Time for the NRL to expand and grow the game

Not what i stated Deucer.I stated the vast majority( ie)not all) of games at Spotless.Even with no club in existence. A big difference.They play at the ACT also.They also had no war to contend with ,as a turnoff for fans. I'm not arguing points about memberships being affected by poor performances, that happens,I accept that view.That will happen with the Storm and no doubt the Swans Fudging has happened also in the NRLand conversely at times appears understated .

Dropped the ‘moi’ bill?

Whats propping the Cronulla club up boys? Another $2.5 million dollar loss! How good is it going? About as good as International Rugby League

Yes, I accept the crowd average in Perth was 13,000 and therefore comparable to giants crowds now, but that is not what you stated before - you claimed the NRL crowds in Perth now were far larger than giants crowds. I wouldn't like to comment if crowd figures are fudged - think it diminishes credibility if caught, but giants do give out a lot of free tickets, so that should be factored in (although in fairness the Storm do 2 for 1 promotions). Memberships are good for both teams, but both have been winning a lot - especially the Storm. It would be interesting if either team had a fallow time like the Lions or Suns, then you would see the true fan support.

His name is ‘GOGWS’ and he is an AFL fanboy. That says it all.

Still pushing your agenda in NRL threads. NRL games are ticketed.A recent game between Cronulla and Dragons had the "official;' crowd at around 14,000.Yet the stadium was close to full with a capacity off nigh on 18,500-19,000.I bee to games in the past ,when crowd announcements looked well over. BTW all codes have their share of freebies. It's not just me with GWS crowds,whenever they are posted ,you even get AFL fans in Melbourne laughing at the figures.Suggesting a stadium is half full when its luck to be 1/4 full.Pictures don;t lie.If one knows a stadium capacity. I find zero comfort in bagging other codes(I find it unworthy of debate) as I .played two additional codes in my youth.I post here because I follow rugby league, and I call out BS and falsehoods when I see them, es you should in AFL threads. Then again few if any rl fans bother to push rl agendas on those threads.Ask me how many times I've been pushing the rl barrow on your threads.Zot !! I respond to posts by people with well known code agendas, who make assumptions without fact checking, and get it wrong If that makes you feel good ,that you supposedly showed those "leaguies a thing or two, then good luck.Your original post was full of holes, and I responded accordingly. BTW a fair lump of your memberships are from the ACT.Your Sydney Tv ratings are not much bigger. Storm(2018 already ATT at record levels) are approaching 25,000 Memberships in an AFL besotted city, without the largesse provided by Head Office,and without the tens of millions expended on ,marketing and media advertising..So what.the NRL have taken ages, to get the message about memberships and their importance. I sense your concern about a new NRL club in Perth,to the extent you made errors, and displayed ignorance in trying to justify the problems it would face.As you make it obvious you are an AFL fan<I responded as a rl fan with some knowledge on the subject. You got it wrong on poker machines (not all clubs are reliant on them) ignoring AFL clubs utilise them at times,you got ti wrong stating Optus is mentioned when discussing a new Perth NRL club, you ignored the fact a rl team was there in 95 with crowds averaging 13,000 in their first year, you ignored the fact the bid is coming from Perth itself not by putting a pin on a map.Just do some research. And remember also quite a few people from the East Coast have moved over to Perth recently (since 95),including my inlaws and their family, they are rl fans .Attending the double header.So population increase for Perth, is good for all codes.

Giants games are ticketed, and every ticket is scanned as you go through (more than I can for NRL games I’ve been to where tickets weren’t even scanned so you wonder how they dreamed up a crowd total). The Giants crowd count is accurate as far as I can tell - i’ve been to many games and have a good gauge. If they post 10K or 15K then that’s how much showed up. It only a 25K capacity home ground (15K at Canberra) - there’s just no incentive to fudge the crowd numbers when you’re talking such small numbers - the Giants just aren’t in the league of heavy hitters like Collingwood, West Coast, Adelaide, Essendon etc who regularly post 40K+... the Giants get 10-15K and that’s fine - it’s a comfortable crowd size for Spotless and enough to create a good atmosphere in a small stadium. Anyway good luck to you. If you find it comforting to imagine GWS fudging its crowds then that’s all good. What I can say is that Giants have increased its membership (again) and are on track to have 20,000 members in 2018. It’s all trending in the right direction - slow and steady but they’re on the right track.

