Those of us lucky (or unlucky, depending on who you ask) enough to be on social media would have been witness to the mother of all rugby league discussions yesterday.

For once it wasn't regarding the ridiculous off-field behaviour of the stars of the game but was centred around an opinion piece that suggested two Sydney teams exit the NRL competition to allow for a second Brisbane side.

Straight off the bat, I want to make it clear that I strongly support a second Brisbane side. Brisbane and Perth are the obvious favourites for any expansion plans.

That said, expansion is the only way that Brisbane, or any other area, will have an NRL competition.

To suggest that either shifting or folding a Sydney team would in any way benefit Rugby League is one of the more insane suggestions I've read.

The argument is that cash strapped Sydney sides rely on NRL handouts to survive. On paper, there really isn't any argument with that line of thinking BUT what makes anyone think that a fourth Queensland side would be any different?

Sure the Broncos are a money making machine but they are backed by a monster majority owner and have multiple advantages no other club in the competition enjoys.

First and foremost they draw fans from the largest catchment in the game due to the fact they're a one club city.

Melbourne is an AFL town, Newcastle's population is a fraction of the QLD capital, and the Warriors are doing their best in a strong Rugby Union stronghold.

Sure, they are a well-run club but which other club has the sponsorship opportunities and free to air television game opportunities that the Broncs enjoy?

Just down the road the Titans aren't exactly thriving. The Reds in that awful 15 man code often play in front of an empty stadium. The Roar haven't drawn fans in years. The Lions aren't a top side in any way, short of form in the AFL.

It's not as though Brisbane is the magical answer.

I really doubt there are 500,000 potential fans sitting there in Brisbane that hate the Broncos so much that they'd support the game if a second side came in.

How many Broncos fans would make the switch? The club is a rusted on part of the culture up there that my guess would be NOT MANY!

So where do all of these supposed fans, and the money they would inject into the game, come from?

A second Brisbane team offers nothing in terms of a television deal. Perth offers huge potential.

Sure there would be plenty of commercial opportunities but I'd also guess that the Broncos would be devalued due to a split in the potential market base.

So let's run with the idea that sinking to Sydney sides is a good idea.

The Wests Tigers and either Manly or Cronulla look to be the ones most at risk. Let's sink two of those clubs.

As a Sharks fan, I guarantee you with every part of my being I would not only fail to follow a relocated club to Brisbane but I'd be lost to the game.

I'd still watch as quite frankly the other codes are far inferior but I wouldn't spend a single cent on the game. No more membership, no more merch for me and the kids. No monetary interest.

I'd be in confident in saying I wouldn't be the only one.

You'd risk losing two generations of fans from each club. My kids are Sharks fans. Truthfully they only go to games for the ice cream and jumping castle but they say they're going to the Sharks on a Sunday afternoon, not the footy.

Tigers or Sea Eagles fans would be in the same boat.

I name these three clubs as they're the most vulnerable.

So say goodbye to the monster catchments in the northern suburbs as well as the Shire and the combined Tiger towns.

That'll help the game.

While we're fantasy booking we could always make the easy choice and remove Souths from the competition again. That went so well last time.

Technically the Roosters have the city area covered while the Dragons and Sharks reach further south than the Bunnies so really the red and green would be the logical choice.

Let's remove the pride of the game for the very game for the second time cause it may help Brisbane.

Hopefully, my obvious sarcastic tone conveys the ridiculousness of the notion of anything positive coming out of a club relocating.

Moving a side to Perth has merit. Moving a side to Brisbane is laughable.

I guarantee that the number of fans lost would be far higher than the number of fans generated by any Sydney to Brisbane relocation.

Fewer fans mean fewer eyes on the product which translates to smaller sponsorship markets and ultimately reduced media rights interest.

I absolutely support a second Brisbane-based side, in time, but it's not as easy as relocating a Sydney side and hoping that fans will follow.

As for suggestions that a second Brisbane team would instantly be more profitable than every Sydney side, I point to the fact that the Bulldogs (forecast to finish last this season) have a jersey worth more in sponsorship dollars than the mighty Broncos.

Sure a second Brisbane side might be good for the competition but it's ridiculous for a Brisbane-based writer to suggest uprooting two Sydney-based clubs.

That said, you guys can have Manly.

38 COMMENTS

  5. Forcing a Club to merge, die or relocate will have a very negative impact on fans of those clubs.
    If a Club is failing and they themselves decide to merge or relocate or fold that is a much better outcome.
    Having said that the first Sydney team to go should be the one with the lowest membership numbers and lowest crowd support.

