John bird

More eyes on the general forum.

If I knew how I’d merge all the threads together.

What makes you think that we won’t?

We’re now starting to get down to the nitty gritty and business end of the expansion debate with bids and dates being set.

That was before the meeting was announced which is somewhat more pivotal.

Will/could this be the most important date in the history of the NRL so far with expansion being discussed at the ARL commission meeting in Melbourne? talks of 18 or 20 teams with bids from a standalone Perth, New Zealand South Island, PNG and Brisbane being discussed as well as joint venture teams in the form of the north Sydney bears or the Newtown Jets linking up with the Perth bid. not sure if we’ll get the names of all 3 teams if the NRL is to indeed expand to 20 teams but more perhaps the entry dates of all 3 expansion teams. all very exciting stuff for NRL expansionist fans and should set the competition up for the next 20-25 years. my hope is we’ll see the following :- #18 perth standalone team #19 NZ2 South Island team #20 Brisbane/south east Queensland team

Must be a gamblers worst nightmare.

Seems like the past 6 rounds or so have been massively affected by the weather. affecting the crowds as well which have been amazing considering.

You can count the storm out for 2025. https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/the-time-is-not-right-why-the-melbourne-storm-has-decided-against-going-to-las-vegas-in-2025/news-story/2255a5c5afaa3ba694ccdccce144259a

Absolute thriller of a game played in front of 25,167 this morning to get round 16 off with a bang. tomorrow mornings game between the titans and warriors should also be a cracker with a crowd of 20k+ expected on the Gold Coast with the warriors fans probably outnumbering the home fans.

That’s exactly the huge risk a project like this is susceptible to and is ultimately at the mercy of 2 governments of the day in both Canberra and Port Moresby. There’s also the question of what happens next after the 10 years of government funding is up?

PNG bid facing more and more pushback of late. https://www.theroar.com.au/2024/06/21/money-talks-but-does-600-million-speak-loudly-enough-to-make-png-feasible-for-nrl-expansion/

Double post.

100% this. add in the population of New Zealand that is currently going bonkers for the NRL and record amounts of TV and sponsorship monies then it’s for me a blunder and a no-brainer not to expand. also the populations of where RL is strongest and predominantly played are also exploding like the city of Brisbane and the whole south east Queensland region as well as the natural increase for the greater Sydney area. the population of the Perth metropolitan area is also rapidly growing from currently around 2.3 million which includes hundreds of thousands of internal migrants from NSW and Queensland as well as tens of thousands of kiwi expats and even English immigrants and is forecasted to reach 3.5 million by mid 2040.

Record amounts Tv money allows the NRL to expand alongside all the added increases in sponsorship for both clubs and the competition as a whole limiting the fear of financial instability and ruin. as for the quality of the on the pitch product and dilution of the competition then unfortunately this will probably happen in the short-term but the whole idea is to not just expand into a new market for fans but potential NRL players as well in both Perth and New Zealand as well as potentially PNG which has an unfathomable amount of untapped talent waiting to be unearthed through aggressive and extensive on the ground development and pathways programmes.