NRL expansion: Where to and how should we do it?

agree expansion but not 4 teams too many just keeo it to two only. Adeleaide and Perth absolutely because you seen what happen before when the ARL expanded with 4 teams.Too many teams at one time

Another click bait article from this author. I can only assume he operates purely on creating provocation and certainly not on displaying logic or critical analysis. So, here is what we have all learnt from this article: 1. A team in Adelaide is a safer option than a second Brisbane team. Okay, sure, the people of Adelaide are just so fluent with the rules of the sport and the sports’ personalities (not!). Pay no attention to the fact that the game is hardly ever on free-to-air TV in Adelaide, yet, Brisbane/QLD has its own semi-professional Rugby League competition!! 2. We have also learnt that the Superleague war at the time of the South QLD Crushers inclusion to the competition had nothing to do with their failure. Brisbane just can’t possibly support two NRL teams, end of discussion! It didn’t work 23 years ago when Paul Keating was Prime Minister and when Mark Taylor was Australian Cricket Captain. So therefore, it won’t work now. However, the Superleague war was ALL the reason why the Adelaide Rams and Perth Reds failed. Nothing to do with the fact there was a very limited market for Rugby League in those states at the time! 3. We have also learnt that poor crowd figures for the underachieving, uninspiring Crushers from 23 years ago is the reason why we should never dare put a second team in Brisbane ever again! Ignore the crowd figures for the Magic Weekend, or any of the QLD derbies at Suncorp Stadium, that is just a figment of our imaginations. Those crowds of 40,000 for these fixtures are all outliers and should not be considered in any analysis. 4. We have also discovered that there is a massive support base and dozens of corporate partners just waiting for a team in Gosford. Apparently, regional teams in Rugby League have a great history of success. Just look at the great success the Illawarra Steelers were. The mighty Gold Coast-Tweed Head Giants blazed a trail! And look at the massive crowds the Magpies drew when they relocated to the Macarthur region in the 80’s. Notwithstanding the millions of dollars each of these clubs made from all of the corporate sponsors who jumped on board. 5. Finally, just when this article couldn’t provide any more incredible insight, we now have all learnt that Christchurch is ready to rock the NRL with a “rivalry” with the Warriors. Ignore the fact that Christchurch is a quarter of the size of Auckland, is smaller than Wollongong, that Rugby is king in this town and daylight is second. Also ignore the fact that Wellington is twice the size of Christchurch and has a far better established Rugby League community than Christchurch.

Sharks, Raiders and Sea Eagles have no history? What dictates having history then? 12 premierships between them is apparently not enough. Scatter a few genuine greats of our game with major achievements and milestones. Apparently you need to be a foundation club to have some history. As for juniors, the Raiders have been surviving on their juniors for the best part of 25 years. Ignorant statement. And member numbers for each club are about middle of the road as far as I was aware.

The local derby is only a couple of games a year. The Sharks, for whatever reason, have struggled financially since they came into the competition. They have a very small supporter base in the The Shire, but basically no support anywhere else. If the NRL wanted to force a team to relocate the Sharks and Manly would be front and centre

It's called lunacy ,as Super league pundits found out to their cost.

Memo.They don't own the Shire never have since 67, and removing the Sharks does away with a local derby that brings in the crowds. I think you need to check the latest financial position re the Sharks, signed up on Tuesday 19th March by the club with Capital Bluestone. And who do you think the Shark's fans will follow, with their team removed from the NRL art relocated.If you believe they will follow the Sharks in Perth or a 2nd Division.you are on another planet.

One minute you say let's ignore the cash injection, the next you proceed to mention the financial losses over the years, and not spell pout how they occurred. The club was never in the position they will beat this year's end ,out of debt, with $18m in a Bank a/c ,and a further $12.2m set aside for a refurbished Leagues club.The idea that the club would be better, to spend the money elsewhere is plain silly. "The room for growth is limited".The State Govt required the building of 10,000 residential facilities over a 10 years period.The Shire continues to grow, with apartment blocks, and semi density housing popping up everywhere. Own their own grounds, bigger junior base than Manly,Roosters,Canterbury,Souths. Other Sydney clubs have lost money, and have needed their League's clubs to prop them up. Oh and the sponsors that have fled, they have a front of jersey sponsor this year, all their private boxes for the season sold, membership up. Their membership so far is higher than Manly,Roosters and double the Titans similar to the Raiders. The club will have new 880 apartments surrounding them, that's at least est 2,000 people within spitting distance.

They've had double the average for years and years now, not just ATM - we'll wait and see with the new stadium. TV ratings in Melbourne are usually more than Sydney, expect for Soccer - Sydney just about always had better ratings in the World Cup, which I suppose you would expect for an all code city.

They may have double the average ATM, but that may change with the new Parra stadium this year.The Swans have been in existence nearly twice as long as the Storm and received a great SL leg up in their early years.Plus having Souths tossed out for a short period and the Bears removed.Have had large sums thrown in to market the club .Get exceptional coverage in the print media and electronic media in Sydney,which makes the Storm look like an afterthought. The Tv ratings have remained negligible in this city. I wouldn't be breaking into a lather of excitement with the above factors assisting them. When Storm play in a G/F ,they get better TV ratings in Melbourne, than when the Swans play in a G/F does in Sydney.Despite the different time slots.Swans being around for 37 years ,the Storm 22 years. On that basis the Storm deserves great credit.

