Expansion means you can't always preach to the converted

The IC should support this to the hilt - up to and including guaranteeing the players get paid, and covering air fares.

PNG is likely to have a fully professional club in the Queensland Cup next season. http://www.pncpng.com/pdf/20120514_pma_pnc_pr_media_alert_rugby_league_bid.pdf

Like to see the Queensland comp rise again be good if they could get crowds of 2000-5000.

Is there anything to lose with PNG entering the comp? a few games in Darwin a year to spark some interest from the indigenous community up there and a country that loves its league and can field basically there national team without breaking its salary cap. This would make for an even more interesting 4 nations! maybe just in time for Genia to make a league switch towards the end of his career and do something great for his country. If the league was going to expand I think a draft system would help the less established clubs get players of quality without the fans losing out from the established clubs by letting their stars go! If we are to expand to a place like Perth or where ever the team needs to be decent enough to get wins. No one likes to watch a team get smashed week in week out eg Gold Coast Suns & GWS.

One beleives the Internecine sniping Is unavoidable given the NRLs limited pot of money to share around. Difficult to know how to resolve that unless clubs can look beyond self Interest.

Hate to mention it Gullivar but, if it took you 8 paragraphs to get to the point, you are lucky those coasti's did not steel a lung to sell on the black market because they could of by the time you had gotten to the point of defending yourself. As for your question when are newcomers going to see new sports, the answer is when they want to, and how can we tell that? by the dollars they spend, the gaes they play and the games they watch on TV/ attend in person/ memberships they buy. Why take the Sharks from Cronulla, their are Schools their that had teams with reserves for their 5th grade RL comp prior to Super league and are now getting back to the same strength. Manly may not be a place for growth with juniors in RL but, it is a club that is strong enough to bring stability to the game, they are the only Sydney club that have never been pushed around by any vested interest and love them or mostly hate them, what they bring has been very important for the greater good of RL. Back to Gullivar and his simplistic irrelevant travel is that when you expand their must be interest and ROOM in the market that you are expanding into. There is room in QLD & NSW for another team, there is not in for example Tasmania no matter what anyone says.

The next TV deal will be signed in less than a year and not even the Brisbane bombers have a business plan on the table left alone members. No QLD club is ready and therefore no TV organization will take them seriously and the same goes for Perth. Ironically the only expansion club adding value to the TV deal is the one club that this article was clearly set against, the Central Coast Bears bid. The Bears have 8000 financial members, a drawing area of over a million fans (uncontested by VFL), 7000 Juniors in that area and, a $5m signed commitment from corporate sponsors. With 2 leagues clubs making a post operating profit of over $7m each the Bears are clearly an amazing opportunity that are not permitted to be given a chance. The reason they are not in the competition is because the license was given to the now bankrupt Titans, this was in the name of geographical expansion. The NRL may not have been wrong but, with all of their current vested interests they are paralyzing themselves as they are pulled by the interests of QRL, NSWRL and NEWS corp, meaning they have ltd options. No team near Brisbane will be allowed as the share price of BBL would fall (owners NEWS ltd, do not care what happens after 12 months they need stock price rises or a greater return to investment at every half yearly and particularly AGM). QLDRL will strongly object to any perceived NSWRL team being entered. As for other teams well they are all a joke. A League showed us how reliable Billionaires are. So QGIRL it appears that based on your $100m estimated addition to the TV contract you are in fact in support of the Bears bid as there is no reason this team should not enter the NRL.

NEWS don't have to recruit a 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade team to play for the club championship trophy. This takes the heart out of the game but, it means when they do the sums it is worth spending $23m a year on the storm to up fox TV connections in the South so that when the NBN arrives Telstra will hold their share in fox and with the AFL channel doing well NEWS may no longer need the Storm. Therefore the Storm will be sold soon (pending the success of the AFL footy channel) or just negotiated back to the NRL for a good price (as it will be worth nothing without the support of NEWS) that should equal nothing but, will amount to millions. Until then Fox footy channel really starts to bring in the subscribers we are stuck with a compulary game in Melbourne no matter if it is good for the game or not.

