Relocation unlikely to ever happen in NRL expansion as cashed-up Sydney clubs will never give up their turf

Relocating a Sydney team to a new NRL frontier makes sense in theory but it’s almost certainly never going to happen. 

The goal for every club is to survive and thrive exactly where they are. In that order. Even though there’s a fair chance some of the nine teams in and around Sydney could do better in a new location, no one is going to even consider that option unless it’s a last resort.

And even then, clubs are more likely to die on their feet than live on their knees. 

The Rabbitohs took that mantra into their courtroom battle to challenge their expulsion in 2000-01 and won. 

Cody Walker celebrates with Latrell Mitchell, Keaon Koloamatangi and Lachlan Ilias. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

Every current team can make an argument off the top of their head when anyone dares mention them as a candidate to be sent elsewhere.

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Manly – only team north of the harbour, if they weren’t there then rugby union would have a monopoly in the area. Talk emanates every few years that the Penns may consider selling but they’re smart enough to know the asset is only getting bigger.

Roosters – money, tradition of being the only team to have played every season of the premiership, decades of recent success.

Souths – the only other 1908 club still operating as a single entity, profitable, huge membership, solid ownership structure, you tried kicking them out so don’t try booting them out of Sydney.

Cronulla – only team to own their stadium, financially strong due to property investments, vast junior nursery.

Penrith – biggest catchment area for juniors, financial clout of leagues club, growing population base, have been travelling alright on the field lately.

Canterbury – another team with plenty of dollars in the bank, nearly 90 years of tradition with a reputation for success, huge following.

Parramatta – centre of western Sydney, financially strong, plenty of juniors, massive fan base. 

St George Illawarra – another club with a proud tradition, massive nursery on the South Coast, corporate clout backed with leagues club turnover, a centre of excellence of their own on the way in Wollongong.

Wests Tigers – representing the Macarthur growth area, modern facilities after opening their new Centre of Excellence, combined tradition of two 1908 originals.

(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

In the past few years, several Sydney clubs have achieved what seemed perennially impossible and started turning a profit – it wasn’t that long ago, 2017 in fact, that Brisbane was the only club which was in the black, according to official NRL figures, without leagues club funding.

The common and most important thread between the nine Sydneysiders  now is that they’re all doing well enough financially to not give relocation a moment’s thought.

Club chairs and CEOs who raise that prospect rarely survive their next boardroom election or performance review – turkeys don’t vote for Thanksgiving and none of this flock will do likewise.

Unfortunately for Wests Tigers fans, their team holds the unwanted mantle of team most likely to be forced interstate and yet the chances of that happening are slim to none. 

The AFL managed to successfully – eventually – transplant South Melbourne to Sydney in the 1980s and Fitzroy to Brisbane into a merger with the Bears the following decade as part of its push to become a national competition after a century-plus as the VFL. 

(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

Even with the addition of new clubs in non-traditional markets, the AFL still has half of its 18 teams in Melbourne with Geelong tipping the balance still in favour of Victoria. 

But as is the case in most areas, the NRL and AFL are an apples and oranges comparison. 

The AFL has an independent structure at the top and while it would still be extremely tough to make a massive change like relocating a team, its chances of success are much greater than rugby league where conflicts of interest and the gripes of the clubs and states seem to have a far greater effect on the decision-makers.

And after the millions of dollars that lined the pockets of gleeful lawyers when the NRL tried to boot Souths from the competition, league officials will be forever reluctant to go down that path again.

It would take a club going into financial dire straits for a Sydney side to wave the white flag.

But that would mean some seriously bad mismanagement for a club to go belly-up with the increased revenue streams coming into the NRL over the past decade – mainly from broadcast rights – and leagues clubs continuing to turn over profits despite government threats to blow up the pokies which always seem to disappear after election day. 

Dominic Perrotet was the latest politician who was going to crack down on the scourge of problem gambling with the introduction of a cashless gaming card but as of a couple of hours after the polls closed last Saturday, he is now no longer the NSW Premier. 

The NRL’s nine Sydney clubs will soldier on even if mired in mediocrity – and that’s not solely a crack at the Wests Tigers even though their merged entity is 0-4 at the start of what’s likely to be the 21st season they’ve missed the finals out of 24.

Even if astronomical inducement sums were offered to Sydney teams who up stumps for Adelaide, Perth, Cairns, NZ, wherever, it’s hard to see any club taking the bait.

And if such a sum was offered, there’d be an outcry from the rest of the competition about that money being wasted when it could be spent elsewhere.

Dolphins coach Wayne Bennett reignited the debate around relocating a team before his team’s first sold-out Suncorp Stadium derby with the Broncos by stating the Sydney teams were selfish about expansion. “That’s why you have administrators outside of the clubs that have to make decisions in the best interests of what the game needs,” he argued.

He’s not wrong.

Jamayne Isaako is tackled. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

QRL chairman Bruce Hatcher upped the ante when he said a Sydney club should be told to get on a plane across the Nullarbor to Perth and another team created in the Sunshine State as part of the ARL Commission’s plans to expand beyond 17 teams in the next few years.

You could say he too was looking after his own backyard. 

For what it’s worth, he also said in 2021 the Sharks should relocate to Brisbane, the previous year it was Manly, before that he argued Sydney clubs should be forced to merge. You might be able to spot a pattern emerging here.

The strong early response to the Dolphins, as well as their early on-field success in winning three of their first four games, suggests that Queensland could quite easily accommodate another NRL franchise. 

But should the ARL Commission be “fishing where there are fish” or looking to hook into new areas. 

Jarrod Wallace celebrates scoring during the first Dolphins vs Brisbane derby at Suncorp Stadium. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

In the hypothetical scenario of the the game’s head honchos kicking off a competition from scratch, there would probably be no more than six sides in the Sydney-Wollongong-Penrith-Newcastle traditional region of the premiership.

And there would definitely be one or two more than the Queensland quartet. 

But in the real world, change on the rugby league landscape moves at a glacial pace.

Irrespective of where the 18th, 19th and 20th teams are located, the argument around relocating Sydney teams will continue beyond then because the clubs will refuse to budge and it’s borderline impossible for the ARL Commission to make them.