AB90

Could be a decent signing as he is a big body that’s hard to handle. Kane Evans come with far more pedigree and CV than Taveta Satea who is now one of best props in the league. Fingers crossed for Hull FC fans.

But every team already has 2 marquee player slots whereby teams can pay top level stars whatever they want (I.e no salary cap).

Agreed. And for the very top players there technically isn’t a salary cap in place with the 2 marquee player slots that every team can use. Teams can literally already pay the top level players whatever they want. So not sure why abolishing the cap will result in teams splashing the cash on big time players when they can already do that under the current system.

I suspect it will be to late in their careers to make the move. In 2023 Walmsley and Makinson will be 33 & 32 years old.

Maybe because even though these TV viewers are ‘through the roof’ for rugby league, the ratings/subscriptions to Sky doesn’t justify paying £40m a year.

Mate, I wasn’t specifically responding to what you said (apologies if it came off that way).

Yeah, it’s such a silly point. So if a domestic sporting competition is not the best in the world at that respective sport then there is no point in watching it. Well if that’s the case then La Liga, Bundesliga, Seria A, Legue 1 and every other domestic football competition in the world should shut down as the Premier League is considered number 1. It’s bizarre logic.

Great stuff guys!

Saying he’s a ‘below average’ SL player is a bit of an over exaggeration. But yes, a disappointing year for him to say the least.

Good question. I don’t really know why but there is a large part of the rugby league population in Brisbane that doesn’t support the Broncos. I guess they would follow the expansion team because they don’t like the Broncos. So they would support the team that in theory should be the Broncos bitter rival. Plus it’s new, fresh, different, exciting etc. And as Suncorp Stadium is next to Brisbane’s CBD it attracts general foot traffic (especially the Friday night, after work city crowd) who will attend games as part of their Friday night festivities. Not all the 30,000 average crowd the Broncos attract are Broncos fans.

I don’t think they are really doing it to ‘unlock thousands more nrl fans’. It’s more to give current rugby league supporters in Brisbane who don’t support the Broncos a team to support. Brisbane is arguably the most rugby league fanatical city/town on the planet so I can’t imagine that many general sports fans in the city are not NRL fans.

I guess you would want the players to come from the top teams (Penrith, storm, roosters, south’s, eels etc). These are the teams that in theory should be under the most salary cap pressure as they have better players than everyone else. And if that happens it could actually reduce the gap between the top and the bottom.

It’s a good shout! Sydney had a population of 5 million people with 9 nrl sides. Brisbane has a population of almost 3 million so in theory they have the population to support 3 or 4 nrl sides. And some would even argue that Brisbane (or Queensland in general) are more rugby league fanatical than Sydney (and NSW). Would be a shame to leave a great bid off the table just because it gets slightly trumped by another bid.

Doubtful as England/Great Britain have lost their last 6 games. With some of those losses coming against fairly poor opposition (PNG, Combined Nations).

To be fair to that Metro rating, the NRL games are shown live by 2 different broadcasters at the same time (channel 9 & fox sports). So the audience is split. Not saying if you add the Fox audience ratings it would more. Just making the point that it doesn’t paint the full picture.