We ought to take more Origin games on the road, not less. Melbourne, Perth, Auckland, anywhere that the game can make a dollar and an impression. Rugby league has a sad history of being parochial and disinterested on moving outside its heartlands. Meanwhile those heartlands are shrinking. North Sydney largely lost to rugby, afl posts coming to dominate the south of nsw, etc. Take our game on the road. Let new fans discover a new game! Melbourne is so monolithic in its devotion to afl that i am sure that a large segment of sports lovers would love to have an extra option! And as for expansion, let's not butcher another Sydney club. The murder and cannibalisation of the bears was enough. Expand gradually to Perth, 2nd Brisbane, Wellington, where ever. Just do it on the back of planning, painstaking development and when you do expand, stick to it. Show the same commitment to new franchises that afl has shown in it's expansion. The rewards won't be immediate, but they will be incredibly worthwhile. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.

As I said there were circumstances surrounding most of the clubs that folded, Superleague. The point is that once the NRL decide to expand they must stand by the new club, even if it takes 20 years. As they say once biten, twice shy.

Full page ads in the DT and plugs on Tv and radio,did little to fill Skoda for the very first game at the redeveloped stadium.It is not the first time the Swans have advertised heavily in the DT,and the crowds remain fairly static this year at best. NRL crowds in Sydney have not been that brilliant either,so culling teams is hardly going to boost the game's popularity.

It's this dots on a map mentality that I think is most misled. I really do not think it does any one any god to lose any teams as is. Just because there are loads of teams in Sydney ain't necessarily a bad thing.

Us Queenslanders wouldn't take kindly to our Queensland Cup being torn up.

I think another 1 or 2 teams in Brisbane would be ideal, but I would prefer it if the QRL, ARLC and NRL worked harder at making the Queensland Cup a professional competition. I'd like to see a couple of Queensland Cup matches televised on Saturdays and Sundays, each in the afternoon before the NRL. If a network paid just $1,000,000 a year for the rights (plus coverage costs) then that's money that could go towards the clubs and grassroots football. Small stands should be erected at the grounds of the clubs so that fans can watch the game in comfort. Not all people have the skin-- or the patience -- to sit in the sun. Allocate some of the money from the TV deal to the Queensland Cup clubs so that the players on the roster can become full time athletes. If a player was paid $15,000 to $20,000 a season to play in the Queensland Cup then players from PNG, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga would be lining up play in the competition. Some would change their sport of choice just to play in it. Fringe players from Queensland and NSWwho will never get a contract with an NRL club would finally have a chance to make a living from the game they love. Many of the juniors who drop out of rugby league due to knowing they will never make it in the NRL might be inclined to stay if there's a chance of earning a living in the Queensland Cup. If it's all done right then I can see clubs like Wynnum Manly and Easts drawing an average 5,000 to each game. The Northern Pride could easily draw 10,000 to 15,000 -- they plan on having over 5,000 club members this yea, which is more than some Sydney NRL clubs. The Central Capras and Mackay Cutters could be just as successful as the Pride. The talent pool would double in size if the Queensland Cup was made a professional competition. Having 12 professional clubs in the Queensland Cup, each with 25 or so full-time athletes who do nothing but play and train all week, would provide players on the fringe of the NRL a chance to develop their skills and harden themselves in a high quality competition BEFORE they reach the top level.

The Chargers and Titans are the only ARL/NRL teams that have been based on the Gold Coast. People either don't know or forget that the Chargers made a profit during the Super League era. The only reason they were culled by the ARL was to make way for the Sydney clubs. The merger between News Ltd and ARL meant the 22 teams at the end of 1997 needed to be reduced to 14 by 2000, and there was already a lot of animosity in Sydney about clubs being forced to merge, so they decided to get rid of another Queensland team. The Seagulls, Giants and Gladiators were based in Tweed Heads, NSW.

Qgirl, Yes, but it doesnt. Its the week-in, week-out grind that funds such things, so I'd suggest the NRL should get it's act together and get several teams into Brisbane.

How many of those fans at Etihad Stadium were tourists from Queensland and NSW? If Brisbane had a 200,000 seat stadium then it would draw a sell out crowd for Origin.

A second Brisbane team will add an extra $100,000,000 to the next TV deal. Money that can be spent on the other clubs, as well as grassroots rugby league across the country.

Milz, I love my Tigers :)

Ian the same could be said of you. A weird obsession with K Hunt and the Bangladeshi cricket team as a start.