NEWS Clickbait: NRL set to launch second Brisbane team for season 2023

[McHunt]

For those of you who've seen this headline in the CM and wondered what the **** it's about, here is the unedited passage of text that relates to it:

Phil Rothfield blithers in The Sunday Telegraph:

"Remember where you read this first … the NRL will be a 17-team competition with two teams in Brisbane by 2023, when the current broadcast deal expires. There will be an extra bye each week to help with player burnout. That is the mail your columnist has been getting in Perth, where the game’s powerbrokers have gathered for the Nines and a CEO conference. The decision on expansion has to be made by July to enable NRL CEO Todd Greenberg, ARLC chairman Peter V’landys and commercial chief Andrew Abdo to take the new competition format to potential broadcasters. The AFL’s already out in the market.

Poor attendances at the Nines over the weekend should end any debate about having a team from WA in any expanded NRL competition."

McHunt

 

[Huge]

It'd be great if we had another Brizzie team. I reckon the Broncos should be the company to run it !! Seriously though, I'd have a second Brisbane team to support, partially anyway. I don't think the nines concept is much of an indicator about support for a nrl team.

 

[ivanhungryjak]

Anything that stops Queenslanders going down and propping up Melbourne and Sydney teams can only be a good thing.

 

[pennywisealfie]

Would be the dumbest idea ever. Nobody will go to the games.

 

[Art Vandelay]

If it were an Ipswich team playing in Ipswich I'd make them my second team. I'd have a soft spot for Redcliffe too. But I think there's maybe a 5% chance they do that and a 95% chance they create a soulless Brisbane 2, play them out of Suncorp and try and create a tenuous link with a suburban/regional heartland after the fact. A second Brisbane team doesn't make the game any more accessible to new fans and the plethora of rugby league fans in Brisbane that hate the Broncos have been supporting other teams their entire life and aren't going to jump ship now. Brisbane 2 is a solution in want of a problem.

 

[Allo]

Needs a Booze warning

 

[Waynesaurus]

I would be silly to only add one new team, the NRL would have all the additional costs associated with the new team but no additional match each week to extract money from the broadcasters to recover that cost.

 

[Unbreakable]

If it were an Ipswich team playing in Ipswich I'd make them my second team. I'd have a soft spot for Redcliffe too. But I think there's maybe a 5% chance they do that and a 95% chance they create a soulless Brisbane 2, play them out of Suncorp and try and create a tenuous link with a suburban/regional heartland after the fact. A second Brisbane team doesn't make the game any more accessible to new fans and the plethora of rugby league fans in Brisbane that hate the Broncos have been supporting other teams their entire life and aren't going to jump ship now. Brisbane 2 is a solution in want of a problem.

Ipswich & Reddy are the only 2 teams I'd support them adding if they wanted another QLD team, a second "Brisbane" team would feel gross. This is our city, always will be.

I think the Dolphins are the way to go, it'd just become a matter of where do they play games? Would probably have to build something from scratch, Dolphin Oval only supports 11k. Jets home ground only supports 5k.

 

[Sproj]

Dolphin Oval only supports 11k. Jets home ground only supports 5k.

Well then they are already doing better than most Sydney teams.

 

[McHunt]

Ipswich & Reddy are the only 2 teams I'd support them adding if they wanted another QLD team, a second "Brisbane" team would feel gross. This is our city, always will be.

I think the Dolphins are the way to go, it'd just become a matter of where do they play games? Would probably have to build something from scratch, Dolphin Oval only supports 11k. Jets home ground only supports 5k.

It's a grade A fuckwit idea that's failed before, and is failing right now slightly further afield at the Titans. Meanwhile the Broncos are a major success story, and their plan is to white-ant it.

If they really feel they need to expand the competition it's obvious the Islands and PNG are the growth regions. A smart move would be take a club that's a dismal failure - that would be the Titans - and refurb it into a team with some kind of Islander identity, with the possibility of a few wildy boisterous home games in the Pacific. If it's only a game or so a year, I'm pretty sure most players would enjoy an away on a tropical island or even PNG. Certainly more than flying the **** over to anodyne Perth to play in front of twenty East Coast expats who barely give a shit.


This is what we want to see:

 

[Sirlee oldman]

Needs a Booze warning

So do I.

 

[Pub Steak]

Sunshine coast falcons. Rockhampton ???
Cowboys has actually been a bit of a success story. Especially when compared with the tits. Falcons would prob just be another titans. Rocky might go alright though but would prob need a shit Sydney team to move there. Tigers are used to moving around. They could become Balmain West Rocky Tigers.

 

[Foordy]

a second Brisbane team has more to do with trying to weaken the Broncos than it does with doing whats best for the game.

and if they use the poorly planned nines crowds as a way to deny Perth entry than the NRL are stupider than anyone thought was possible.

not to mention that the timezone difference to the east coast would help the NRL's negotiating power when it comes to the next TV rights deal ... more so than a second Brisbane team that would get crushed by the Broncos both on and off the field

if they really want another S.E. QLD team than it needs to be either Ipswich or Redcliffe ... but for that to be a success they need their own home ground somewhere near their base. playing out of Lang Park won't end well

 

[Thelmus]

I'm surprised no one is backing some kind of franchise in Springfield. It's one the fastest growing areas in the country, has plenty of open space for a stadium and surely could find enough corporate backing with the money being poured into the place. There's even a rail line.
I know there are no signs and it would be competing against an established league area like Ipswich but it surely would at least be complementary to a successful Ipswich bid if they could somehow incorporate some of those aspects into their own with maybe a training establishment or the like?

