owns large chunks of other peoples’ home grounds.

Break the clubs. Break the provinces. Have a single ruling body with only one interest : the good of the code.

Do anything else, and you’re committing to failure.

Ian Whitchurch

New Dallas Cowboys stadium has $325 million dollars of public money in it. Lucas Oil stadium in INDY cost 725 million but the Colts only put in 100 million, the rest mostly from the city via increased taxes.

The reason they are building these new stadiums has nothing to do with the average fan like you and I, its all about cramming in as many luxury suites as possible. Something which the old stadiums never had.

But true tah is right. No club in Australia could possibly afford to spend hundreds of millions on upgrading stadiums.

At any rate its the TV revenue that counts the most now and the NRL seem to be waking up on that one.

Though I’m still wondering why the NRL isn’t called the EANZRL (Eastern Australia New Zealand Rugby League). I think the NRL needs to do some tough changes and even consider losing the Warriors in the process. They’re a New Zealand team for goodness sake. I’d like to see a whole new New Zealand competition that could one day rival the NRL and ESL.

Also, the NRL really needs to get its TV rights deals changed big time.I hope this change can allow for all Australians to watch Rugby league on television just like it is for the AFL. Imagine the young children from all over Australia that would finally have access to watching the NRL in their lounge rooms. Until this happens, Rugby League will always be an Eastern Australian sport.

Rugby League is the best sport in the world, and one day (with the leadership of the ARL) it can finally be noticed by all.