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The current tangent taken by opponents of the Central Coast bid, that there are already a surfeit of teams in Sydney that Central Coast residents can readily access, is possibly the biggest fallacy in expansion discussions today.
Other contrarian opinions include the thought a Central Coast team will dilute the fan-base and sponsor availability from existing teams, and that a cashed-up Newcastle can cover the Coast.
Actual travel times debunk the myth about Central Coast proximity. If people believe south-east Queensland is competing with the Central Coast for one expansion slot, note that it is far easier to travel from Ipswich to Suncorp, or Brisbane to the Gold Coast, than it is from Gosford to Brookvale or the SFS, the two ‘closest’ grounds to the Central Coast.
Via public transport it is under one hour from Brisbane to the Gold Coast or Ipswich to Suncorp. By comparison it is over two hours from Gosford to the SFS and nearly two and a half hours to Brookvale. Even to Newcastle’s Energy Australia Stadium is over one and a half hours from Gosford.
Therefore, residents of south-east Queensland already have two teams they can readily access by public transport, while the Central Coast have none. And public transport times, not car or direct kilometres, are the key to NRL plans, as mentioned by David Gallop.
The easy mass movement of fans is the only way to ensure potential mass support for a franchise.
In terms of sponsors, the vast majority of sponsor dollars are coming from Bear heartland in northern Sydney. These companies will not sponsor Manly (and vice-versa to be fair) and hence Manly are not ‘missing out’ on corporate support, while Newcastle effective immediately are in no need of hand-holding.
The Bears are accessing corporates who will only involve themselves with rugby league if a team is called the Bears and play in red and black.
Therefore if the NRL are attracted to the calibre of sponsors the Bears will bring to the table (many of whom are publicly unknown at this stage), they will be made fully aware that they will withdraw from the game if the Bears are not admitted.
Overall, it would bring a net gain of sponsors to the game. The North Sydney-Chatswood-Nth Ryde triangle represents the third-largest corporate zone in Australia and is currently unrepresented.
In direct contrast, the multitude of south-east Queensland bids out there continue to cannibalise each other in the search for corporate support.
The NRL’s Broncos and Titans, A-League’s Roar and Gold Coast United, AFL’s Lions and Suns, and union’s Reds are also competing for the relatively small south-east Queensland corporate pool, and the Titans are a new and fragile entity.
It will be a challenge for these south-east Queensland bid teams to convince the NRL they will have no difficulty securing sufficient corporate support over a long timeframe, and that they will not harm the Broncos or Titans.
The advantage the Bears have with fans, as Souths have proved, is that traditional multi-generational fans will not switch teams. To say that northern Sydney people would simply follow Manly or another team is a myth.
Instead, they have switched codes to union and AFL – to do otherwise would betray their roots and community identity.
This process would escalate should the Bears bid be rejected. David Gallop estimates the loss at over 40,000 thus far. To increase NRL patronage in New South Wales the only option is to include the Bears.
As for the Central Coast, the Northern Eagles debacle ensured that Manly would never be widely popular on the Coast – it took the Bears, despite their historic ties to the region, 10 years of community involvement to gain acceptance.
South-east Queensland bid teams by contrast will have to convince the NRL they are not diluting the fan base from the Broncos or Titans – a difficult task to prove.
Nathan Tinkler’s buy-out removes the perception that Newcastle was a financially weak club in need of protection. Newcastle and the Bears would have a competitive friction exactly like the Mariners and Jets, between two distinct regional communities.
Both will be energetic and local community-focused franchises – dream NRL models.
Nathan Tinkler has said he wants to turn everywhere north of Manly into Knights territory, but to do that he would have to play at least half the Knights home games at Gosford and change the colours to red and black, as well as being called the Bears when playing in Sydney.
For someone that is appealing to the close knit community of Newcastle, this won’t happen – makes for good PR however, which was the whole point. The Knights will be concentrating their resources in the untapped region north of Newcastle up to Coffs Harbour, not south. That’s Bear territory.
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