NRL Expansion Talk (2019)

On February 9, 2019, Peter Badel from Brisbane’s Courier Mail wrote an article making the claim that 2 Sydney NRL clubs should be axed and at least 1 Brisbane team should be created to fill the void.

While he makes some sound arguments, such as the struggles that some Sydney clubs have, some of the other claims need to be challenged.

He argues that a second NRL side in Brisbane would crush rival codes there and his evidence is by highlighting how essentially, the Broncos have already done much of that and would likely have the same impact on a second Brisbane NRL team.

“The AFL’s Brisbane Lions are a skeleton of the powerhouse that won a hat-trick of flags in 2001-03.

Football’s Brisbane Roar have seen crowds drop 34 per cent in the past 12 months.

Rugby’s Reds — once a genuine threat to the Broncos on the scale of crowd figures — have lost major traction in a code that has lost its marbles.”

He also went on to say that the South-Eastern corner of Queensland has an estimated 3.5 million residents.

Nowhere in his piece does he mention the Robina based Gold Coast Titans, purely because they would weaken his argument.

2018 saw the Titans record their second lowest crowd average since their 2007 inception, with 12,807 fans turning up on average per game, down from their peak of 21,618 in 2008 and almost 1,000 per game less than in 2016 when they last reached the finals.

He then supports his argument with an outlandish quote made by Nick Livermore, one of the shareholders in the Brisbane Bombers expansion bid team. Livermore said:

“With crowds of 24,000, a second Brisbane team would make a $1 million profit. And that’s not factoring in the NRL grant, which is now greater than the salary cap.’’

Only one team averages crowds of 24,000 and that’s the Broncos. A second team would change that and bring their average crowd figure down, just like the Crushers did when they joined the competition in 1995.

Furthermore, the Titans have never averaged crowds of 24,000 in a season and they don’t have the Broncos within a stones throw of them as an excuse.

In 1996 when Brisbane had the Broncos and the Crushers, the South Queensland side averaged 10 thousand less fans per game than the Broncos. The Crushers had 13,016 fans per home game. In 1997 they were averaging less than 10 thousand per home game.

If that figure was carried across today, using the 2018 crowd averages, the second team would struggle to average 22,000. And if the Titans is a guide, those strong crowds will last for 3 to 4 years.

South Queensland survived for 3 years.

Let’s have a look at how those 3 years (1995, 1996 and 1997) worked out for Brisbane.

1994 – Brisbane averaged 37,705 per game (11 Broncos games)

1995 – Brisbane averaged 28,466 per game (11 Broncos games and 11 Crushers games)

1996 – Brisbane averaged 18,109 per game (10 Broncos games and 11 Crushers games)

1997 – Brisbane averaged 12,536 per game (9 Broncos games and 11 Crushers games)

1998 – Brisbane averaged 20,073 per game (12 Broncos games)

There’s a reason why Broncos games attract big crowds, they have no competition. As soon as competition arrives the Broncos crowd drop and the number of fans attending games in Brisbane drops as well.

Livermore then cherry-picked data to support his evidence, attacking the Wests Tigers crowd figures, one of the worst performing teams in the past 5 years and a club who uses several home grounds each year. He questioned what the club provides and their existence in the competition.

So here’s where we get to my view.

I detest the notion of axing clubs. People have this impression that fans of an axed club will just support another team. Axing clubs also axes fans.

Relocations are nearly as bad, although small moves, within the proximity of the clubs base, can always be considered – ie – Manly covering the Central Coast, Gold Coast covering South East Brisbane/Ipswich.

In an ideal world, the Wests Tigers would be permanently based at Campbelltown.

The code needs to expand. Perth has to be one of the new teams and I’d argue that a team from the Sunshine Coast (representing the region and northwards up to Bundaberg) should be top priorities, that way you don’t have a new team eating away at the Broncos, while still getting another team that is within reach of the Brisbane populous, while also being based in an area with a larger population than Townsville.

An 18 team competition is very much achievable and reasonable and a 20 team competition should be the end goal with a team from Adelaide or Darwin (as they are in a different time zone) and a team from New Zealand, either Christchurch or Wellington.

