NRL expansion needs to start soon

yeah it`s called cheating

Interesting analysis Paul but I suspect there are multiple spurious foundations to it: 1) How far ahead do you think Rugby League actually is "globally" (I am assuming you are talking about the sport rather than the NRL)? In terms of Super League, it has a fraction of the revenues of the NRL. It is a provincial competition where the big teams are representative of provincial towns in two english counties. In the rest of the world it is no different to Australian football - it is the niche of the niche. In places like the US, it has far less participants than Australian football which has barely any itself (i.e. a few hundred compared to a few thousand). 2) if TV revenues dry up, how is a league that gets over half of its revenues from TV better placed than one that gets less than a third? The AFL clubs have over 1 million members and well over double the corporate sponsorships of NRL clubs. The AFL owns its own stadium in the centre of Melbourne 3) Why are you so sure that sporting competitions won't be able to draw revenues on new platforms anyway? FTA tv certainly benefits sports that have geographically concentrated interest....but this already only represents about 10% of the AFL's total revenues (i.e. about $150M from memory). The AFL will continue to pour resources into NSW and QLD to increase the interest of the game there over time. Its hold on the rest of the country is a strong as ever. Any overseas revenues and interest is steak knives The NRL's achilles heal is rugby union. Its larger footprint provides it with rugby league's best chance of growth but on the other hand rugby league has no chance of significant differentiated growth outside of traditional rugby football playing areas. The NRL is best advised to continue to do what its doing i.e. putting its resources into consolidating its NSW and QLD strong holds that support its revenues and trying to eat-out the NZ and pacific rugby union nurseries. Any growth outside of this region should be seen as a bonus. Certainly don't be fooled into thinking that there is some massive growth that needs tapping in to in America which has 100K union players compared to a couple of hundred league players and yet cannot get semi pro union comp off the ground. Or that Super League, where the total revenue of all the clubs is less than one of the big AFL clubs, inviting in north american franchises is going to be a saviour to rugby league.

I think the status quo will remain for another 20 years, ie TV channels will still pay to broadcast AFL & NFL, at least until watching everything on the internet becomes a dominant method of communication, then watch the money dry up.

Ah, right Paul. The ‘new future’ of viewing is a Wild West at the moment.

sorry Dwanye, I didn't mean to suggest people will watch it for free, but the viewing audience will change substantially. I'll give you an example. I've spent considerable time in SE Asia and you can go into many bars and they'll have 20 or 30 TVs on the walls, all streaming different sports through the internet. While there, I could have watched sports from at least 40 or 50 countries, on the internet, in my home. Right now, the popular way to view sports is still TV, so TV broadcasters pay to produce the images we see. In future, the NRL might take over that role and companies in America, China, Europe, etc would pay to edit & stream the games via the internet, not only to Australian homes but world wide. They in turn would make their money back from some Australian advertising, but the bulk would come from international sources. The maths then becomes simple; who knows about Aussie Rules versus who knows about Rugby League? The AFL is trying to make up the gap but League has a 110 year head start!

Agreed Paul. It won’t be free today air, it may be pay tv or an online streaming company. But those companies will still need to pay codes money to be able to show them, they will won’t that exclusively. People will still won’t to watch it and for that it needs video production. Like ‘kayo’

hi Dwanye, I totally agree about your premise around what television channels are prepared to pay, but this has only been an issue since 1978 and I suggest it will not be as much of an issue within another 20-30 years. More and more people, especially young people, are streaming programs to their computers via the internet and this is already happening with the watchNRL.com programme. I'd suggest it won't be long before we will not use TV as our main source of Rugby League. The faster that happens and the more people who abandon free to air or cable TV in favour of apps, the less money the broadcasters make, therefore the less money they have to give to the game. In time, the broadcasters may cease to broadcast to television and focus entirely on apps (just putting it out there) and if that happens the revenue stream for both would disappear, but who would that hurt more? Right now, the AFL appears to be a big market - if you look at who's watching it in Australia, but if you look at viewers around the world for League & AFL, Rugby League as a product, has a substantial lead and this is only going to get bigger. IMO, Aussie Rules is in a precarious state financially, because it's Australia centric. I have no idea where they're going to get the type of money broadcasters are currently paying, if/when TV dies out as an entertainment source.

Adding 1 or 2 teams to their own timezones in my opinion and expecting results or consistency just doesn't seem to add up. The warriors home and away records are usually pretty consistent and surely the time zone is some factor there that deserves more research. Having 2 or 3 teams in their own zone just doesn't seem like it would work. If you want to expand and have it fair, split the teams up and remove it from being so sydney orientated. Of course if this happens, I would stop watching as would a fair portion of other sydney fans affected. So in reality, expansion doesn't seem practical regardless of player talent (in regards to fielding consistent competitive teams anyway).

Hi Adam Bagnall. Some people are trying to put ideas forward. Maybe so you still have some input, rather then the league saying ‘here is the criteria, if you do make the cut, sorry’. Which is what I think will end up happen. But I don’t want it to

Hi Paul. I think the biggest thing many on the ‘for’ side have trouble with if it doesn’t is that if the code can’t ask/demand more money from television. It has always been a tussle between The codes about who is the bigger, national, more popular sport. If that becomes more and more clear and AFL left behind ‘maybe’ the stations will not want to pay so much.

Thanks for that. I seen a figure somewhere that Melbourne has cost between 80 to 100 mill. Just wondering if there has been a return on the investment.

Not this nonsense again, expand poor crowds no money club goes broke. Back to same amount of teams.

two I can think of - Mahe Fonua at the Tigers and Young Tonumapea. There have been several other players born in Melbourne but they didn't play their juniors there.

As far as junior numbers and development go I would have to say no, the junior game down there is still very amateur and so far I only know of one Victorian junior making it to the NRL (although I could be wrong). As far as revenue generation goes absolutely they add value to the NRL, Melbourne is a big City and consistently puts up reasonable viewing numbers, the club also seems to be able to attract good corporate sponsorship and has a good relationship with the State of Victoria.

I've asked this question a couple of times. Has the Melbourne expansion been working? We know the on field version has been but in terms of Junior numbers and revenue generation and whatever other criteria you want to use has it been a success? I'm just asking because I don't know the answer.

Didn't we see this article two weeks ago? Or they all blurring into one now.

"If the NRL doesn’t act on expansion, it could get left behind and not be able to add any teams" Can I suggest you might be better off researching and explaining what happens if the NRL does nothing about expansion, both in the short and long term? I'm sure there must be more points to be considered, apart from the one I took from your story. This wishlist doesn't add a lot to the debate about expansion, hence my suggestion.

With a name like yours I would have thought this article would be more thorough. Move the Bulldogs to NZ to avoid a name change? Why not. Merge to bitter rivals and throw a bunch of teams together and hope it works? Makes sense. You want expansion but throw up ideas that actually reduce the number of teams

as a great administrator once said "expand, or die!!"

Brilliant well thought out ideas that are well researched