NEWS Proposed 20 team NRL Competition

[Foordy]

There is currently 3 articles on Code Sport (News Corp) talking about a proposed 20 team comp in the future, possibly before the Brisbane 2032 Olympics. The idea is for the NRL to take over the AFL as Australia's number 1 football code.

the article from Badel / Read / Carayannis says that the Dolphins stunning victory in their premiership debut last week was emphatic vindication of the expansion to 17 teams.

Here is some of the info from the articles. I'll finish off from the quotes those involved:

• Three new expansion clubs are estimated to be worth $20 million in annual funding support for the next 20 years — a $400 million coup for the NRL;
• Cairns is the front runner for an 18th team. it will be a Pasifika club based full-time in Cairns and play a number of NRL premiership home games in Samoa, Tonga and PNG
• North Sydney chiefs are open to merger talks with the Pasifika consortium to bring the Bears back to the top flight for the first time since 1999.
• The Australian government will provide tens of millions of dollars in financial support to help bankroll a Pasifika team.
• Vlandys backs a 20 team competition.

Nick Politis said:

“Yes, I have suggested we go to 20 teams,”

“If we want to compete with the AFL, we have to be truly national and be representative in every state.

“I’m not saying we expand right now.

“But over the next five, eight or 10 years, we should look to go to 20 teams.

“We had 20 teams in 1995. Unfortunately some teams got killed off because of Super League, so a few teams dropped off during the compromise. Adelaide and Perth were cut.

“It would be great to see North Sydney back in the NRL.

“I strongly believe the Bears should be resurrected, possibly by going to Western Australia as the Perth Bears, and there’s areas like PNG and the Pacific Islands that the game can explore.”

“The only way to grow our TV rights is by giving the broadcasters more product, just like the AFL,”

“It will take some time for people to accept it, but we have to keep growing the game.”


Peter Vlandys said:

“Nick Politis is one of the great visionaries of our game and if he believes we should go to 20 teams, we should certainly consider it,”

“If the 17th team went well, then, yes, naturally we will look at 18 teams and even 20 teams.

“The intention was always to grow the game in stages.

“It’s not something that will happen overnight. It’s an objective and we have to have the ambition to get there.

“One of the reasons the AFL do so well is because they have 18 teams and they have more product to sell in terms of TV rights than we do.”

“We will absolutely look at a PNG or Pacific bid,” he said.

“The Pacific region is a huge potential pathway for the game. It’s a very embryonic idea, so we have to do the research and the strategy.

“The Dolphins have been a wonderful addition, they have grown our Queensland audience, and it’s just the beginning for the game.

“Everything we do is fact-based. We would have to do the research (on a 20-team league) and look at it.

“At this stage, I haven’t got that data, but the 20-team idea has been proposed and we will investigate it.”


Souths CEO Blake Solly said:

“The idea of 20 NRL teams, under the current operating model, is completely unsustainable,”

“There is not the playing, coaching or administrative talent to expand at that sort of rate.

“At the moment the NRL haven’t confirmed an obvious candidate or location for an 18th team, let alone the 19th or 20th.

“The Dolphins have done a very good job building an NRL club in a short time frame. They’ve earned the right to stabilise and grow before another new team enters.

“Any decision to add an 18th team needs to be aligned to an NRL strategy to increase participation, properly fund the existing NRL clubs for the elite player development we all undertake, and be a guaranteed commercial success.”


Bears board member Billy Moore said:

“What we’ve said to the NRL is you tell us where we need to go to become the 18th team,”

“Our fans will go with us. We’ve waited 24 years.

“All we want is to be back into the competition. Whether that is in Perth, Port Moresby or Wellington. But, during discussions, what has arisen is the prospect of becoming the Pasifika Bears.”

“We have three non-negotiables,”

“We want our colours, our brand and to play two games at North Sydney Oval a year. That will give us our history back. We will completely fund it. We will go wherever the NRL thinks is the best option. We will not cannibalise any other club. We will create extra pathways.”


Brisbane Jets director Nick Livermore said:

“Where can a Pacific team be appropriately based? How do you fund it commercially and corporately in Cairns?”

