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Opinion
The NRL’s push into the Pacific is looking more and more likely to happen with the Papua New Guinea bid getting Australian Government backing.
Put simply, Australian sporting bodies rarely look gift horses in the mouth and if that benefactor happens to be the federal government pledging tens of millions of dollars, then it’s almost a fait accompli that it will happen.
Whether it’s the right place to place an 18th team is debatable and even if the new club is based in Cairns but plays some matches in Port Moresby, it will be a tough sell to convince many NRL players, and their families, to relocate.
All you need to do is ask the Google machine about infectious diseases in PNG to put a scare through prospective recruits, not to mention the other problems that have plagued the nation like corruption, crime and violence against women.
North Queensland is NRL heartland and, as has been mentioned in pretty much every story about PNG’s obsession with the 13-a-side game, it’s the only country on the planet which lists rugby league as its national sport.
Papua New Guinea players celebrate with fans during a 2017 Rugby League World Cup in Port Moresby. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
So expansion to the north will not necessarily attract new fans to the game but it would give a new side an automatic fan base even if it will be spread far and wide.
It is unlikely that this team will add too many more eyeballs, spectators or fans in the rest of the South Pacific when you consider the tiny populations of countries like Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and the Cook Islands dotted throughout the vast expanses of the ocean.
A potential PNG expansion should not close the door on a destination like Perth as the NRL looks to widen its footprint.
One of the main criticisms of the supposedly “National” Rugby League is that its clubs are located only up and down the eastern seaboard of the mainland.
The AFL has a distinct advantage over its rival code by being truly national with two clubs in both Western Australia and South Australia and it will soon have a team in Tasmania.
But it’s not like rugby league is neglecting a large percentage of the national population – roughly 21 million of Australia’s 26 million inhabitants are from the three states and territories with NRL teams.
Throw in the five million good folk of New Zealand and possibly double that amount from PNG and the NRL would be in front of the AFL on a purely numbers game, although the level of engagement among those populations is another matter entirely.
And until the NRL’s engaged fan base is much bigger or there is suddenly a serious demand for an NRL team in a new market like Perth or Adelaide, 18 is the magic number for the competition.
A move to 20 has been floated at various stages over the past year and there is not the playing talent, nor the talent equalisation system in place, that would make this viable.
The Dolphins have done well to defy the dire predictions about their first year in the competition but they are still likely to finish the season in 14th spot with eight, maybe nine wins.
They will be marginally better in 2024 when Herbie Farnworth, Tom Flegler and Jake Averillo come on board to give them added strikepower but it’s a slow burn for any expansion team to become title contenders (apart from the Melbourne anomaly in 1998 when they benefited from the collapse of Super League in circumstances that could only be described as a perfect … Storm).
The best but definitely toughest option for the NRL would be to expel an existing club that is not viable or force a relocation to a new city.
With nine teams within a two-hour drive of each other from Manly to Penrith to St George Illawarra in Wollongong, the NRL has and will probably always have too many teams in the Sydney’s surrounds.
The problem is that even though Kerry Packer famously said everyone has their price, there is no dollar figure that could tempt an existing Sydney side to pack up and leave because the fans would revolt and whichever club executive who even contemplated such high treason would not even be given the option of cleaning out the desk before being frogmarched out of the office.
A system of promotion and relegation usually gets a spin in the NRL cycle once or twice a year on slow news days but it’s a theoretical solution, not a practical one.
Mario Fenech with North Sydney teammate Sean Hoppe in 1993. (Photo by Getty Images)
If you are relegated to the state cup, it’s not a temporary measure – if in doubt, there are plenty of diehards who can be found at North Sydney Oval and Henson Park who can confirm this.
Even though the NRL did not max out its asking price in the latest round of TV rights, there should be no club which goes bust under the current funding model.
The ARL Commission is claiming that it can grow its revenue base with ventures such as the planned Las Vegas double-header to open next year’s season, which is a gamble if you are optimistic or a waste of money if you look at it from a more realistic perspective.
Does anyone think the already crowded US sporting market, or its gambling community, is suddenly going to start becoming interested in rugby league because four teams they’ve never heard of will play a couple of games in Vegas?
If the government does kick in money for the PNG bid, it can’t rely on handouts to survive because if it doesn’t become self-sustainable it only takes one election for a new regime to turn the funding tap off.
Western Reds captain Brad Mackay with the foundation team in 1995. (Getty Images)
We’ve seen a shift in recent times where governments will swiftly divert money away from sports and stadium infrastructure to more important, and vote-friendly, areas like health care and education quicker than you can say Accor Stadium upgrade.
The NRL should be entering a period of consolidation and growth over the next decade but decisions over expansion have to be analysed from every angle before getting the green light.
Expanding too quickly, into the wrong locations, without ways to even out the talent can be disastrous – and for confirmation of that, ask any fans of the South Queensland Crushers, Adelaide Rams, Western Reds or Gold Coast Chargers, if you can find any.