Should the NRL adopt a relegation system? (Part 2)

I'm a bit late on this one, but thought I'd add my 2 cents from a business standpoint as there is something no one has raised and that is the potential threat to market share that the NRL would face. It's my day off, so this is going to get a little long, but bear with me William and please understand this isn't any sort of attack on you. I'm just giving you my view from a perspective others haven't raised. In pommy soccer they have such vast dominance of their sporting landscape at a club level that the promotion-relegation system doesn't threaten any critical markets they're contesting. They own London, and dominate the majority of the rest of the country too. In short, as a football market England and the EPL is like America for coffee with Starbucks; sure there are other players, but none of them come close to the big one. So from a business standpoint, there is a certain logic to promotion relegation, even if it doesn't provide anything positive in the way of competitiveness at the elite level (indeed, this years EPL is an aberration in terms of competitiveness - for the past 20 odd years only 4 teams have won it, and only 5 sides have traded the top 3 positions). Australia is a VASTLY more brutal and competitive football market from a business standpoint, split more or less down the middle between the NRL and the AFL, with the AFL having a slight edge and Union and soccer picking up the scraps. The NRL is doing well, but at the same time it is in a precarious position; eschewing expansion into critical markets like Perth in order to stabilise existing heartland clubs out of fear the encroaching presence of AFL will exploit any weakness (and they now have 2 teams in both NSW and Qld). I saw somebody on the last article refer to the NRL as "communist", but such thinking is to misunderstand what the NRL is, and what it essentially is is a single entertainment service competing against a very well organised competitor in the same space. So you have to view it not from a club perspective, where misguided and business-ignorant types like Peter Fitzsimmons (much as I love him) bang on about the cap being restraint of trade, but from a whole of game standpoint. If you take that view, then the evenness of the competition and the survival of existing clubs in critical markets is paramount for the survival of the product. If the NRL were to introduce promotion-relegation like the poms, then it would risk losing a presence in strategically critical single team markets like Melbourne, Auckland, or even Brisbane. Given the increasingly poly-codal nature of the footballing fan base in this country, this would very much be a zero-sum game; the NRL's loss in these regions would be the other codes' gain as the fan base would go and support their local AFL, Super Rugby or A-League side. Even considering the challenges of sponsorship, the current juniors structure with feeder sides in the lower grades and all the other things people raised, above all else it's the fight for survival with the AFL that the NRL is engaged in that makes the very idea of promotion relegation a business strategy simply would risk giving up more territory to the AFL without any discernible benefits for the NRL. That they do it in the English Super League is a little bizarre to me, but frankly English Rugby League is a very very badly run business in my view (they've spent 36 years trying to build a presence in a massive market like London, but have never got it remotely working) and if they had any sense they wouldn't have promotion and relegation in their system.

Many clubs still haven't signed up to renew their licences!

Absolutely meaningless insult Will. You've put forward one of the poorest conceived, ill thought out articles I've ever read on the Roar. You've backed it up for some unknown reason with a part 2 that hasn't addressed any of the criticisms of part 1. If you're going to put this dross in the public domain you need to expect that people will respond. When you've put no more than 35 seconds thought into it you can't expect those responses to be positive.

Hahahahaha.... Why are you arcing up? That's a perfectly reasonable, rational response to someone calling for Sydney teams to be axed. Whether or not someone has played sport is irrelevant in responding to these ill thought out articles. It's not like youre critiquing a match where someone's expertise is key. Childish response to say get a life when you're the person who has put this dross in the public domain.

“Worst idea since someone said ‘yeah let’s take this suspiciously large wooden horse into Troy, statues are all the rage this season’.”

I love this!!! Don't immediately fall in love with the loosest, least thought out inefficient, ineffective, flush your money down the toilet, destroy three tiers of the game proposal that's ever been mooted and you have your head in the sand. Brilliant! "At least the author is trying". Trying everyone's patience. PNG and Adelaide want teams. Quick...cut teams with existing fan bases, sponsors and junior leagues to get them in!! Brilliant!

Really?

The funniest thing to me is that last year Newcastle would have been in the relegation match as well as the promotion match... Do we really want Penrith and Windsor in the comp at the same time, or two teams called Canterbury Bulldogs, or St George Illawarra and Illawarra Cutters. The NSW Cup is a bunch of teams representing very similar areas to existing NRL teams...

There is also the simple contractual obligation that the NRL has to provide x amount of content for the broadcasters during the life of the contract. If a club goes under because of mismanagement, the NRL loses and so the cost of providing loans etc to poorly run clubs becomes a small cost to pay in order to stave off any possible litigation. But then, that is why the NRL is introducing new funding requirements so as to avoid such situations in the future.

true. i totally forgot about all this, NRL in crisis! the sky is falling! the redcoats are coming!

I would like to see the QLD and NSW cups combined and this is where you bring in Perth, a second NZ team, maybe even a second PNG team, Melbourne, Adelaide, The bears...

The reason the NRL supports clubs that are doing poorly financially is because despite the fact that the club themselves aren't making money, they make money for the NRL by having a lot of supporters. A club like the Dragons needs NRL support because they are mismanaged, not because they have no value. It would need to get to a point where the club has no value to anyone before they are booted, and the club that takes their place would need to add value as well.

i personally think the number of Sydney clubs has to come down , and a side in Perth is a MUST. it is a business and the ones that always needs extra hand outs all the Time go ,or maybe Relocated.also a 2nd Brisbane team.

I don't think that's a fair assessment at all. Your premise seems to be that: A) the NRL needs to admit another 7 teams B) that in order to do this, we need to get rid of existing teams. I think the NRL can stand to admit another 2 teams, perhaps even a further 2 much later down the track. But how many new fans or dollars do these teams add that justify the potentially catastrophic losses of culling or demoting teams? Any change to the current structure or format needs to happen organically. Why do we need to go around making high-risk changes to what works now for the sake of a problem that doesn't exist yet (perhaps never will)? If we ever reach a point in this country where Rugby League is so popular that there are enough fans to sustain two divisions and enough players to make both divisions entertaining, nobody would be happier than me. But it's just unrealistic to suggest that having pro/rel now is needed or wanted. The author is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. To disagree with him is not "burying our heads in the sand." Everyone has been very reasoned in explaining why they think it won't work.

There is a problem. There are consortiums from Central Coast, Perth, CQLD, NZ, probably Adelaide, PNG, not to mention SE Qld needs at least another two teams. It seems a mass culling or relocation of Sydney teams could allow some of these teams in. However, I doubt anyone wants a repeat of the Souths removal or even the North Sydney removal. So. A mass re-structure, mass cull or promotion/relegation seem to be inevitable. Or we can just pretend it's still the 1980s and bury our heads in the sand. At least the author is trying. Everyone else here seems happy to just pretend everything is perfect.

It's a shame the author isn't here to address everybody's criticism with "well, it's only a rough idea" as he was so vocal about doing yesterday.

x3