“It would be a very complex process logistically, but the game is driven by money and if a Pasifika team can attract major funds for the game, the NRL might decide to explore that region.”

 

[Xzei]

sounds good just dont mess around with giving the sides limited time to prepare wouldnt complain with cairns/pasifika,WA bears and the Jets just give them plenty of time to plan.

 

[Foordy]

I did lol at Politis saying that to compete with the AFL as Australia's number one footy code, we'd need a truely national comp ... before then immediately talking about how the Bears should be back in.

in fact most of the talk is still around the east coast and Pacific

 

[Jedhead]

I think many forget that much of the Dolphins early success (despite limited prep. time) is down to them having arguably the best coach Australia has ever produced.

If/when/should the NRL decide to expand further they need to ensure those clubs are given a minimum of two years to prepare for the entry into the comp. I expect Benny will have retired by then so none of them are going to have the experience of a master coach to start them off.

As much as I'd like to see another Qld. team I do think we need to first consider other states to make it a truly "National" competition. My preference would be Perth, followed quickly by Adelaide.

First and foremost though they need to ensure that the NRL operations team have a fully structured juniors competition. We simply cannot sustain another two "Storms" who have developed virtually no one from Victoria and instead cannibalized the rest of the Eastern seaboard and NZ since their inception.

Developing local talent is a must if the standards of the NRL are to be maintained. Anything less will simply water our game down to such a degree that the whole comp could implode and collapse due to apathy.

 

[1910]

I did lol at Politis saying that to compete with the AFL as Australia's number one footy code, we'd need a truely national comp ... before then immediately talking about how the Bears should be back in.

in fact most of the talk is still around the east coast and Pacific

He said move the Bears to Perth.

 

[theshed]

The bears to Perth is not a bad idea. I don’t think the Bears merging with a PNG/Pacifica team is a good fit. That team would need to create and embrace their own culture to get the most out of it. The Pacifica Bears sounds terribly non-congruent.

A good Pacifica team with strong cultural ties sounds great in theory. Would need a pretty good sales pitch to get players to Carnes though.I wonder if there will be difficulty signing non-PNG or Pacifica players, not that it would really leave a shortage of talent.

 

[Organix]

I did lol at Politis saying that to compete with the AFL as Australia's number one footy code, we'd need a truely national comp ... before then immediately talking about how the Bears should be back in.

in fact most of the talk is still around the east coast and Pacific

Same. We need a team in every state. Cairns and North Sydney in the next sentence. Was like ummm what? Though admittedly moving Bears to Perth is possible.

The only person talking sense in the article was Blake Solly, the others are desperate for their club to get the money to get onto the NRL teat.

It is unsustainable, gives no foundation for the clubs and the admin is not there. It would be just a money sink for years and many current NRL clubs have been that for years already.

I also hate their terminology in turning this sport into a product. It's the reality, but it's also gross and makes me further question the way decisions are made. "We need a new flavour... how about Dolphin?" The televisation and the manipulation/generation of a "close contest" is really dystopian to me and just makes me think of Running Man and Death Race. Give the audience what they want.

Worse still is that they will use the PNG love of this awesome sport and milk it and twist it to basically do to them what they currently do to the warriors, but PNG is far less financially stable as NZ and the players could very likely get taken advantage of as we see with a lot of young, naive players in the NRL currently. It's not healthy, especially rushing headlong just to meet some stupid arbitrary deadline like the Olympics or whatever.

 

[BooKhaki]

Not enough talent in the game for 20 sides. 18 will already be absolutely stretching it, and they should be announced 3 years before coming in to allow them to target contracted players.

 

[theshed]

Same. We need a team in every state. Cairns and North Sydney in the next sentence. Was like ummm what? Though admittedly moving Bears to Perth is possible.

The only person talking sense in the article was Blake Solly, the others are desperate for their club to get the money to get onto the NRL teat.

It is unsustainable, gives no foundation for the clubs and the admin is not there. It would be just a money sink for years and many current NRL clubs have been that for years already.