 

[Sproj]

Super League should have won. If they really wanted to put the N in NRL, they need to make some hard decisions and expect some short term pain, which they won’t because it means less money initially and some unhappy fans. But this should be done:

1. Brisbane
2. Ipswich or Redcliffe
3. North Queensland
4. Gold Coast
5. Melbourne
6. Adelaide
7. Perth
8. Coff’s Harbour
9. Newcastle
10. Central Coast
11. Canberra
12. Penrith
13. Sydney City 1 - Souths?
14. Sydney City 2 - Parramatta?
15. St George
16. Auckland
17. PNG
18. Pacific - Fiji based?

It’ll never happen but it should. Cut the rubbish from Sydney and make it zone targeted. Market the heck out of it by sacking all current league journalists except Chris Garry and actually go fully professional with it.

 

[Kooly87]

It's a grade A fuckwit idea that's failed before, and is failing right now slightly further afield at the Titans. Meanwhile the Broncos are a major success story, and their plan is to white-ant it.

If they really feel they need to expand the competition it's obvious the Islands and PNG are the growth regions. A smart move would be take a club that's a dismal failure - that would be the Titans - and refurb it into a team with some kind of Islander identity, with the possibility of a few wildy boisterous home games in the Pacific. If it's only a game or so a year, I'm pretty sure most players would enjoy an away on a tropical island or even PNG. Certainly more than flying the **** over to anodyne Perth to play in front of twenty East Coast expats who barely give a shit.


This is what we want to see:

I always think of the West Indies Cricket team whenever this idea gets thrown around. It does have a bit of historical precedent where that sort of thing has worked, but geography is in the West Indies favour, whereas in the Pacific Islands this really isn't the case.

They don't have the population, the combined identity, and most importantly, they don't have the money to ever make this a reality in the near or even medium term future. They are an incredible producer of footballing talent, but there is just no way this could ever be economically viable any time soon.

 

[Kooly87]

Ipswich & Reddy are the only 2 teams I'd support them adding if they wanted another QLD team, a second "Brisbane" team would feel gross. This is our city, always will be.

I think the Dolphins are the way to go, it'd just become a matter of where do they play games? Would probably have to build something from scratch, Dolphin Oval only supports 11k. Jets home ground only supports 5k.

Dolphin Oval wouldn't require a huge investment to get it to a capacity and standard that was suitable for NRL football. Not to mention, in the worst case scenario the Leagues club are well placed to fund that sort of thing on their own if they had to, which they wouldn't, because the Queensland Government and the NRL would almost certainly kick in whatever was required to secure a new NRL club.

 

[Kooly87]

Personally, I think the inclusion of Brisbane first, then an additional expansion side following that, makes the most sense. This is all about driving new revenue for the game and you only really do that by creating more content through playing an extra game every week, so 17 teams would need to become 18 pretty quickly to make it worthwhile.

If the NRL wanted to go live as quickly and easily as possible with minimal investment or delay, Redcliffe are probably the best placed to make the step up. They have a very profitable Leagues club, great facilities and they also have a stadium which can be easily and relatively inexpensively expanded to host NRL games, with only their biggest drawing matches probably needing to be moved to Lang Park (Broncos, Cowboys, Titans etc).

If the NRL is prepared to play more of the long game, then Ipswich/Western Corridor might take longer and require greater up front expenses, but in the long run the demographic data is pretty clear that this is where the population will be, and the chance for long term success and financial viability is probably the strongest. There is a caveat though:

They need a purpose built stadium and facilities in the area. No playing games at Lang Park on a permanent basis. The team needs to play in the area it belongs to and embrace that identity. Lang Park is fine for a season or two if they need time to construct a ground and it's also fine for big demand games like v Broncos/Titans/Cowboys etc, but there should be no plans for an Ipswich/Western Corridor team without corresponding and plans for an Ipswich/Western Corridor Stadium.

I think the worst option was the generic 'Brisbane 2' bid, which frankly seems to be both the most expensive and also least likely to succeed option out of everything on the table at the moment. Without a clear identity I think honestly the Broncos might well eat them alive and it'll be the Crushers all over again. It's much harder to do that to a storied club like Redcliffe with a clear identity or a club like Ipswich/Western Corridor with a clear sense of community to differentiate it.

Finally, Perth is the obvious candidate after one of the Brisbane bids is included. The NRL needs to make this investment now while there is an opportunity to capitalise on the demise of the Western Force and the ever growing decline in popularity of the A-League. The logistics can be easily resolved, and the club can pay for itself overnight with additional TV revenue bought into the game that the NRL can use to bank roll it until it establishes enough corporate support. The TV opportunities are huge to broadcast onto the East Coast, and the crowds will be able to enjoy day time football which should help boost numbers, with a night time broadcast into Brisbane & Sydney. I have heard a host of reasons about why it can't work, but honestly, given the NRL made it work in Melbourne, easily a more hostile market, I think ignoring Perth is honestly a failing of ambition in the people who run the game.