teams like the Crushers and Reds can;t be judged on how sustainbale they would have been if there had ben no SL. The rate of inflation for running a club was through the roof, coupled with falling income from crowds and sponsors deserting the game and its surprisng alot more didn't get chopped in 97&98.

First season Crushers crowds were in the 19-26k range, the potential was def there. By SL war there lowest crowd was 2k, shows what damgae was done.

Reds were similair, strapped for cash by a poor ARL decision, WARL kicked out and taken over by News Ltd reps the writing was on the wall sadly. Again there was enough fan and corporate support to suggest perserverence would have paid of in the West.

Adelaide was a great shame, biggest membership in the League, 1/2 decent crowds, Govt backing and a 1/2 decent stadium, again perserverence could have seen us have a strong RL presence in SA by now, instead it will be at least another decade.

They needed to merge more Sydney teams, cast off some of the dead wood and kept the focus on a National comp. We could be concentrating on NZ and the Pacific by now if they had done that.

hopefully it will come back here at some point, we had 12000 for a game at the oval last season when it was pouring down with rain...we need perth team.. adelaide team and then it can be called a national sport..plenty of expats in adelaide who love league but dont get to see more than the one token game once a season

how would you feel if a club committed to part relocation to Adelaide. Say 4 games guaranteed a year. Do you think most RL fans in SA would get behind that team and get memberships etc?

not sure on that one, but it would be worth a try.. too many teams in sydney and a new venture is needed somewhere else, in either perth or adelaide

There are not too many clubs in Sydney fullstop.

Once memberships become the norm and clubs start playing at the bigger venues like in Vic, the crowds will grow.

Every club in Sydney when going well has averaged over 17k, usually in small run down stadiums, why should they get the boot because they have a few bad seasons?

People were saying Souths should be kicked out because their crowds were garbage, would they say the same thing now when they are averaging 17k a match and have the highest membership in Sydney?

If some of you people from outside Sydney feel this way, what would the League look like now if News/ARL got their own way back in the mid 90's when they wanted Parramatta, Saints, Balmain, Souths, Wests and Norths along with others kicked out?

Parra were garbage in the early/mid 90's, the ARL and News wanted to kick them out or merge them with Penrith.

Yet in 1996, they had their first have decent season on the pitch in 6 years and their crowd average went from 8300 in 1994 to 11113 in 1995, by 1999 their crowds averaged 23266.

Yeah, been crap for a few years, Perth and everywhere else needs a crack, kick Parra out.

If they'd have done that, the NRL wouldn't have got a record Semi final crowd (75k) that they did last year when Parra played the dogs.

I'm all for more teams coming in, but the amount of teams in Sydney is not a weakness, it's a bloody strength.

Murdoch worked that out, why can't you lot who live in other cities?

The titans showed the way, so stop whinging and get on with it.

other than merging more sydney teams spot on the money

cant judge crushers or perth due to the SL war

both places can easily support an nrl team

cronulla sharks would be perfect, 6 games there, 6 at the swamp

spot on

other than cronulla every other sydney club deserves its place

we arent even close to potential in sydney, let alone anywhere else

i can see souths and dogs getting crowds over 30,000, and the rest of them at 15,000 - 25,000 easy.

Yep, that 23k average for Parra in 1999 was the highest ever for a Sydney team, yet 3 years before, the ARL and News wanted to kick them out or merge because their crowds were down.

I can see Parra getting their average up near the 25-30k in the next few years seeing they are starting to take their bigger games to ANZ stadium.

They'll either move there or end up increasing parra stadiums capacity.

The Tigers will end up moving to ANZ eventually, you can see it coming.

Their crowds will grow too, wouldn't be surprised to see them near 25k soon, they're at 18086 now and that's with games played at Leichhardt oval, Cambeltown and ANZ.

The only 2 teams that look in danger atm are Manly because of Brookvale oval and Cronulla because they are playing bad and not getting anything on the field to go their way, but they do have once ace in that they are the only NRL club to own their own ground.

parra could easily be the man utd of the nrl

its bang in the middle of rl heartland being sydneys west and has heaps of money and juniors

its mainly due to the last comp being in 86 as to why crowds arent over 20,000

parra stadium has to get lifted to 30,000 and the games against souths, dogs and tigers should be at homebush which would see a crowd average of 25,000

manly are safe, they have no nrl club near them they just need to push season tix more

i actually like brookie, went past it today

That's the beauty of this thread, none of it can be stated as fact. The threat of losing the SL license is what has caused the stadiums to be built, or at least the threat of clubs being replaced by Widnes, Leigh and to a lesser extent Halifax because they have managed to get some investment into their stadiums causing the slightly embarrassing position for SL where some of the championship clubs have better facilities than the SL teams.

Again, echoing your previous post about things being unlikely. Bradford were the shining example of all things good with super league, they had the marketing spot on and 'stole' fans from clubs all around West Yorkshire because of it. It seems to be unknown in SL circles but 'Bullmania' was copied from Keighley despite the then Bulls CEO denouncing it as rubbish, the only thing that stopped the Keighley charge was the RL refusing them promotion from the NFP, despite winning the title. If Keighley had Huddersfield's resources at the time (i.e. The McAlpine, or even something marginally better than Lawkholme Lane/Cougar Park) then they could be where the Giants are now. Possibly

But, shh, Barry could be watching. He'll get ya.