A rugby league blueprint for the future

In the case of the Central Coast,it is also a case of reengaging the North sydney community (the Bears),which was disenfranchised with the expulsion of the Bears.In effect 700,000 people had no team to support,some and more likely a lot followed other codes.It happened with South Sydney,now they have the highest membership in the league. it is time to right awrong. They may well be converted on the CC,but in the Nth Sydney area they are probably rl agnostics ATM.At present that area does not have a ruugby league shop,supermarket or mall.Any marketeer in his right mind knows there is latent support(buyers) in that area. North Sydney at present is like a breached wall in fortress NRL.

I am baffled that so many people think an expansion team on the Central Coast is a good idea, here's why it doesnt make sense whatsoever to me: 1. Its so close to Sydney its not funny, its probably closer to Luna Park than Campbelltown is! Its another Sydney team virtually. 2. Its another NSW team. Qld deserves an exp team before NSW! And Qld teams always get better crowds. Qld pop 4.4 million: 3 NRL teams NSW-ACT pop 7.4 mill: 11 NRL teams Why do we need another NSW team?! There's nothing expansive about such a move. 3. The AFL is opening up 2 shops in the NRL's backyard...so let's respond by...setting up one in our backyard?! 4. Youre preaching to the converted, these people already watch NRL. It wont add to the value of future TV rights deals. 5. Gosford is small, at best the region has a pop. of 300,000. Perth has 1.6 mill and Adelaide 1.1 - lets aim to convert those hearts, minds and wallets to league. 6. The Bears have passed, resurrecting them would be great...but little ol' Gosford?!?!

18 teams for 2013.Why? The monies available from any new Tv contract will be needed to up the ante on club salary caps plus the two additonal sides.I like the idea of 20 plus teams that that will be 2018 IMO. The idea of reducing the number of Sydney teams(unless one goes down the (gurgler)is ludicrous.Do we need to give competing codes another free kick.Few seem to have learned of the damage done by the SL war. The Sharks seem to bear the brunt of suggested moves.That is a very last resort.On Sunday they played St George in a local derby,Close on 17,000 in attendance,despite the Sharks being at the bottom of the ladder.Crowds between these two rivalry clubs have always been among the best at suburban grounds.Given a more competitive Sharks team,it would have been a 20,000 sellout.The club is not out of the woods ,yet but has had a huge financial turnaround which is a plus. The club has one of the biggest numbers of rl juniors in Sydney.The club is moved or chopped,where do you thnk some of these kids will go,more than likely other codes.Rugby league has a habit of shooting itself in the foot,chopping clubs is but another example of history not beeing heeded. I like these fans that sit back and with the stroke of a pen move team A to Vladivostok and team B goes to 2nd division .Of course their own team remains firmly planted in situ.

Of course the Rebels may draw larger crowds than the Storm initially, until the novelty of seeing countless penalty goals, countless reforming of the scrums and lots of kicking for touch wears off. The Storm is still drawing crowds in excess of 10,000 even though they can gain no points and it is most unlikely that these people will withdraw their support to follow a Rugby Union side with very few name players.

In my original post in my list of 20 teams I included Central Coast. I agree they should be the first one's back in. I think they are owed that in the wake of the disastrous Northern Eagles experiment where they got totally shafted. Never fear the bear will indeed be there.

The Bears will have a business plan second to none.. and has been worked on constantly..but all will be revealed in due time.. our bid gets tabled next march with the NRL..in june next year we hope to have a decision.(if not sooner) Beware the Bears.. 1 million population without a team to call their own.or represent this area of the North shore and the central coast combined.doesn't make sense does it..?? Leichhardt oval yesterday 19.500 spectators.. the one game planned for the heritage round at NSO when the Bears play the sea eagles..expect 20 000 there each year for that annual game..and every home game at gosford will have 15-20 thousand every second week.. Toyota cup played their first round at NSO ever on saturday as the curtiain raiser to the Bears/Bulldogs game.. in the NSW cup.. next week melbourne and bunnies U/20s will fight it out at NSO as the curtain raiser to the NSW cup game between the Bears and the Storm..things are happening.. and they will continue to happen on a regular basis..

and where will you put my team in the mix.. coz you know the BEAR will be THERE.. :-)

Hey Midfielder, I still think the PNG bid team has some big hurdles to climb and they are all about money - mostly the lack of it. While they undoubtably have a good size population that are mad about their league, their disposable income is basically non-existant on a per capita basis - size aside they are not an altogether attractive market for media or advertisers. The other side is a little more on the ethical side, should we be encouraging them to build stadiums, finance a team bid and then spend millions running a football club in our marketplace when a huge percentage of their population lives in poverty? I know that risks sounding a bit hypocritical (after all our country isn't perfect and we arguably have better things to spend our money on too) and who am I to tell them where to spend their money... Wouldn't we do better though giving them some money each year to help run their own national compeition, on their own financial level.

