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According to the NRL’s strategic plan, expansion is ‘back on the table’.
The plan outlines expansion teams will be given a chance in state competitions, eventually evolving into an NRL team. These teams will be located at Perth, Country New South Wales, New Zealand and an ‘Overseas Team’ featuring Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
However, these teams, at the earliest, will only be introduced to the actual competition when the broadcast deal ends in 2022.
With the knowledge that expansion is the best way to build the game and the League cannot do this until 2022, the clear solution is relocation.
Four teams this year played out of ANZ Stadium, a clear sign that teams are too crowded. Though it seems that all the teams in Sydney have a reason for staying put.
Sea Eagles: Only team north of the CBD.
Roosters and Souths: Foundation clubs and decent membership numbers.
Dragons: Competitive rivalries and decent membership numbers.
Sharks: Good fanbase, recently won a premiership.
Penrith: Only team far west of Sydney.
Bulldogs: Decent memberships, good history.
Wests Tigers: Covers large area of Sydney, rivalries.
Eels: Large fanbase, lots of members.
The above suggests getting rid of teams in Sydney would disadvantage the NRL in some way, despite probably being able to make this up in the likely relocation city of Perth.
There is another way to expand. Let’s say every team must take two or three games to another location. If this logic is purely applied to Perth, and every team took one game to Optus Stadium, Perth would end up hosting 16 games in a season. That’s better than a game every two weeks!
This also means that instead of getting behind just one team, they can pick and choose whichever team they want.
The NRL must implement tactics like this to ensure the growth of the game.
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