NRL to clubs: relocate or fold

[Moomintroll]

NRL set to force clubs to relocate or risk folding under new clause in licensing agreement.

Link to story on foxsports here

[kev p]

Very American, getting clubs to up & move. When they spoke of expansion in Australia’s cricket 20/20 they just put an extra team in Sydney & Melbourne! Will they do the same in the nrl? Extra team in Brisbane where rl is strong.

[The Future is League]

1 minute ago, kev p said:

Very American, getting clubs to up & move. When they spoke of expansion in Australia’s cricket 20/20 they just put an extra team in Sydney & Melbourne! Will they do the same in the nrl? Extra team in Brisbane where rl is strong.

Putting a team in Perth is a no brainer

[EastLondonMike]

Gonna be fun this one. Seems to be purely on finance. Moving a team with a strong supporter base to another part of the country is going to take some doing! Are there any Sydney teams that don't have a reasonably decent support? Not sure on the figures but would have thought there aren't any that average below 8k through the gates.

[Mr Wind Up]

10 minutes ago, kev p said:

Very American, getting clubs to up & move. When they spoke of expansion in Australia’s cricket 20/20 they just put an extra team in Sydney & Melbourne! Will they do the same in the nrl? Extra team in Brisbane where rl is strong.

Nothing about this post makes sense. Australia's T20 cricket league started out with two teams in Melbourne and Sydney. And even if they didn't, there is a big difference between plonking new teams in a 16-team NRL comp and the cricket which right now has just 8 teams. 

[fevtom]

Call me old fashioned but this is why I prefer the British model. Look at how the fans reacted at Widnes, look at how the emotion around the trouble Bolton Wanderers are in. You get a real feel that the club is the heart of a community. There's nothing wrong with starting a new club but saying that a rugby club can just move or fold and no one does anything about it seems a really alien concept.

[Scubby]

14 minutes ago, fevtom said:

Call me old fashioned but this is why I prefer the British model. Look at how the fans reacted at Widnes, look at how the emotion around the trouble Bolton Wanderers are in. You get a real feel that the club is the heart of a community. There's nothing wrong with starting a new club but saying that a rugby club can just move or fold and no one does anything about it seems a really alien concept.

I am not sure we are talking about a club suddenly becoming Perth Sharks. More that a club would relocate the licence and be called Perth Whatever, and Cronulla would play in the NSW cup or something.

[The Daddy]

17 minutes ago, fevtom said:

Call me old fashioned but this is why I prefer the British model. Look at how the fans reacted at Widnes, look at how the emotion around the trouble Bolton Wanderers are in. You get a real feel that the club is the heart of a community. There's nothing wrong with starting a new club but saying that a rugby club can just move or fold and no one does anything about it seems a really alien concept.

Yeah it's great going into administration isn't it. Good old Widnes. 

[Davo5]

When Greenberg was interviewed by Gould he stated relocation was only a possibility with the introduction of 2 additional teams also being looked at.

Greenberg also stated that more games need to be taken to Perth which could lead to their own team with a second Brisbane team also under discussion.

[nadera78]

The more important part of that article was the suggestion of the NRL expanding to 18 teams. The NRL would undoubtedly come here looking to recruit players, and we'd be looking at losing a dozen or more players. The knock on effect for SL would be severe, but that's the way the sport has gone in recent years and will only continue.

[BladeHearts]

My reading of this is that it is only if a team is financially struggling, so I guess its a scenario whereby if a team had signficant debts which it couldn't manage and was therefore forced to go cap in hand to the NRL, the NRL would have the power to relocate the club in return for the financial bail-out.

The key thing is the proposal to expand to 18 teams.  Surely this is a good thing for the world of RL, yes, it may lead to cherry picking of some Super League players, but in my opinion the more RL players playing professionally, earning a good wage and competing at the highest level the better.

There can be no underestimating the strategic importance of the NRL planting its flag in Perth, it beggars belief that this wasn't done decades ago.