Clearly your point ignored the fact.If stating facts is going off at a tangent, then so be it. 1. Perth had a team there 23 years ago, and the average in a year when SL war threatened averaged over 13,000.Not just for one game ,but 10 games,a season.You cannot simply ignore that fact.The numbers still held up and only the peace deal flicking the Reds provided their demise. IOW a team has been in place there, when the population was far less. 2.You ignored the obvious intent of GOGWS who has zero interest in other NRL subjects, to seize the opportunity to push his code's perpetual propaganda barrow.Hence my response as to crowds for his club.He made other false assumptions, trying to push his agenda. I have the utmost respect for someone's opinions,I do not when it comes to them constantly and historically using it to promote their code, by ignoring the facts.RL fans could do it in their threads, commonsense prevails.

You've gone off on a tangent there. Everyone knows the AFL have poured, and keep pouring money into the Giants, everyone knows Canberra is a safety net of sorts, everyone knows the Swans have been around for many years. My only point was you can't compare the attendance of a yearly game to the attendance of a regular team - the figure will always be lower - it just makes sense. This is why they should have 3 -4 games in Perth a year to further test out the waters. It may well be the figures will still be good and then expansion would be full steam ahead - this should be a priority. There is a demand, as shown by the Force, although they were hampered by poor on field results - if they can have a successful team in Perth, it should do OK, but if they have a team like the Suns or the Force, they may struggle.

Comparison to team that has been around for a few years ,has tens of million annually is poured in for players/publcity,and whose figures at crowds are dubious even acknowledged by fans form South of the border. Compared to a team that gets most of its membership from Canberra Compared to a team, where there is another major club,that has been around in Sydney for nigh on 36 years,36 years years in which to establish the code as part of the city's fabric. Compared to a team that made promises for Blacktown(not fulfilled) and did exceptionally well at the Show ground thankjs to the state Govt . Um the crowds held up for the Reds circa 1995 for a few games not fudged until SL reared its ugly head.\Have to report IMO the comparison is fair and reasonable. In 1995 their first game at the WACA 24,932,their last in 1995 12,201.Average that year 13,390. 23 years ago more East coasters have moved in .I rest my case.

That's not a fair comparison - they only have one game a year there, can't compare to a team that has a regular season (even if shared with Canberra). They need to get 3-4 games a year to test if crowds hold up - that would be the next step.

GOGWS Prone to exaggerate what! Whenever a new NRL Perth expansion team is mentioned in the Sydney media , or whether an NRL team is planning to play in Perth ,NIB stadium is cited as the venue 100% of the time. Optus has only been mentioned for SOO,and double headers. NIB has a always been the intended stadium for a new Perth team.. Stop trying to pull your AFL wool over peoples' eyes . Everything is in place in Perth for a new NRL team, it just needs the go headroom from head office. It is in an area that will not have a team parachuted there (AKA GWS ) just for pins on maps. By contrast it will be a club made up of locals, with a local clubs' infrastructure and local backing that includes WA Govt and the West Australian..And junior pathways. The crowds for NRL games there(NIB) with no NRL club, are bigger than the vast majority of games GWS has at Spotless, with no fudging.I sense your unease.

The runway to Perth is as long as the commission makes it. The platform is already there for the set up of a club. Has been for years . All is required is the will to follow through. Fun to watch an AFL fanboy arguing for a start date of 2030 though. Insecure bunch aren’t you?

OK you may have said NIB but my point was that expansion articles on this forum, and in there RL media generally, almost always reference Optus Stadium with unrealistic crowd predictions. As I said, I do think it’ll happen but the runway to a Perth NRL team will be a fair bit longer than Beattie realises.. after all, his predecessors at the NRL haven’t not looked at Perth...they have looked at it, and said too soon. What’s changed? Nothing. Yes there is a new Optus Stadium in Perth but that’s a non-issue because an NRL team would never play there. Anyway I think expansion is far easier to talk about that actually execute. How much discussion is there in RL circles about expansion that never actually goes anywhere. I’d pay more attention if they said they had a plan to be on Perth by 2030... that would sound fair dinkum...