As indicated in my earlier post I think split into conferences would be good but the problem with 4 smaller ones of 4-5 teams is the unfair result of massive travel for teams going to Bris, Nth Qld and NZ compared to say West Sydney clubs who only have to go a few kms around town. At least in a truely national comp with 2 large conferences Sydney teams would have to make regular trips to Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide etc. While I agree with many on this forum that most of these ideas at the moment are pie in the sky stuff and perhaps the player pool is a bit too thin - in the future with continued high ratings and a bigger tv deal (2 more games a week wouldn't hurt there) who knows. Some radical ideas is just what could give the sport the kick along it needs. Yes maybe the Central Qld team may not have the population - so the Sunny coast then? There should be at least 5 Qld teams. Maybe a team from Port Moresby - it is the national sport after all.

The Central Coast Bears are a shoe-in provided the TV rights deal is as large as is likely reported - they already have a stadium, admin, coach, jersey, nearly 2,000 financial members, a popular & nationally recognised brand (Bear) and extensive sponsorship so that they will not be a drain on any existing NRL teams. Remember the Bears were the second most watched team in the 1990's - good TV appeal. The Central Coast has proved itself over 10 years by consistently well over 10,000 attending crap games scheduled by the NRL with no local team to support. With their own team they will attract 15-20,000 guaranteed, and extinguish the increasing threats of soccer and Aussie Rules in their catchment area of Central Coast/North Shore, which comprises 1 million people (20% of NSW without a team....incorporating the 3rd largest area of junior rugby league in Australia). PLUS with so many old North Sydney fans to add to the mix, for away games in Sydney and Newcastle they will bring 5-10,000 fans to add to the coffers of existing teams. PLUS these NSW teams will not have to pay for airfares to play away, hence lower costs/risks for all. PLUS a chance for the NRL to re-write a hideous wrong when Norths were turfed at the end of the Super League war. The Bears in reality should be one of the first 3 or 4 sides in any NRL competition - hence they will be first choice in expansion along with Perth. CQld and a second Brisbane side 3 years thereafter.

You maximize cash by selling TV rights - that is the biggest source of money for any sporting league. Now if you make the TV product attractive it rates and sells. And the NRL can make more money if its able to unbundle its various TV products - SOO, Tests, regular season games, finals series, the GF itself. If they can auction these off and score a sweet deal then they will be rolling in cash. Hopefully enough to start attracting the best rugby talent.

I don't think we need to make any new teams yet when we have to many sydney teams, move sharks to S A and move roosters to W A. Maybe the bulldogs to brisbane or central QLD. This way sydney supporters can still see the sharks, roosters and dogs playing each week(like brisbane lions). Central Coast is to close to Sydney to have a team, get in a car and drive to a game ,alternative you could move another sydney team there. I don't think NZ is ready for another team yet maybe to grow the game, when we have state of origin they should have north vs south. Teams that have relocated should have a bigger salary cap to help them get started.

I think conferences are the wrong idea, for many reasons, but in general because it seems to be trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Just because something works for the NFL doesn't mean it will work here, the situations are completely different. The NRL is fare more centralised than the NFL. Any split of the Sydney teams will be difficult as will the decision of where to put the non-Sydney teams. How is NZ a local rival of North Queensland, but St George is not a local rival of Canterbury? It doesn't make sense. In truth, there are no natural conferences, so anything you create will be artificial and lack any real meaning. What is the point?

It's the difference between the game making money to compete with other codes, and falling to a second rate competition. AFL and NFL are poor examples, as there is no competition for the players they have, other than at junior level. League has market forces of the ESL and Rugby Union offering attractive dollars to move on, and the game needs to maximise the cash it can generate to ensure the better talents stay in Australia, that said, no matter what you do, the attractiveness of a new challenge, or just money itself will see some leave.