 

 

[MattSantos]

In a forum last week, Greenberg said that expansion is a focus for the next 12 months.

Tv deal up soon?

[philipw]

1 hour ago, Scubby said:

I am not sure we are talking about a club suddenly becoming Perth Sharks. More that a club would relocate the licence and be called Perth Whatever, and Cronulla would play in the NSW cup or something.

I am guessing you were just using Cronulla as an example, but they won't be moving anytime soon: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjV2eK1vZDhAhUzrHEKHZNGBD4QFjAAegQIBxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxsports.com.au%2Fnrl%2Fnrl-premiership%2Fteams%2Fsharks%2Fpenniless-to-prosperous-cronulla-sharks-secure-future-with-40m-windfall%2Fnews-story%2F784b8bc2fbe3ab645e05078b56c71519&usg=AOvVaw38RvCqIcLPiPlSWWZnbbsF

[Dunbar]

Very dangerous to try and eradicate decades (or centuries) of history, heritage and community by simply shifting teams across the country.  It risks alienating both sides of the equation.

If the NRL want to add teams but don't want to expand beyond 16 then why not create two conferences of say 10 to create a 20 team comp then have conference play off's and then interconference play off's/Grand Final to find a winner. 

Surely there is enough of a player base and fan appetite to not sacrifice existing teams for expansion.

[Big Picture]

1 hour ago, kev p said:

Very American, getting clubs to up & move. When they spoke of expansion in Australia’s cricket 20/20 they just put an extra team in Sydney & Melbourne! Will they do the same in the nrl? Extra team in Brisbane where rl is strong.

From what I read there, it sounds very similar to the AFL did in the cases of South Melbourne and Fitzroy, which became Sydney and Brisbane respectively many years ago now.

[DoubleD]

1 hour ago, EastLondonMike said:

Gonna be fun this one. Seems to be purely on finance. Moving a team with a strong supporter base to another part of the country is going to take some doing! Are there any Sydney teams that don't have a reasonably decent support? Not sure on the figures but would have thought there aren't any that average below 8k through the gates.

Manly are probably the weakest. Cronulla/West Tigers would be next at risk

I think it's a sensible proposal. It's only last resort but the NRL don't want to carry the can for any clubs that get into financial strife as they have recently. The drive to get a team in Perth is certainly ramping up

 

[philipw]

4 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

Manly are probably the weakest. Cronulla/West Tigers would be next at risk

I think it's a sensible proposal. It's only last resort but the NRL don't want to carry the can for any clubs that get into financial strife as they have recently. The drive to get a team in Perth is certainly ramping up

 

I'm not so sure. If you read the link above, Cronulla don't appear to be at much risk anymore, given the massive amount of funding they will receive for a property development deal. Definitely Manly most at risk you would think though. 

[DoubleD]

14 minutes ago, philipw said:

I'm not so sure. If you read the link above, Cronulla don't appear to be at much risk anymore, given the massive amount of funding they will receive for a property development deal. Definitely Manly most at risk you would think though. 

That property deal is at risk now I believe and after all the off field scandal, they've really been struggling for sponsors, as a number have left. They're certainly in a bit of strife and don't appear to be well run from the looks of it

[THE RED ROOSTER]

Cronulla is a case in point no sooner do the NRL feel they have a candidate club to move  than someone comes up with $40 million AUD that saves the club and moves the focus onto another club.

Redcliffe Dolphins have been a candidate NRL club for years in Brisbane's north yet IIRC from the League Life programme that was on Fox when I was over there the Brisbane Chair was of the view that the NRL had the right number of clubs now as it is and it would be less expansion but the relocation of an existing Sydney club. This is similar to NFL expansion and the mooted London Franchise, in that while clubs may be in favour of new territory they do not want their share of the revenue pie to be any smaller than is currently the case so keep the same number of clubs and just move one or two seems to be the preferred choice.