So lets put a new N.R.L club in a corridor in NSW or QLD where 150,000 to 200,000 live and forget about South Australia and Western Australia where around 5 million live good idea ?.In 1998 15 or 16,000 crowds in Adelaide bigger crowds than some of the Sydney teams and if I am being honest we did not have a good team we only got the players the other Super league teams did not want,we also had 22,000 for the Roosters Storm game in 2017.If we had two new teams the players who go and play in Super League in England the likes of Barba,Roberts,Bird, Inu,Parcell,Tuimavau,Kelly,Matautia,Mamo Goodwin Moa Masila,Masoa,Peteru,Peryoux Fifito,Akauola,Cuthbertson,Lefao,Langi Brown Moores,if you put these 22 players in Adelaide with 8 good young players picked from around Australia and New Zealand they would be competative and it would not weaken any of the 16 N R L clubs and there is a lot more Aussies and Kiwis playing in England than the 22 I have mentioned above,So it does not wash with me that there is not enough good players to make two new teams,So long for now I enjoy all your emails have a nice weekend,

He makes a couple of good points,however there are many holes one can drive through his"opinion" ,which comes across as another AFL propaganda driven commentary.. Perth is no GWS. For a start any new NRL side in Perth (did not in the past )and will not in the future rely on poker machinesThe Reds did not, and they were flicked as a SL war peace deal. .Ignoring for him the fact some Vic AFL clubs are not backward in receiving poker machine largesse. GOGWS is apparently oblivious of the fact,Manly and Cronulla are hardly reliant on poker machines, even St George,the Warriors,Gold Coast Rugby league has had a presence at grassroots level in WA for decades, and their junior clubs are growing.Thus I suggest they (Perth with an NRL club) are in better position to have an NRL cliub because the bidding comes from that area.Rather than GWS which just lobbed in overnight.They already have a junior set up, ready to track toward NRL membership.Some of their juniors are already playing on the East Coast. The NRL would not have to expend the amounts AFL has done with Suns and GWS,because NRL costs are far less ,due to number of players and support staff.Plus the fact sponsors and a support base are already in place there waiting for the go ahead. A major sponsor is already in place and i understand 2 large businesses want to get involved should the team get a go ahead. Oh and remember NRL games are constantly being played there at NIB,and even then without a team people turn up. As to NIB stadium, the new Perth side would be more than comfortable with 15,000 plus crowds, as they were getting decent numbers before the SL war erupted.And many East Coasters have moved over to that city since the Red's demise. Don't know where he gets the impression,the NRL will be utilising Optus for a new Perth NRL team on occasions.Crowds wouldn't warrant it. The double header was more a promo one offhand not an expected regular fortnightly game. And NRL fam interetes in a Perth team,alteady knows NIB would be the home ground.The bid team has stated such,teh WA Govt knows as does the West Australian.Perhaps a bit more research GoGWS rather than assumptions. I'll finish my rant, by suggesting it's a tad harder for the Storm to establish a niche market in Melbourne with ATT SFA grassroots ,than it would be for a Perth team in the NRL. Billy Slater noted, when he first went down to Melbourne he found antagonism toward the Storm by locals, not so now.

Read my comment two down Adam. The Crushers didnt succeed because they were at the tail end of the comp in their last two years and over the three years won only 13 games of 65 played. You cant establish strong crowd support with those performances. The first year showed 21,000 were willing to attend even though they came 16th. So the support is there. You just need a team that is competitive that people want to watch. Most teams lose half their support at least, when they are cellar dwellers. In their first year they played 11 games at Lang Park and averaged 22,825 at that ground. Their highest crowd was 28,928 in their third last game at Lang Park that year, followed by 26,904 in their last game at Lang Park that year. Their poorest crowd at Lang Park that year was 16.253. The people were craving for a second Brisbane side. The performance of the team in coming last in the next two years sapped the support size, not because they didnt want a second Brisbane side.

GoGWS does make some good points. Optus stadium would be too expensive to hire out if crowds weren't there, and could you really expect full time crowds of 20k plus if the Force couldn't get near that number? It's all very well getting 40,000 for a one off game, but full time attendance would be another matter. The NRL may be willing to pour millions upon millions like the AFL does with GWS and the Suns, but would they have as deep pockets? I don't know how close a 3rd AFL team is there, but I wouldn't have the same apprehension GoGWS does - they are different markets - the NRL could still have a niche market there, even with 3 AFL teams in the state. Now's the time to strike though, but it will need good financial support

Yep!