I also hate their terminology in turning this sport into a product. It's the reality, but it's also gross and makes me further question the way decisions are made. "We need a new flavour... how about Dolphin?" The televisation and the manipulation/generation of a "close contest" is really dystopian to me and just makes me think of Running Man and Death Race. Give the audience what they want.

Worse still is that they will use the PNG love of this awesome sport and milk it and twist it to basically do to them what they currently do to the warriors, but PNG is far less financially stable as NZ and the players could very likely get taken advantage of as we see with a lot of young, naive players in the NRL currently. It's not healthy, especially rushing headlong just to meet some stupid arbitrary deadline like the Olympics or whatever.

I just have concerns that VLandy’s doesn’t have long term success in mind but instead wants to make it as financially lucrative as quick as possible so he gets his bonuses and kick backs and then who cares how sustainable it is long after he moves on.

 

[LittleDavey]

Perth is a no-brainer for me. Good local support who may not already 'have' a team, a stadium already there, and an extra timeslot 2 hours behind the current ones for those concerned about TV rights.

But **** me Vlandys, have you ever been to an AFL game? The AFL having 18 teams is not why they do so well. Their support in their heartland of Victoria, is why they do so well. 100,000+ to games, is why they do so well. Adding more teams isn't going to grow the rugby league market sufficiently to compete with that.
RL will always be the little brother in Aussie sports while the NSW-centric bullshit continues, that is absolutely the main thing holding the game back. Inept, corrupt administration.

 

[Accept]

I guess it's all fine if the TV networks are willing to fund it all. It is really stretching the player pool and fan base though. It's hard to grow a sport that basically is only popular in one section of the community in two states of Australia. That's not going to change even if you have 30 teams.

Adding a 17th club has certainly generated increased interest in the sport this year. I suppose a 20 team comp will enable the NRL to have a conference or division system and hopefully ensuring a little evenness in the schedule. Interesting times ahead.

 

[Nashy]

Lol Goodluck

 

[BroncsFan]

They do realise PNG, Samoa and Tonga are 3 different countries with different cultures right... yeah nah let's just lump them all into 1 Frankenstein team.

Did Fiji lose their invitation to participate in the Sydney comp or something

 

[Mister Wright]

They made a mistake when Super League & ARL merged to become the NRL. They should have kept the Perth & Adelaide teams.

 

[Waynesaurus]

Not enough talent in the game for 20 sides. 18 will already be absolutely stretching it, and they should be announced 3 years before coming in to allow them to target contracted players.

Thats ok, Vlando will just change the rules to suit, don't underestimate what his idiot mind could come up with, such as reducing the number of players per side to 10. Reduce the squad size per team and ship the excess off to the new clubs.

More teams = more games per week = more broadcaster dollars, same amount of players = same cap expenditure. #Winning

With less players in defence you also get the bonus of more trys scored ...........after all that's what the fans want to see ....................more manufactured fake trys through poorly thought out rules and changes.

 

[BroncsFan]

I just have concerns that VLandy’s doesn’t have long term success in mind but instead wants to make it as financially lucrative as quick as possible so he gets his bonuses and kick backs and then who cares how sustainable it is long after he moves on.

He has money in mind... he knows he needs more games on TV to get more money into the sport.

He doesnt care if the teams are good or not... or if the talent pool is stretched to its limits.

Playing talent will be localised even more to the top teams and taking unders, because the salary cap will keep going up... $600k has turned into $800k with this salary cap rise... that will turn into $1m soon enough.

Lord have mercy on any team that falls into being a bottom 4 team in a 20 team comp.... they will be no chance of being able to buy talent or retain their own.

Politis just wants more teams to add to his pathways program and vulture from.

 

[Xzei]

alternatively more pathways to the NRL might attract more skilled players that may have ended up at a different code.cant just think short term that there isn't enough quality players now.

 

[Waynesaurus]

alternatively more pathways to the NRL might attract more skilled players that may have ended up at a different code.cant just think short term that there isn't enough quality players now.

You mean like how Melbourne has opened up the hidden nursery of players in Victoria?