Dogs of War, selling off naming rights for a conference is an unappealing idea. We already have diabolical amounts of sponsorship coating every surface or concept in the NRL. it cheapens it and makes it look like it needs handouts. Contrast this to the AFL or NFL and u see little or zero sponsorship cluttering things up like the field, jerseys, corner posts, goalposts, referees, etc

My last proposal that I would like to see, and it's controversial, is the NRL split into conferences. I wrote an article for another site (though I was limited to 750 words at the time, and can't be bothered expanding it now!). Building the foundations for the future. The NRL has been stealing ideas for the game from their American cousins in the NFL for years, things such as the video referee where introduced over there first, before being brought to the NRL, so why stop there? One of the best things about the NFL, is the conference system, which sees you grouped with local teams (well as local as it can get in America), building rivalries amongst these teams. These matchups tend to be the most anticipated matchups of the season, and the NRL should be looking to take a leaf out of there book, to help revitalise the game, not just in Sydney, but around Australia. Currently the NRL has a de facto conference system, it is just that it changes every year as it is based on the finishing position from the previous year, so what is needs to happen is to set these groups in stone to maximise crowds and minimise travelling where possible. As well the current NRL system, can be farcical already, with well performing teams the previous year (ie Bulldogs and Cowboys), turning around and become the easy beats the next year. A conference system would provide some much needed transparency to the draw. For starters, I would probably suggest groups of 4 for conferences. Each conference could play home and away internally (6 games), and also all the other conferences once (12 games), with a rotating system that sees them play one of the other conferences twice in a season (for 4 more games). Which means clubs will have 22 matches a season. As far as conferences go, I would suggest something like this. Northern Conference North Queensland Brisbane Gold Coast New Zealand Western Conference Wests Penrith Parramatta Canterbury Southern Conference Canberra St George Melbourne Cronulla Eastern Conference Sydney City Newcastle Souths Sydney Manly The other bonus is that like the NFL, clubs would then be able to call themselves champ of the local rivalries by being the best team within the division championship. As well you have a team from each region qualifying for the finals, which nearly guarantees a team from QLD is involved in the finals, one from West Sydney etc. And if the NRL ever expands, new teams can be placed within a conference (or the conferences readjusted, to maximise local rivalries). Not to mention that teams like Melbourne, would suddenly have traditional rivals, and I believe there supporters would find this appealing, and look forward to the matches against teams within there conference knowing that a guaranteed finals spot is on the line every time they face these teams. And on the other side of the equation, you get matchups like Bulldogs vs Parramatta, which will bring a huge amount of support when these teams are playing for a chance at a wildcard spot. As far as the finals would go, the finalists would be the 4 conference winners, plus the next best 4 teams based on win loss record. The intricacies of that could be worked out later. Another bonus is that you can make the intra division games near the start of the season (so within the first 6 rounds), and towards the end of the season (last 6 games), so that these clashes draw huge crowds as the contenders and pretenders are sorted out, and it guarantees that these games at the end of season are teams playing off for a finals position, something that isn't guaranteed at the moment. Other possibilities include new income streams for the NRL, via selling off naming rights for the Divisions (do I hear a Harvey Norman Western Conference anyone?), as well as once Origin is starting to lose it’s appeal (which is unlikely in the short term), a move to an all star Conference game, where the best players within each conference represent the conference. I am sure that there are plenty of other things that have been missed, but putting in place the framework of something like this, which places the local rivalries as the most important element of the game, and in doing so, maximises the value of the game within Sydney, as well as the rest of the county, would see the NRL with a much more marketable product, and one that brings that tribal feel back to the NRL. So come on NRL, it’s time to build the foundations for the game that will take it to the next level. Conferences can be that foundation.

Also going back to an idea I have had previously, all teams need to give up one home game each season. The NRL would underwrite these games, and take them to areas which don't currently have a team. I know some teams (like mine) take games away already, but it really needs to be done with purpose, rather than a wild chase for cash. This would allow the NRL to create Rugby League carnivals around Origin time when crowds are at there lowest, but interest at it's highest. Having the ability to take 3-4 games to Perth, Adelaide, Wellington, Darwin etc, would help grow interest in the code in areas where it has minimal presense, and the NRL could be able to work out better deals with govt/stadium owners to help share the cost of underwriting the games (Similar to what the AFL does).

If Perth gets a team, we need to do a AFL..give them a 'promotion' cap and with 3rd parties, allow them to sign Buddy Franklin..imagine the 'free publicity' ;)

Agree with the Central QLD as a no go. Better off with the odd fixture being played out that way, and rather a second Brisbane team established to shore up the support of the code in Brisbane, and have Suncorp have a game every weekend (Not to mention more Queensland teams playing each other, and another team who can share Friday nights for the Queensland TV Audience.)

We dont have the funding to have 21 teams. The real goal here is to have each NRL club so cashed up that they draw the best talent from rugby and AFL. So you cant expand UNTIL the finances are right. Perth is a must because that is a market of 1.6 million ppl. Rockhampton is an absurd idea - that place is tiny and North Qld have never been a powerhouse...I fear another Qld team would dilute the talent further. I only favor expanding to Perth. You can convert hearts, minds and wallets to league. Why expand to Rockhampton where they already watch league...talk about preaching to the converted.