Though Peter V’landys has a vice-like grip on the reins of the NRL, the 16 clubs that make up the premiership have a lot of power in their own right.
With three clubs in Queensland, one in Victoria, one in the ACT, one in regional New South Wales, one in New Zealand and nine in Sydney, it’s an interesting debate as to which club is the biggest and most influential rugby league organisation in the nation.
I list all clubs based on their membership numbers from 2019 and 2020 and divided by two to get the average. I did this to account for the impact of COVID-19 on fans not committing financially to their club this year.
Other factors I’ve considered are media coverage, both print and electronic, prime time TV games given, average 2019 home-and-away crowd figures, sponsorship and licensed club backing, history in the game, and other non-tangible factors, such as the influence they have within NRL HQ.
I have combined the average member count for 2019 and 2020 and added that to their 2019 crowd figure to give each team an index number. This number has an influence but is not definitive in determining the most powerful club.
For premierships won I’ve included the Broncos and Knights victories in 1997 as well as the joint venture team titles won as single entities before they merged. This figure is interesting but didn’t have much influence in my final decision – Wests Tigers are listed as having 16 titles, but that figures is made up of the Balmain Tigers, Western Suburbs and Wests Tigers.
This list will be built over five articles, with three teams featured in each. The last one will be the team I consider the most powerful NRL club.
Click here to read part 1 and here to read part 2.
8. Wests Tigers
Premierships: 16
Members: 19,034
Crowds: 15,699
Index total: 34,733
As a joint venture, the Wests Tigers have won a single premiership, in 2005. Who can forget the Benji Marshall flick pass? As the Tigers don’t have a leagues club, the Magpies have two hugely successful ones in Campbelltown and the juggernaut in Ashfield. As such, the much-maligned Magpies of the 1980s are now the paymasters in this joint venture.
This is the same Western Suburbs that the NSWRL wanted to kick out of the competition. Unlike Souths, they survived but, also unlike Souths, they are not a powerhouse.
Wests Tigers are well recorded in the Sydney press and have two home grounds, Leichhardt and Campbelltown, and juniors to contribute to the bottom line and regenerate the team. With good sponsorship money, a legion of former players on the various panel shows and the government contributing to a centre of excellence at their Concord Oval training, the future looks secure.
However, even though club legend Wayne Pearce is on the NRL commission, they have no special dispensation at HQ.
(Photo by Jenny Evans/Getty Images)
9. Penrith Panthers
Premierships: 2
Members: 19,413
Crowds: 13,967
Index total: 33,380
Another club backed by a hugely successful leagues club, the Panthers aren’t living hand to mouth. Like all such clubs, COVID-19 has ripped a massive gash in the cash cow. Having a state-of-the-art centre of excellence and real powerbrokers such as Phil Gould in their corner make the Panthers a stable club.
Another Super Saturday favourite at the foot of the mountains, they seem to make the headlines for their off-field machinations as much as they do for what happens on it.
10. St George Illawarra Dragons
Premierships: 15
Members: 17,827
Crowds: 14,899
Index total: 32,726
If the Panthers are the MGM Grand of the west, St George Leagues Club is more like the San Sauci Bowling Club. The ‘Taj Mahal’ was state of the art when the mighty Dragons were at the top of the pops more than John Farnham ever was. The club could fund a wildly successful team on the back of the Queen of the Nile, never paying out and the pots of Reschs Pilsener sold in the bar.
But the once mighty club is on the verge of crumbling onto the Princes Highway. Having been forced to merge with the Illawarra Steelers, the Saints have lost their identity. The club has a showpiece ground in Jubilee Oval and the club has installed statues and history boards outside the ground to celebrate the heritage of a once great club.
Having won a single joint-venture premiership under Wayne Bennett in 2010, the legacy of 11 premierships in a row give the Dragons a cache no other team has.
Popular on TV and with generous press coverage but with finances not up there with the best, the Saints aren’t in a position to be called a heavyweight.
Illawarra Flame
Roar Rookie
The joint venture has never lived up to its potential, outside of a near miss in the 1999 G.F., more near misses during the wasted Brown era and, finally the three years of professionalism under Bennett. The period post Wayne has seen a steady decline in standards, ranging from recruitment, junior development and coaching (read: Price and McGregor). WIN Corp's involvement in particular has been underwhelming, with Andrew Gordon's presence on the board being almost invisible as far as the supporters' base is concerned. The club now has none of the aura of the St George history and little market muscle in attracting elite players. Only a root and branch purge of the administration will stop the decline.
Mark Scarfe
Roar Guru
I think the Sydney GF thing is more about tradition. That said the NSW govt pays for it to stay in the city so you may be right. In other sports such as the FA Cup Final, thats always at Wembley bar when it was being rebuilt. The Super Bowl gets shopped around each year and the AFL GF never leaves Melbourne.
