New Brisbane NRL team

[Sports Prophet]

4 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

We see all these posters from down under telling us how parochial and set in our ways and we should merge or change allegiance , but when you scratch a little under the surface over there you find they're just the same

I think you will find that the Aussies recommending mergers/relocations etc in the UK are not the ones denying them in Sydney. Just that both sets of ideas exist in Aus too.

[AB90]

4 hours ago, giasf said:

Perhaps I am thinking of this with too much of a British mindset, but who exactly would support a second team (apart from its existing supporter base, which I assuming is not enough to sustain an NRL side)? I would have thought if you are from Brisbane you will want to support the Broncos?

Realistically it's more to do with TV ratings as opposed to traditional 'support'.

You have probably the most rugby league mad city on the planet with 2.5m people. Those Broncos supporters will still tune in to watch another team from their city play rugby league. 

[Horace]

On 22/12/2020 at 01:53, Taniwha Warriors said:

I'm not sure what juniors in Auckland your on about but a South Island team base in Christchurch will unite that region.

The NRL have a u 20 competition starting up in February in New Zealand with 8 teams that could supply Auckland 2

[nadera78]

1 hour ago, Horace said:

The NRL have a u 20 competition starting up in February in New Zealand with 8 teams that could supply Auckland 2

The NZRL have an U20 competition....

Either way, Auckland cannot support a second NRL club. The South Island could though.

[Omott91]

19 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

We see all these posters from down under telling us how parochial and set in our ways and we should merge or change allegiance , but when you scratch a little under the surface over there you find they're just the same

In light of the reduced tv deal my suggestion of mergers was aimed moreso at league 1 and Championship clubs who could pool their resources together and have a proper crack at promotion.   

[Pulga]

21 hours ago, giasf said:

Perhaps I am thinking of this with too much of a British mindset, but who exactly would support a second team (apart from its existing supporter base, which I assuming is not enough to sustain an NRL side)? I would have thought if you are from Brisbane you will want to support the Broncos?

Think of Hull but with 10x the population and the Sunshine Coast with another population bigger then Hull an hour to the north with no team.

Sydney has 8 or 9 teams and only twice the population.

[Pulga]

21 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

We see all these posters from down under telling us how parochial and set in our ways and we should merge or change allegiance , but when you scratch a little under the surface over there you find they're just the same

You have zero teams in SL from the biggest city in England. 

You're acting like they're adding a second team to Townsville....

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

3 hours ago, nadera78 said:

Either way, Auckland cannot support a second NRL club. The South Island could though.

Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city of 1.5 million people can’t support 2 professional teams? But the town of Wigan has 2 professional clubs and Wakefield has 3.

[nadera78]

14 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city of 1.5 million people can’t support 2 professional teams? But the town of Wigan has 2 professional clubs and Wakefield has 3.

Was I comparing NRL clubs to SL ones? No, I was not. The fact that SL is so small in comparison to the NRL that Wigan Borough can accommodate 2 teams is of no relevance whatsoever to discussing the resources needed by an NRL club.

Auckland has the resource base required to support 1 NRL club, likewise the South Island of NZ.

 

[Sports Prophet]

6 hours ago, Horace said:

The NRL have a u 20 competition starting up in February in New Zealand with 8 teams that could supply Auckland 2

This comment won’t get you your first like Horace

[Sports Prophet]

1 hour ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city of 1.5 million people can’t support 2 professional teams? But the town of Wigan has 2 professional clubs and Wakefield has 3.

They do support two professional teams. Warriors and Blues.

Who are the disenchanted Auckland residents that have such animosity with the Warriors, to sustain a professional local rival?

[GUBRATS]

4 hours ago, Omott91 said:

In light of the reduced tv deal my suggestion of mergers was aimed moreso at league 1 and Championship clubs who could pool their resources together and have a proper crack at promotion.   

Which ones ?

[GUBRATS]

2 hours ago, Pulga said:

You have zero teams in SL from the biggest city in England. 

You're acting like they're adding a second team to Townsville....

Just pointing out something I noticed about mergers , I have no opinion on what should or should not happen in Australia , I am not really interested in it or have enough knowledge of it , I'll keep my nose out of it from now on 

[Pulga]

53 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Just pointing out something I noticed about mergers , I have no opinion on what should or should not happen in Australia , I am not really interested in it or have enough knowledge of it , I'll keep my nose out of it from now on 

It's all good. That's what this forum is for.

The NRL works on a population of about 200k+ minimum for a new club. That's where Townsville was at when the Cowboys began. 

Brisbane 12x larger than that with one team. It can definitely stand to have one more team, especially because, like Townsville, it's a Rugby league city.

[Horace]

The NRL -AFL code war will explode in the 8 years in 2023 the NRL will start up Brisbane 2 in 2025 the ARL will have Perth 3 that will shut out the NRL then in 2028 the NRL will have Brisbane 3 having teams in north Brisbane and west Brisbane  squeezing the AFL until the AFL make there 20 in the Sunshine Coast in Queensland so the NRL will have 18 teams unless a couple Sydney fall over and the AFL will have 20 team unless a couple of Melbourne teams fall over  

[Damien]

36 minutes ago, Horace said:

The NRL -AFL code war will explode in the 8 years in 2023 the NRL will start up Brisbane 2 in 2025 the ARL will have Perth 3 that will shut out the NRL then in 2028 the NRL will have Brisbane 3 having teams in north Brisbane and west Brisbane  squeezing the AFL until the AFL make there 20 in the Sunshine Coast in Queensland so the NRL will have 18 teams unless a couple Sydney fall over and the AFL will have 20 team unless a couple of Melbourne teams fall over  

Not a chance.

[Cumbrian Mackem]

The projected population of Queensland is expected to be 6.5 million by 2031 which would for me be underrepresented by just 3 NRL teams.