  6. Yeah, that would do it, if you’re goal was to weaken the game.
    Parra has 1 of the largest, and extremely loyal, supporter bases, and most of us would probably follow them to the ends of the earth (you could probably argue we already are), but I’d bet London to a brick we won’t follow them to Brisbane.

  7. You can add Parra @ #3 shadow.
    Another wooden spoon but still the 3rd highest when it comes to memberships.
    One team from out west needs to go and seeing as Parra and the Dogs have such high memberships it should be the lowly merged club that is waste tigers.
    Sorry wests tigers.
    Manly barely has a supporter base so either they can go or the sharks as well.

  8. Good article.
    You can’t relocate a Sydney team to Qld. If the NRL are even remotely considering that, I’d strongly advocate they simply fold that Sydney team and introduce the new Qld side. This would be far less damaging to the supporter base of the Sydney team, because at least some of that club’s supporter base may start (over time) supporting another club, not to mention, a fresh Qld side would probably gain a supporter base far quicker than a relocated Sydney team in Qld.

    If the NRL don’t want to add 2 new teams, and again I agree Dan, Perth and a second Brissy team would be the obvious choices if they were to add 2 new teams, then I think they could get away with relocating a Sydney team to Perth, and possibly relocating the Titans, either to Perth, or within Qld.

    I think, if we’ve not going to expand the comp, Wests (the logical choice for many reasons) should take advantage of Perth’s growing interest in RL, and play at least 4 home games there p.a. If Perth’s not going to get its own team, they would adopt a club that plays there regularly, especially 1 called “Wests”.
    Perth has the stadium (very modern, purpose built rugby/soccer stadium), that holds a little over 20k. A (relatively) fresh audience. By that, I think Perths interest in RL is largely growing from east coast ex pats, but the multitude of newish RL supporters aren’t strongly aligned to any club yet.
    I could go on, and on (just quietly) but I won’t, so in a nutshell, if I was a director of a struggling NRL club I’d be looking to lock in Perth for a number of regular home games ASAP.

  9. The simplistic view is to take an extremely weak NRL side out of Sydney, and the NRL will bolster their wellbeing in Brisbane and turn their fortunes around. Its just good business sense, not being derogatory to Parra but they have been in recent times and will continue to be poor contributors to the NRL competition in years to come.

  10. Dan Nicholls, you are a real Idiot.
    Your solution is to…
    Get rid of the Rabbitohs with the most Members, the Highest valued Sponsorship $6.7M.

    The only Club who has a Major Sponsor for Both the Home and Away Jerseys!
    The Rabbitohs Jersey is worth the Highest amount in the Comp, we spit on the Shoncs and the Cheats!

    The Most Premiership plus the Club that has made a profit in 8 of the last 10 seasons.

    Yeah right! Idiot!

    Your Statement…
    Technically the Roosters have the city area covered while the Dragons and Sharks reach further south than the Bunnies so really the red and green would be the logical choice.

    What a load of $H!T the Rorts have ZERO Juniors, The Rabbitohs have more Juniors than both.
    The Sharks Juniors are shrinking as Soccer is taking over Cronulla, the rest are pot smokers down there!

    The Rorts and Tigers Juniors have to combine with the Mergers from Kogarah just to have a competition.
    The Rabbitohs have enough Juniors to run our competition outright.

  12. he also said this:
    “Hopefully, my obvious sarcastic tone conveys the ridiculousness of the notion of anything positive coming out of a club relocating.”

  13. Stop the prop ups of desperate clubs with NRL bail out money and natural attrition will cull two clubs.

    Manly, sharks and the Merge will fall in two years. The first two to fall can than be offered two options.
    Relocate and survive.
    Perish.

    Perth Sharks
    Adelaide Sea Eagles

  16. 3hats As soon as Packer and Crowe move on your team will fold again, who did you support in 1999? You would of been salty them 3 years hahaha

  17. An Adelaide team wouldn’t work but they should merge manly, sharks and bring in a Perth team, then could just go back to 1 bye a week.

  18. 3 Hats , Dan did not mean that, he was being sarcastic with those remarks, read it properly, but in saying that Easts should be and will be the first club out of Dodge, they offer nothing but money, once Polites goes that will be it, it is logical that they go, they have a small part of Sydney that they represent and those living there couldn’t give a rats about them, plus their membership numbers are a disgrace for the second foundation club, plus of course no juniors, just these so called development players.