Big Daddy
Guest
Another thing that comes into play in this most powerful club conversation is that we still have 11 NSW based clubs in the NRL. The all powerful NSWRL still can influence what concessions clubs receive and if you look at the CEO s they have all come through NSW apart from David Smith and why is it we never have had a grand final outside Sydney . Clubs like Brisbane and to a lesser extent Melbourne can influence some decisions I think it is certain individuals hold sway. Some clubs are so weak they don't influence financially or with people that run their organisations.
Adam Bagnall
Roar Guru
Aside from that oversight, the Dragons are part owned by the Gordon family with a net worth of about $800m. If you are going to analyse teams you probably should know a bit more than what you've shown here which is a couple of sentences copied from Wikipedia
Gray-Hand
Roar Rookie
What does the writer mean by ‘powerful’? What is the benefit of being a ‘powerful’ club in the context of this article?
Adam Bagnall
Roar Guru
Yes, both Kogarah and WIN have many issues that keep crowds down, especially families. No parking, outdated food and drink facilities, the hill at WIN which exposes you to the wind off the ocean. Get the train down to Wollongong and you're still a few km from the ground.
Andrew
Roar Pro
Dragons have the largest supporter base in Sydney. 50,000 plus to the ‘99 GF qualifier (record for a GF qualifier) against Cronulla & then a sellout 107,000 to the ‘99 GF (record for a GF) against Melbourne. No other Sydney team could have sold out the Olympic stadium against a out of State team. Dragons jersey is always bedazzled with sponsors & financially they are in in good shape. Only issues that keeps home crowds down is a spread out & diverse supporter base & a lack of a first rate home ground. Both Wollongong & Kogarah still have grass hills. Some success on the field wouldn’t hurt either.
Adam Bagnall
Roar Guru
Dragons have won 16. Outside of the 11 in a row they won in 1941, 1949, 1977, 1979 and 2010
Mark Scarfe
Roar Guru
I haven’t heard of this. I’ll check it out.
Big Daddy
Guest
Soda, so right about the Chinese restaurants. The Grotto Capri was a favourite meeting place where decisions were made and brown paper bags were the norm. Not only rugby league but also criminals and their associate's.
Soda
Roar Rookie
:thumbup: so amateur. So rugby league. :thumbup: Id love it if they could use that podcast as the basis for a ken burn's style docuseries. Come on Netflix or amazon. There's some easy Australian content right there!
Dwanye
Roar Rookie
The rugby league digest ‘super league war’ has been great. For me it’s how amateur Lots of it was run and built, introducing new clubs and sorted over lunch or who you liked. Crazy
Soda
Roar Rookie
Yeah, so much history and so many personalities. I’ve been listening to the rugby league digest’s deep dive in the super league war which really highlights how influential some clubs and their CEO’s really were. It also highlights how important lunch and dinner meetings at chinese restaurants were back in the day.
Big Daddy
Guest
Soda, it is an interesting article, but I think you have to go back in time to see how power bases have shifted both financially and what people held the sway of power. If you cast your mind back it was Kevin Humphreys who ruled with an iron fist, followed by Ken Arthur's on. Clubs like St George and Canterbury and East's had guys like Frank Facer, Peter Moore and Ron Jones who a lot of influence on what was a NSW based competition. When the ARL/NRL based competition with the inclusion of Qld based teams was formed the landscape changed dramatically. Today's financial Giants are definitely Canterbury and Penrith make them powerful but even Penrith despite their huge turnover struggle to make huge profit. The merger situation also weakened some clubs and made some stronger. While the competition remains biased to NSW because of the numbers involved it's very evident East's, the Broncos and Melbourne appear to be stronger because of good management .
Soda
Roar Rookie
If perhaps the authors metric was applied year by year, you would definitely see those fluxuations and be able to build some sort of cumulative ranking that way. Got to say though, I do like a bit of stats and data like this so I really do commend the effort.
Dwanye
Roar Rookie
Agreed Soda, only tough years any a big pool. You could do one from any era, the NRL, from the modern tv times with the ARL. Even a ‘generation’ age/time one, the rough generation of a player, a new generation of fans, cause that also eb’s and flows
Soda
Roar Rookie
Perhaps this series of articles should be described as "who is the most powerful club for 2019-20?". All the rankings are being based on 2019-2020 data which is a small and skewed sample. I applaud the effort you have made compiling the list though, I'm just having a hard time understanding what the rankings mean? As far as I can tell, the list may be a good indicator of which team is the best placed to attract sponsors for next couple of years. I guess. kinda. The fact that teams like panthers, dragons, bulldogs and sea eagles are listed below the Canberra raiders shows how much all this information is for 2019/20. It would've been much more interesting to pull back the data (if it was readily available) from 1998 to now. Wouldve made for a more complete story.
JGK
Roar Guru
The West Tigers haven’t won 16 Premierships. If you include the Dragons and the JV club, they are up to 16, not 15.