Not to be confused with the Geoff who wrote yesterday’s expansion article, we have Geoff A on board today who gives us his view on expansion. He agrees with some points and disagrees with others made by Geoff Koop yesterday, so who do you agree with?
The debate on where (and if) the NRL will expand is the best pub debate in rugby league today and whilst everyone’s entitled to their opinion, I have to disagree with Geoff’s Koop’s assertion that Dunedin and PNG should be next on the NRL’s radar.
Whilst PNG have made huge strides by being accepted into the Queensland Cup, in my view Dunedin would sit 10th in places the NRL would expand to next. Dunedin has a population of 126,000 people.
That’s less than half the population of Wollongong where the Dragons have recently saw fit to cut their games at WIN Stadium from 6 down to 4 because of low crowds. And that’s despite the fact that the Dragons aren’t up against any other major code in Wollongong.
Yet if you stick a team in Dunedin, you’re forcing them to compete against a sports outfit like the Highlanders. And just because the university crowd frequents one rugby code, doesn’t mean they’ll go to another.
PNG though does have merit. Although Port Moresby only has a population of 300,000, it has a nation of 7 million and an acknowledgement of being the national game to draw on. Similar to how the North Queensland Cowboys have fans that travel from around the region, one can foresee Papua New Guineans travelling from all corners of the nation to see the NRL’s best as well as their home grown stars.
The next few years in the Queensland Cup will show whether our northern neighbours have what it takes to provide an NRL team at some stage in the future.
Whilst every bid has its merits, I don’t know that the Central Coast and Wellington are really in the frame. The Bears would have to negotiate a deal at Bluetongue Stadium far better than A-League’s Mariners currently have where they must draw a crowd of 10,000 just to break even. Besides, the NRL have already passed on them once, so has their bid really got any stronger since?
The reason I rule out Wellington is that I believe Perth and Brisbane are ahead based on one of the most important criteria’s when it comes to rugby league; television. The time difference in Perth and ratings available in Queensland put both bids above a bid from Wellington or Central Queensland for that matter.
Sure Wellington can boast a time difference as well, but one presumes the TV networks would prefer a later game rather than an earlier one; and it’s not like the Warriors have ever attracted much attention from Channel 9.
What concerns me about a second Brisbane team though, is whether it would really grow the game or merely cannibalise the existing market. The Melbourne Victory averaged 26,620 fans the year before the Melbourne Heart joined the A League. That number dropped to 18,458 the year the Heart joined the competition with the Heart averaging 8,312. (8000 fans that used to go to Victory games?)
Regardless of where you think the next team should come from, it will be pure speculation until at least the end of current broadcast deal. In the meantime, the NRL needs to focus on improving the lower grade competitions so that the game has the depth necessary to support expansion in the future. Not to mention looking at ways of promoting more internationals in between World Cups, but they’re two other topics entirely.