    Easts have never offered anything to the nrl and the nrl knows it and it is planned for them to eventually relocate.

    Packer and Crowe won’t be going anywhere, and we are the only club , except Bronco’s who usually makes a profit, and do so without a licensed club

  19. The game is too small and always will be remember super greed we will take it to the world?what happened? No clubs will be folding or merging but expansion to perth and another qld team will happen in due course its inevitable even with peter beattie at the helm what a massive joke he is to run our game im still in shock its laughable.

  20. No. Taking a weak team out of Sydney and relocating them to Qld, as per my post below, is extremely unlikely to work. Moving any team from Sydney to Qld for that matter would probably be a net loss to the sport.

  21. Winners don’t get kicked, You only want us gone because you know we are better and if rabbits play us in the finals you will be eliminated again.

    No matter what you say, we will have a better 2019 then you and because all the dribble you constantly talk about my team you will be constantly reminded that we are having a better year

  22. Will what be Parra, exactly?
    If you’re still suggesting we move to Qld, well I think I’ve more than covered that, for any Sydney club.
    If you think we (Parra) should move to Perth, hell yeah, from a personal perspective, given I live in Perth, but that’s illogical from the bigger picture perspective.
    Surely you can see that if any club was to relocate the NRL would want to minimise the impact on its existing supporter base, so why move Parra? I can only assume you’re looking to increase your supporter base by assisting with filling the void felt by Parra in Western Sydney, rather than face a relocation yourself, or yet another merger, in order to survive.

  23. If the Gold Coast doesn’t work again, give the license to the Broncos and have a second team in Brisbane. If the Broncos have a winning franchise, why not let them expand their model? Brisbane can handle a second team, but not an unsuccessful Sydney one.

  24. Mate you won the comp last year, hooray, now move on b2b, new comp , how do you know you will have a better comp than us this year? what you just said shows your intellegence, or lack of, there is no way you guys will go back to back, there have been far better teams than your mob who could not do it, so why your team big head?

  25. Mate you won the comp last year, hooray, now move on b2b, new comp , how do you know you will have a better comp than us this year? what you just said shows your intellegence, or lack of, there is no way you guys will go back to back, there have been far better teams than your mob who could not do it, so why your team big head?

  26. Coming from the guy that said “Robinson isn’t that good of a coach” I can’t take you seriously,it would good to know who you think the 2 best coaches is in the game are?

    You tell me to move on from a premiership we won 4 months ago? You constantly bring up your premierships from 40+ years ago, you are the biggest one eyed hypocrite on this site.

    If your so confident in your team I’ll make a bet with you? If the roosters go deeper into final then your rabbits, you can never dribble another comment on this site, if your team can somehow go better than the rooster I will delete my account. Don’t be scared old man.

  27. Super League killed off a few teams. Brisbane needs another Team regardless of all the pro’s and con’s. Brisbane Bronco’s were the sole instigator of Super League being the first team to jump. They wanted an entire capital city to themselves and with Super League that is what they got.

    The time is right for another Brisbane team. Many NSW people have emigrated to Brisbane with the desire to buy and affordable house. A population boom since 1997 (super league year) to 2019 has seen an increase of almost half a million people. Mainly from NSW. There is a huge influx of people who now call Brisbane Home from NSW that hate the Bronco’s There is easily enough people to sustain another Brisbane team and with many young children growing up in that City more and more people will have a second choice to pick and choose which team they favor. The increase in population is larger than the population of Newcastle who has 440 hundred thousand people and Canberra who also has 440 hundred Thousand people Townsville 185 thousand people but because the team represents North Queensland then it takes in many more people with near by big towns. Brisbanes 500 thousand increase is more than enough to support a second team.

    Perth is a certainty also and in reality theses two teams are the only fairdinkum options. Rugby League will always have a massive TV ordinance so TV rights will always sustain ALL the Sydney Clubs. teams still get income from their Leagues Clubs but some teams mainly the one Russell Crowe owns is the only reason why it has made 5 or 6 years profit in the past 10 years. At one Stage Crowe was about to sell up because it cost him to much personally. So if any Sydney teams need to be axed the only one I would suggest is the one mentioned who does not even have their own Leagues Club. However like I said before The NRL pays all the Clubs enough money each year to survive comfortably.💪🎱👍

  28. Well if anyone needs to go Nicholls I’m sure no one will miss Cronulla supporters. Like you said the dragons have the south wrapped so you’ve just highlighted how unnecessary the sharks are. Enjoy Perth.