So Perth and Adelaide's failures were the fault of the Super League, whereas the Crushers' demise wasn't? Brisbane 2 isn't just a pie-in-the-sky thought of Greenberg and NRL high-ups, it's an inevitability, and the sooner we accept that, the better. Brisbane's fanbase and talent pool is too enormous to be crammed into just one team.

Anybody that puts Balmain for readmission has rocks in their head. They are dead in the water. No money, no players. The only link to the past is with the west tigers and they contribute virtually nothing do that joint venture is their club logo.

It's called addition by subtraction, look it up.

I like Gus' 2 10 team conference, you would be adding in 4 more teams in that model. That could be Perth, NZ south, Toowoomba/Darling Downs (not Brisbane 2), Adelaide. No relocation/merging required.

The Storm have been the most successful team of any code in Australia - you can't expect to get that all the time. Even after all that, they still have a worse average attendance than any AFL club down there - compared to the Swans who have double the average attendance of any NRL team in Sydney.

Neither.

I completely agree that the expansion angle seems to be rooted in the assumption heat expanded always = better. Outside of the obvious that we need to be able to forecast the net benefits against the current landscape we also need to also take a look at how we think media will be consumed. I’m just not convinced, in the face of global consumption of EPL, NFL, NBA, MLB, ICC etc that there are immediate and obvious benefits to physical proximity if you are a second or third tier option anyway. We seem to be hell bent on gaining market leadership in Australia when globalisation of sports presents the very real possibility that our economy can’t support that and domestic competitions will provide a niche offering. Attempting to expand into areas where we don’t have any incumbency advantage or established brand loyalty over global players runs the very real risk that we deploy our halcyon days war chest to fight battles we can’t hope to win whilst weakening our investment in areas we should defend. --- As for the Brisbane thing, I used to be with you until someone posted some stats of Brisbane area ratings for games involving a QLD team were significantly better, and in reality the lowest cost option would still be Brisbane or Brisbane periphery.

We are talking about expansion here not contraction. No one ever shrank to greatness.

"Greenberg was saying we might not have the talent to add teams to the current 16 team format" This is complete and utter rubbish. For sure, there aren't another 200 Cameron Smiths or Cooper Cronks out there but there is plenty of Rugby League talent out there that is plying its trade elsewhere. There are limited jobs in the NRL so why are we surprised that the talent available equals the jobs available. Its supply and demand 101 folks. If we added another 2 teams to the NRL there would be another 50 good players in the talent pool within 2 years guaranteed.

Apart from selectively deciding that Perth and Adelaide failed because of Super League yet SL somehow didn't affect the Crushers, you are way off with pretty much everything else as well. Food for thought; The crowds for the Crushers weren't great but in the 3 years of existence they exceeded the ARL average in 2 of the 3; 1995 - 21029 - ARL season average 13890 1996 - 13016 ARL season average 11545 1997 - 7003 ARL season Average 9100 Compare the Broncos first 3 years at the same ground with no other competition in town? 16K, 18K, 22K - in each of those years Newcastle averaged over 21K. The Broncos didn't "boom" from the outset despite the mythology that now seems to surround their advent. And in the Crushers worst year the Broncos, having been around for 9 years averaged 19K attendance that year, bolstered by a 42K Super League opening match. They played 9 homes games, 4 of them in front of fewer than 15K. Want to talk about what was a bad look for the game? The Broncos getting just 11k people turn up to a game at their home ground ANZ that year which held 60K. But, you know, Super League only impacted Perth and Adelaide. Brisbane 2 is mandatory to any expansion. Financially it stacks up, for fans it stacks up, it brings in additional income for the broadcasters and the NRL. I commented in another one of these articles that the only people who argue that it won't stack up and propose other locations ahead of it are more often than not self interested Broncos fans looking to protect their patch. And News Ltd staff who's employer has a financial interest in ensuring they spread as much negative propaganda about Brisbane 2. Their interest in the debate has nothing to do with the betterment of Rugby League.

Oh oh here we go again! How about this for a 14 team National comp? The teams are as follows: 1) North Queensland 2) Brisbane 3) Second Brisbane team. 4) Newcastle 5) Central Coast Bears 6) Roosters (unfortunately) 7) Souths 8) St George Illawarra 9) Bulldogs/Wests merger (this one works better than the Balmain/Wests merger) 10) Penrith/Parramatta merger (the continued existence of these 2 teams has NEVER been justified) 11) Perth Tigers (Balmain resurrected in Perth) 12) NZ Warriors 13) Storm 14) Adelaide Obviously 4 teams are chopped. The Sharks, Eagles, Raiders, Titans. Not one of them is a big loss to the league and I'd say everyone of these franchises is basically terminal in the long term and can barely justify their continued existence as a stand alone club at the best of times. Let them play in reserve grade as feeder clubs. The bottom-line is this, they don't have the juniors, they don't have the supporter base, they don't have the history and their time is up. Any thoughts/corrections/improvements etc are welcome, I just thought I'd throw it out there for discussion.