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North Sydney fans of old, and would-be fans of the club’s new alter ego, the Central Coast Bears, were possibly dancing in the street last week with NRL boss David Gallop formally putting expansion of the code back on the table.
This was the news Bears fans have been waiting to hear ever since the club was forced into an unpopular and ultimately doomed joint venture with Manly that went pear-shaped in 2002.
The Central Coast Bears entity has been in demand ever since, and after losing out to the Gold Coast Titans when the NRL added a sixteenth team for 2006, the Bears have maintained a proactive approach to readmission through former player and now CEO, Greg Florimo.
It should be said that Florimo and his team have done a great job of maintaining interest in their bid, never missing a chance for a headline.
Despite this, up until this week the NRL had maintained a “not in the foreseeable future” stance on future expansion. But a recent change of tact would seem to be in direct retaliation to the AFL’s aggressive push into so-called rugby league heartland regions of western Sydney and the Gold Coast.
With the next television deal to kick off for the 2013 season, the NRL is literally banking on new teams bringing in increased broadcast revenue.
Gallop made no secret of this ploy during the week when he said, “the next big commercial gain for the game will be around the new TV rights deal for 2013 onwards, and while the focus between now and then is on existing clubs, there is a good possibility after 2012 we would be looking at expansion.”
In framing a schedule for potential teams to lodge their bids, Gallop added: “We would start to look at that in 2011.”
Now, for the record, I’m firmly in favour of North Sydney being readmitted to the NRL as the Central Coast Bears and playing out of Bluetongue Stadium in Gosford.
It would be the easiest and most logical way for the NRL to right the wrongs caused by the ill-fated mess that was the three joint venture seasons of the Northern Eagles.
At the risk of running with a well-worn cliché, “it’s what the fans want!”
But here’s the thing.
With the Bears being so proactive and so obvious about their goal, and with their actions being rewarded by the NRL now agreeing to look into expansion, I’m wondering if the Bears’ bid team might actually have been too ambitious for their own good?
Think about this.
The NRL have now stated that the next broadcast deal would be the obvious starting point for new teams. The Bears would happily start discussions about readmission tomorrow.
The broadcasters, in turn, won’t just want one new team, though. They’ll need two new teams to get an extra game on TV each week.
But because further expansion has only ever been spoken of as “not in the foreseeable future”, no other prospective bids are any where near as advanced as the Central Coast’s quite obviously is.
Sure, Perth and Adelaide, and second teams from Brisbane and New Zealand, have been mentioned as potential candidates. But right now, they’d be no better prepared for admission into an expanded NRL comp as would the Parkes Spacemen or Wagga Magpies.
And so if other expansion bids aren’t ready for discussion in 2011, then all the Central Coast’s pro action and ambition might count for nothing if the broadcasters can’t get more content for their bucks.
It would seem to me that if the NRL is once again serious about expanding the competition from 2013, and David Gallop’s comments would suggest they are, they need to get a little proactive themselves to garner sufficient interest from potential new teams.
A failure by the NRL to guide prospective bids up to the same strength of argument that the Central Coast currently has could see broadcasters maintaining the status quo of sixteen clubs.
And if that were to happen, fans of the Bears – both old and new – would be screwed over yet again.