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2013 has seen a gigantic influx of resources flooding rugby league, which demand proactivity and clarity from our new administrators.
We need no more than seven teams in Sydney to begin with, allowing for Perth and another Brisbane team to enter in 2018. The easy way to solve this is by asking which teams have the best brands and can be the most consistently competitive.
Based on that criteria, there are some clear untouchables: Bulldogs, Eels, Roosters, Rabbitohs, Dragons, Sea Eagles.
The Tigers are a terrific brand but, as we’ve seen recently, are a second-tier team economically.
The Panthers have a strong junior base but don’t have a national brand compared to other Sydney teams. They are also isolated geographically, making it difficult to move to ANZ Stadium.
Furthermore, the club’s crowds have been pathetic this year, given what a pleasant surprise the team has been.
Cronulla are still a question mark from every standpoint: their inability to compete for the premiership on a consistent basis (they’re yet to even win one since entering the competition in 1967), questionable support outside of the Shire and, like Penrith, they’re isolated – it’s hard to see the team’s fans making the trek to ANZ on a regular basis.
One could put Manly in that boat, however there are obvious differences.
Since the ’70s, the Sea Eagles have won premierships in every decade. The team has always been able to compete financially and its following in its local area is stronger than either Penrith or Cronulla – not to mention the power of its brand outside of Sydney.
It’s hard to see a justification for an 18-team competition based on the lack of parity and talent we’ve seen this year. That means relocation or mergers.
Let’s leave aside mergers for the moment (not that they should be ruled out) and focus on the advantages of relocation.
The NRL must be willing to invest in the NSW Cup so fans of any club relocated can still support their team locally.
Those teams can serve as viable feeder clubs for their NRL franchise. The primary objective here must be to retain every possible fan who loses their team at the NRL level.
The other advantage of relocation, besides having ready-made feeder clubs, is the retention of the history and identity associated with that club.
American sports franchises have been doing this successfully for 50 years ever since the Brooklyn Dodgers moved 3000 miles to Los Angeles – closely followed by their neighbours the Giants moving to San Fransisco.
It’s time for one of our Sydney teams to move almost as far, to Perth. And while this will infuriate and astound many readers, my vote would be for the Wests Tigers.
The Tigers’ brand would be exciting to Perth’s population. The team already has ‘west’ in the title; while this seems a triviality, the idea of a ‘western’ team becoming ‘West Coast’ is a transition that makes sense.
Wests Tigers would remain as a NSW Cup team, playing out of Campbelltown with an occasional trip to Leichhardt.
Remember, any choice will have a cost. The question is how to make a team in a new area profitable.
There may also be ancillary benefits from a club’s reduced presence in Sydney, with players pushed out of that market and into expansion teams’ rosters.
You may ask why not Penrith?
Unlike Cronulla, which cannot expand due to its adjacence to the territories of Souths and the Dragons, Penrith could expand its borders to encompass a larger region that, over the long term, could encompass Campbelltown and neighbouring suburbs as a west Sydney team.
The same could not said for a Tigers team trying to cover the north west – it’s hard to see Panthers fans showing up to Centrebet to watch the Tigers.
On the flip side, it’s important to remember Wests only moved to Campbelltown in 1987. The NRL must consider the possibility that current Wests fans (especially younger supporters) would support a new team covering both their immediate area and Penrith – especially if a new western Sydney stadium were built between the two locations.
Some might raise the apparent contradiction of fans supporting Wests Tigers at the NSW Cup level and the Panthers in the NRL. In the early stages, I’d foresee a western or West Sydney Panthers team playing maybe three games at Campbelltown, at the most.
It would be a gradual process. The priority would be to maintain the strength of the junior base around Campbelltown and proceed from there.
Moving bigger games to ANZ Stadium (and including a member-swap/discount system, whereby members of other clubs based at ANZ can attend at greatly discounted price) must be in the mix. This would be a reality if a west Sydney team covered a wider area.
Along those lines, Parramatta and the Dragons must also move all their local derbies and games against the better expansion teams to ANZ, save for three or four games a year at Wollongong.
Despite the complaints of a lack of atmopshere, it is impossible to grow crowds at suburban venues. The complaint that “20,000 at ANZ is worse than 13,000 at Kogarah” must be put to rest for good. We need to raise the ceiling of possibility when it comes to attendance and there is but one way to do that.
So there it is: West Coast Tigers. West Sydney or Western Panthers; Souths, Parramatta, St George-Illawarra, Canterbury at ANZ, the Roosters at Allianz and Manly remaining as the sole full-time suburban team – at least until there is a high-speed underground rail that can get Sea Eagles fans to Allianz is less than half a day.
Will these changes alienate some in the short term? Maybe. But it’s a price worth paying – that must be paid – to improve our competition and move it forward.
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