I don’t believe that plonking a team where one exists is expansion. You haven’t created a new market, you haven’t expanded anything.

I’m very much supportive of another team in Queensland, but I don’t believe we should be white-anting the Broncos, because that would likely just create a repeat of the problems that Badel stated are rife in Sydney.

We’ve done Queensland right. Let’s not ruin it.

Expansion: Yes. Relocation: No. (2017)

This week Phil Rothfield, who is laughably billed by the Daily Telegraph as ‘League’s most feared critic’, decided to sling some mud at the Wests Tigers by suggesting they should be canned to make way for an expansion side.

The Tigers (along with Parramatta and Penrith) are competing with the AFL’s Greater Western Sydney Giants for control and dominance of the Western Sydney corridor. Last year Rothfield was singing the praises of the Giants amidst the salary cap scandal surrounding Parramatta. He wrote the piece completely focusing on the scandals around the Eels and completely ignoring any negatives about GWS.

This alone leads one to consider if Rothfield has a hidden, pro-AFL agenda. He’s entitled to that stance if he likes. This piece has no intention of rubbishing the AFL.

There have been calls from the same small group of commentators for years suggesting there’s too many Sydney clubs. The only thing that changes is which team – and it’s generally whichever side is performing poorly at the time. The loudest and most recent were directed at Rothfiled’s beloved Cronulla Sharks during their string of scandals. Now, Wests Tigers are in the firing line.

But fans should not be concerned. These are merely tactics from the media to create future stories to essentially keep themselves employed. Rothfield’s opinion now has several follow-up pieces on the Daily Telegraph website; one where he produces the results of his poll about which team should get booted and another, a retort to the suggestion by the Tiger’ boss Justin Pascoe, who said, “We are not going anywhere” – which could be a reference to their 2017 campaign as well.

All that aside, it’s time to address this constant talk of relocation and call the concept for what it is: utter stupidity.

Sporting teams are unique. Their players will come from all corners of the globe, but their fans are largely situated in the same place. Furthermore, it doesn't matter where fans relocate to, they'll always support the same team.

Relocating a team alienates the vast majority of their fans, who can no longer attend their games because they no longer play in the area they once represented (ie - near the residence of a majority of fans). Those fans will be angry and disillusioned and are very likely to stop following the game with the same passion. That’s a cornered market of customers who have all been lost.

Then there’s the issue of where they are relocated to. If a location without a team is keen to be involved in the competition, it will be to support their own local side. Trying to get these people to support a team that doesn’t represent them is doomed to fail.

Even if they do accept the team and follow it, you have achieved very little. You haven’t necessarily increased the population of league followers, because the new followers just replace the lost ones.

The AFL understands this. They have nine Melbourne-based teams in a similarly populated city, across a smaller geographical area than the Sydney clubs in the NRL, yet there has not been the continued calls to cull those sides or suggestions there’s too many.

South Melbourne relocated to Sydney in 1982, around the same time the NSWRL axed Newtown (and, briefly, Western Suburbs), while Fitzroy merged with Brisbane in 1996, a couple of years before a the three new NRL merged entities in Sydney and the two-year expulsion of Souths.

The AFL realises the obvious point, that expansion without culling teams actually increases your supporter base.

This is a mindset the NRL must adopt. There is nothing wrong with expanding the competition to 18 teams – but they have to do it without killing or relocating any existing sides. Furthermore, the NRL should be looking to new markets for expansion, not existing ones. It would be entirely hypocritical if they were to cull a Sydney side because there are too many teams in the existing Sydney market, only to introduce a new team in another existing market.

Sydney can cope with nine teams. It had 12 Sydney sides in 1967, cut down to 11 in 1984, and wasn’t reduced again until after the Super League war. Given the population growth in Sydney in the last 50 years, nine teams is comfortably sustainable. Like Melbourne, Sydney also has a Rugby Union team in Super Rugby, 2 A League teams and a team from the rival code playing in the heart of the city.

****This article appeared on Commentary Box Sports website on  June 28, 2017****