[Allora]

1 hour ago, BladeHearts said:

My reading of this is that it is only if a team is financially struggling, so I guess its a scenario whereby if a team had signficant debts which it couldn't manage and was therefore forced to go cap in hand to the NRL, the NRL would have the power to relocate the club in return for the financial bail-out.

The key thing is the proposal to expand to 18 teams.  Surely this is a good thing for the world of RL, yes, it may lead to cherry picking of some Super League players, but in my opinion the more RL players playing professionally, earning a good wage and competing at the highest level the better.

There can be no underestimating the strategic importance of the NRL planting its flag in Perth, it beggars belief that this wasn't done decades ago.

 

 

It was done decades ago.

[philipw]

4 minutes ago, THE RED ROOSTER said:

Cronulla is a case in point no sooner do the NRL feel they have a candidate club to move  than someone comes up with $40 million AUD that saves the club and moves the focus onto another club.

Redcliffe Dolphins have been a candidate NRL club for years in Brisbane's north yet IIRC from the League Life programme that was on Fox when I was over there the Brisbane Chair was of the view that the NRL had the right number of clubs now as it is and it would be less expansion but the relocation of an existing Sydney club. This is similar to NFL expansion and the mooted London Franchise, in that while clubs may be in favour of new territory they do not want their share of the revenue pie to be any smaller than is currently the case so keep the same number of clubs and just move one or two seems to be the preferred choice.

And the ridiculous nature of this approach is underpinned by the fact that they made $46m profit last year alone

https://www.nrl.com/news/2019/02/28/nrl-announces-$46-million-profit-for-2018/

[philipw]

1 hour ago, BladeHearts said:

 

There can be no underestimating the strategic importance of the NRL planting its flag in Perth, it beggars belief that this wasn't done decades ago.

 

 

I'm guessing you weren't around for the Super League war?

[Getmefood]

Wests Tigers or Cronulla to Perth.

Canterbury Bulldogs to Christchurch (could work with the Canterbury region naming)

Manly to Brisbane.

I'd like to see it happen in the NSW & QLD Cups too and those competitions grow. Fiji needs to be admitted ASAP, Darwin and Adelaide next, other Pacific Island and even Asian clubs could be considered. 2-3 live games are currently broadcast a week from those competitions and I'd like to think more could happen there. At the end of the day we can say let's not expand but if we continue down the same path how many more times do we have to see Australia flog NZ, England & the Pacific Island nations. Only when the talk of expansion happened did things start to change and the gaps started to bridge pre 2013 WC Australia looked miles ahead of the rest. With the growing influence of NZ, England & the Pacific Island nations it's brung international RL to the forefront. France, Wales, Scotland Ireland, USA, Serbia and co.. should follow next to see continued progress. 

 

[Lounge Room Lizard]

I understand that Sydney Clubs have to maintain a certain Standard off the field or RISK being relegated. 9 Clubs is too many. And Tigers, Doggies, Sharksand Manly have recently all had major money and off field problems.

[Dunbar]

6 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

They have too many teams in Sydney that'st the reason they want to do it like this.

Add four more teams and go to twenty with 2 conferences of ten and you could almost have a whole conference of just Sydney teams and one of everyone else. They currently have 9 teams serving 5m people and 6 teams serving the other 20m.

There is clearly a question of whether it is worth having another mouth to feed by adding Perth and say Brisbane2 when one area of the country is so massively over served 

Yes, I understand this.  But in my view expansion is about addition, not relocation - particularly with a sport as popular as Rugby League in Australia.

It's fine saying Manly should be relocated to Perth or Brisbane or New Zealand but that is the same as saying Wakefield should go to Newcastle or Hull KR to Coventry... let's consider the people who have grown up feeling that these teams are part of their families.

At its heart Rugby League is a community game and professional clubs should be considered as serving the largest communities.

I am an expansionist but we can so this without neglecting our history.