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Dear Davo Smithy, the other day I briefly discussed a divide which exists between the top and bottom Sydney clubs, a letter which triggered a healthy amount of discussion.
Since then Davo you have commented that in future struggling clubs could expect to receive special financial assistance, particular those in the west.
In response Sydney Roosters chairman Nick Politis indicated that Eastern Sydney is also in need of the NRL’s help, primarily because of lower junior participation and static club boundaries.
What I suggested in that original article was that, if after receiving additional time and support from the NRL that if these clubs were still languishing, then perhaps an intra-Sydney merger of two smaller teams to form a larger cross-Sydney club would be more advantageous than any other option.
The re-branded Eastern Sydney Sharks may indeed be able to address the issues that both teams face and be the city-wide club that both need to become.
But I’d also like to take some time to review some of the alternate proposals and comments that arose out of the discussion:
No teams should have been merged
A few people were actually calling for de-mergers.
In 2012 St George Illawarra and Wests Tigers were the fourth and fifth biggest-drawing Sydney clubs.
I suspect that would not have been the case if they had remained individual entities. Over the 80s-90s St George averaged 10,125, Illawarra 8500, Balmain 8417 and Western Suburbs 7403.
Are these really the kind of crowds people are suggesting the NRL should embrace?
Since 1999 the NRL crowd average has grown 17.8 percent – partly on the back of this consolidation.
If these clubs had grown by the same rate then the four clubs would be in the bottom six teams in the league and they may not have even survived as financial entities.
Abandoned areas will be incorporated by nearby clubs
It’s more likely to be a mix of responses. Some may find new clubs to follow and others may stop watching altogether.
It’s difficult to imagine the majority of one-eyed Sharks supporters suddenly donning Dragons colours, same for any rival club.
It also depends on the nearby club’s efforts into expanding into that abandoned turf.
For example, North Sydney has been without a club for over a decade and while Manly has done some work in expanding its boundaries it has hardly been a convincing conversion.
Scrap every Sydney club in the comp and redesign them from scratch
A major advantage of the NRL over other codes in Sydney is the multi-generational support of fans to their specific clubs.
While there are issues with Sydney clubs that may need to be addressed through changes such as mergers, entirely and willfully throwing out everything that has been built is likely a recipe for disaster.
Send struggling clubs permanently to a second-tier comp
People want to see their clubs battling against the best of the best. Will these supporters still bother to watch if they’re relegated to playing park football against Wentworthville?
And what about rugby league in general? Will the lack of a club to follow kill their interest in the NRL?
At least an axing is quick – relegation is like one long death rattle. But with a merger or relocation, the club in some shape or form will still be in the top professional tier and be there for fans to follow.
Set up a relegation league
Similar but different is the notion of a relegation league with clubs battling for re-inclusion to the big show.
The same issues arise during the relegation period in a club’s history – the down size in fan-base, finances, retaining players and the troubles in clawing it back afterwards.
There’s also the danger of further increasing the divide between the haves and have-nots. Also the question may arise – can the NRL afford to have a key strategic market relegated for an extended period?
Send a struggling club to a new expansion location
Likely a better option than relegation or extinction, several questions do arise though.
Will the non-heartland city be willing to adopt a so-called failed team?
Will the original fans be willing to support the relocated club if they no longer play games at their original home stadium and if the relocation felt like their club was stripped away from them?
If they don’t bother travelling to away games in Sydney now, why will they bother to do that for the relocated club?
There are too many unknowns to accurately answer those questions but that’s also why a merger – a club that still exists and plays out of the original home ground – could more than likely be a lower risk option.
After relocation a club could play all Sydney away games at its former home ground
A left-field idea which I also once suggested but very unlikely to be embraced the league as a whole.
In an ideal scenario it might work but unfortunately it would also effectively give that a club a season with up to 20 ‘home’ games.
It’s unlikely that any of the other Sydney clubs would agree to sacrifice home ground advantage and gates.
The alternative might be to the expand the competition by one round so that every team plays 12 home games, 12 away games and one ‘neutral’ other game (the majority of which could be at the old venue).
However again, that would require an entire consensus and would constitute additional player workload. Another alternative would be to go to 11 home games, 11 away games plus a neutral game but that would result in overall reduced revenues.
Fans of a merged club won’t travel across Sydney to see their own club at the other home venue
The best people to gauge this are the Wests Tigers and St George Illawarra fans. Last year these clubs were first and fifth in the league for away crowd support.
If they’re willing to go to other away games in Sydney then logic suggests that they do travel to their other home ground, even if in smaller numbers.
But a merger doesn’t depend on getting every Roosters fan to travel to Endeavour or vice-versa.
By reducing the number of games at each venue, fans are forced to consolidate their attendance over those fewer games.
Based on the previous mergers this tends to increase the home crowd averages at both venues (based on long term averages before and after home game reduction – Kogarah 45 percent, Wollongong 56 percent, Leichardt 73 percent, Campbelltown 80 percent).
Increasing home crowd averages obviously adds to the appeal of attending games. Based on individual attendance numbers the majority of rugby league fans attend three or fewer matches per season.
With six home games on offer at each venue the majority of fans are uninterrupted in their ability to attend home games.
There should be a financial reward for the two clubs that merge
For years there was a multi-million dollar reward on offer for any Sydney club that relocated.
Clearly this was to encourage a reduction in the number of metropolitan clubs while creating an opportunity in one new market.
An intra-Sydney merger effectively frees up one position for a new expansion location so why not offer a similar financial reward to the two Sydney clubs that merge?
If it meant that by the end of the decade that:
– There were six big Sydney clubs and only two small ones
– That we could have potentially expanded to the three most urgent bid markets
– Creating a stable 18-team national league
– While pouring in $15-20 million grassroots reward funding into Eastern and Southern Sydney
Then it should definitely be on the table for discussion.
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