Big decisions are going to be needed and made for the NRL in the coming years regarding expansion, relocation and mergers :-

Does the NRL expand to a 17, 18 or even 20 team competition?

Does the NRL capitalize on fast growing cities within its heartland like Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich and Logan etc?

Does the NRL relocate teams permanently to areas like the central coast and Wollongong that has ready to go NRL stadia and junior setups?

Does the NRL truly embrace the “NATIONAL” part of the NRL by expanding to cities like Perth, Adelaide and maybe even Darwin?

Does the NRL expand further into a tried and tested successful market in terms of fans and players in New Zealand? Target cities like Wellington and Christchurch for future expansion?

[Horace]

3 hours ago, Cumbrian Mackem said:

The projected population of Queensland is expected to be 6.5 million by 2031 which would for me be underrepresented by just 3 NRL teams.

Big decisions are going to be needed and made for the NRL in the coming years regarding expansion, relocation and mergers :-

Does the NRL expand to a 17, 18 or even 20 team competition?

Does the NRL capitalize on fast growing cities within its heartland like Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich and Logan etc?

Does the NRL relocate teams permanently to areas like the central coast and Wollongong that has ready to go NRL stadia and junior setups?

Does the NRL truly embrace the “NATIONAL” part of the NRL by expanding to cities like Perth, Adelaide and maybe even Darwin?

Does the NRL expand further into a tried and tested successful market in terms of fans and players in New Zealand? Target cities like Wellington and Christchurch for future expansion?

The NRL have wasted 10 years of no expansion while the AFL charged ahead the NRL should have had teams in Perth and Brisbane 2 but we are still waiting while the AFL will be looking to expand again with a new TV deal 

[Cumbrian Mackem]

43 minutes ago, Horace said:

The NRL have wasted 10 years of no expansion while the AFL charged ahead the NRL should have had teams in Perth and Brisbane 2 but we are still waiting while the AFL will be looking to expand again with a new TV deal 

Totally agree. Sadly Expansion these days for the NRL is to take SOO to Perth or regular season NRL games to Adelaide, Darwin and Wellington etc.

[The Rocket]

On 23/12/2020 at 02:57, langpark said:

I guess the team I feel for most is Illawarra.  Their whole identity got completely swallowed up by St George in what was supposedly a joint-venture.  They have a population almost the same as Newcastle, a great stadium and consistently produces good rugby league talent

 

On 23/12/2020 at 23:24, unapologetic pedant said:

It`s hard to work out how much popular buy-in there is for the Dragons in Illawarra. Then again the Steelers in the Winfield Cup was a slow burner compared with the Knights.

The Illawarra has had a long feeder relationship with St. George with many of St. George`s great players coming from that region. Interestingly and probably a little perversely for a club trying to forge an independent identity the colours chosen by the Illawarra Steelers were the inverse of St. George with majority red with white bands. It was probably a reference to their long association.

The Illawarra region may be similar in population size to Newcastle but I would expect that it is economically far less developed and Newcastle is also much closer to many other regional population centres. The economic aspect in particular played a large part in their inability to continue as a separate outfit.

However in another twist reminiscent of the Wests/ Tigers merger, the recent purchase of a majority share of St. George/Illawarra  by billionaire Bruce Gordon , owner of the WIN Television network, headquartered in Wollongong and the decline in funding to the Rugby League club by the wealthy St. George Leagues club means that it would appear that like Wests/Tigers the minority partner has assumed a much more dominant position.

As far as the buy-in by the residents of the Illawarra I don`t think this has been an issue at all, certainly when the joint venture is doing well the crowds at WIN stadium can push 18 - 20 000 and I think the St. George side of the venture have made a concerted effort to recognize their Illawarra partner. 

 

 

[unapologetic pedant]

44 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

 

The Illawarra has had a long feeder relationship with St. George with many of St. George`s great players coming from that region. Interestingly and probably a little perversely for a club trying to forge an independent identity the colours chosen by the Illawarra Steelers were the inverse of St. George with majority red with white bands. It was probably a reference to their long association.

 the decline in funding to the Rugby League club by the wealthy St. George Leagues club 

The Steelers jersey I recall from the 80s was more like a S.F. 49ers jumper i.e. plain red. If there were "white bands", they must have been on the sleeves.

The Dragons` reach south made more sense pre-1967. It`s hard to discern the role of the Sharks in the St. George/Illawarra relationship over the past 53 years. Are they the gooseberry? dog in the manger? There was a Sharks-Steelers game about 30 years ago that finished 2-2, and was portrayed in the media as a tight tense local derby.

I read an article a while back that parts of St. George Leagues were in disrepair and had been closed awaiting renovation.

[langpark]

3 hours ago, The Rocket said:

As far as the buy-in by the residents of the Illawarra I don`t think this has been an issue at all, certainly when the joint venture is doing well the crowds at WIN stadium can push 18 - 20 000 and I think the St. George side of the venture have made a concerted effort to recognize their Illawarra partner. 

Yes but don't they only get about 3 matches per season? 

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, langpark said:

Yes but don't they only get about 3 matches per season? 

How many home games do clubs actually get? 3 games might be touching a quarter of all home games!

[unapologetic pedant]

9 minutes ago, langpark said:

Yes but don't they only get about 3 matches per season? 

In 2019 they had 4. One against the Cowboys got 7k, another against the Storm got 5.5k, and another against the Raiders got 9k.

In 2018, when they made the finals, the Wollongong game against Parra pulled under 7k.

[Futtocks]

2 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:

The Steelers jersey I recall from the 80s was more like a S.F. 49ers jumper i.e. plain red. If there were "white bands", they must have been on the sleeves.

There was a Steelers jersey with narrow white stripes on the body at some point. But that may have been the exception.