  29. Almighty, I love your passion for Parramatta, however a passion for the game is the only balanced argument, Sydney simply has too many teams, Parramatta is the weakest link in the Sydney based competition despite having the largest nursery for talent to draw future champions from, their inept management of recruitment and retention of talent prevent them from doing this also. For the Eels brand to survive a relocation is a must. You boast 20,000 members, however more than half of them are interstate non-ticketed members. Perth perhaps is the answer for a move, but I think either Brisbane or the central coast is a much better option, from a business perspective, lets face it sport is a business. Whilst I am a tigers supporter, I would fully endorse Western Sydney stronghold in merging Parra, Penrith and the tigers for the betterment of the games and better distribution of the available talent around both the elite competition and the second tier competition that is also depleted and broken at a state level.

  32. Rigid, first off, can you provide reference on your statement on Parra’s membership numbers. Not saying they are wrong, but I would be interested to see where you get that from.

    On the topic of Sydney however, Parra is not the weak link in the Sydney market as you state. Measures have already been put in place to fix the mess that was left by the factions that threatened to destroy the club. Fixing the recruitment and retention issues is not something can happen overnight, but the current administration are attempting to do that. The Eels have a strong leagues club backing, a strong supporter and member base, a new, state of the art stadium to play out of, and as you say, a very strong junior base. They aren’t going anywhere. I am not going to say who should relocate, if anyone, as I am not over the full goings on of all clubs, but on the surface if you were to rank Sydney clubs based on overall strength, Parra would be closer to the top than the bottom.

    As for your relocation ideas, you can’t honestly believe that, from a business point of view, a solution to fixing the number of teams in Sydney is to move a team to the Central Coast? What does that offer from a business point of view? What new sponsors will it bring on board? What new supporters will it bring on board? Another team in Brisbane is probably a must, and Perth would probably be next. The Central Coast offers very little to the NRL from an expansion point of view.

  33. 47, the club can provide you the detail of their non ticketed member options and numbers, in fact their website clearly depicts the number of QLD member options available, this is a great business strategy to boost numbers, but does not place bums on seats.

    A strong leagues club you say, that is in effect run by an administrator in Max Donnelly “Strong” No, hanging in the balance Yes.

    Retention and recruitment – Please explain how this is being remediated when you have the same people behind the scenes

    Sadly 47, Parra is at the bottom of the Sydney ranking and likely to stay right there. Relocation is the only answer and the Central Coast has a lot to offer, however agreed Brisbane and Perth may be an option.

  34. I won’t dwell on it, but just a FYI re the financials.
    The Parra leagues club is a profitable entity. It made $3.5 mil after tax, and AFTER propping the footy club’s deficit last year (approx $8 mil), and it’s got net assets of around $60 mil. That said, they do want the footy club to reduce it’s recent deficits big time, and ASAP.
    It’s not in administration from a financial’s perspective, it’s been run by an administrator because we had to sack the whole board 18 months ago, so it was about providing independent management.
    I back our new board, big time, but as Eels said we have to give them time.

  35. I realise there are interstate and non ticketed membership “options”, I was asking for reference for your statement that more than half of the members are interstate non ticketed?

    Financially strong leagues club may be the better term, with profits more than doubling in 2018 compared to 2017 and the value of the clubs assets also increasing.

    Parra have a history of paying massive overs for any available players on the market. This year we have signed Fergo on reported $500k, definitely not overs, Paulo on reported $650, maybe a little overs, and Lane, not sure on $$ though. They have aslo prmoted juniors such as Kaufusi, Leleisiuao, Niukore and Stone to the top squad, with Brown and Mahoney in the development squad, both likely to be added to the top squad before June 30. Like I said, this is a process that takes time, but the right steps are being taken to improve this area of the club. And who are these same people behind the scenes. The previous board, CEO, Head of Football and recruitment have all been moved on since the salary cap scandal.

  36. Go Away rigid leaver. You are masquerading as a Tigers fan when we all know your a super league Bronco. Parra will never be relocated. New Stadium heaps of juniors and a beautiful location within Greater Sydney and a League crazy place. Pull your head in and have a good look around Leaver, or is it to fixed and rigid. dumb0

    Stop dreaming and present some actual facts🥜🥜🥜🥜🥜🥜 nutter

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