I think that’s a reasonable way of expanding.
I think that’s a reasonable way of expanding.
So, you’ve gotten rid of divisions and replaced then with conferences?
But they’re really divisions? With some cross divisional interplay?
Again, what is the problem that is solved in football by promotion and relegation that is not present in any other sport in the country?
I know you’ve asked it before but I’ll have a crack. A second division which has the competitive edge brought in by promotion/relegation allows young players who can’t get a game at their main club to go somewhere where they can play professional football in a competitive environment where there are things at stake (unlike in a closed second division where there isn’t much to play for beyond pride). This is a concern specific to football because there is a national team to consider. That isn’t a substantial concern in any of the other major club sports in Australia, except rugby I guess.
Yeah international competitiveness is not a problem for AFL or really for NRL. Rugby is hard to compare because only 4 Australian teams in their top competition, so super 14 or whatever the number is now isn’t analogous.
A rugby league team still needs to beat Easts/Melbourne etc. They still need to develop juniors.
They seem quite content with a reserve grade instead of two divisions with P&R.
The NRL is freaking ripe for two divisons of 12 teams. They already telecast the two lower grades.
Why is there never any discussion of multiple divisions and P&R in Rugby League circles?
Because that just isn’t the broader fabric of the game. I’m not sure if other countries have P&R but I also don’t think most rugby league fans could tell you either. Football, on the other hand, is part of a broader global sport where P&R is, overwhelmingly, the norm.
And it’s all well and good for you to say a reserve division does the job, but again that isn’t in the context of a global sport where the governing body have a strong sense of responsibility for developing the national team. A massive part of the FFA’s job is to govern the sport to develop a strong national team. P&R c an be seen in that unique context. Clubs in RL are all developing players the same way, with a reserve division. That’s not how players in football are often developed (though obviously it does occur for a player to just come through one team’s academy, this isn’t sport’s norm).
Yet FFA aren’t the ones pushing P&R at all.
I imagine that’s because they currently think it’s financially unviable, which is completely reasonable. There’s competing priorities around the sustainability of the game and things like P&R which can lead to improved opportunities for players.
I think most if not all RL fans and commentators, and AFL ones too, are happy with the current set up and see no reason to change for, what would be for the most part, changes sake. If it ain’t broke…etc.
Football fans however are rarely happy and particularly those not at the top of the game anymore. Football’s a dreamers sport, not one based in reality. It’s aspirational and everyone wants a chance to achieve their aspirations. Even if it’s not sustainable.
Because NRL is a monopoly with no external competitive pressures.
The salary cap distributes the best 480 players across 16 teams, and beyond that they couldn’t give the slightest fuck about the objective strength of the overall cohort.
No eye test will be able to meaningfully discern changes in quality across generations through recency and nostalgia biases, changes in sports science, evolving tactics etc. and there is no external frame of reference because a 40% weaker Kangaroos side in 2025 would probably still take the piss out of all challengers.
It might be different if NRL had the international competitiveness that Rugby Union does (let alone football), but as things stand there is absolutely no imperative for NRL to sacrifice any resources from what they deem a profit-maximising league stricture in order to lift competitive standards of a sport that they control entirely.
AFL even moreso.
The only way to build a VIABLE second division and have P&R is to build the first division into at least 20 teams and then one day split it in two.
Making a national second division and waiting for clubs in it to be able to challenge for promotion and expecting relegated clubs to survive the drop is just not feasible.
By all means make a second tier comp for those clubs aspiring for an A-League licence and bring them in when they are viable as a means to build the A-League numbers, but P&R must wait until the top half of 2nd division can compete reasonably with the bottom of first. That will not happen until you have at least 20 teams that are full time professional. ie budget at least $10m per annum.
Most sensible and reasonable suggestion for this to work at all so far. Nice one.
Because NRL is a monopoly with no external competitive pressures.
Now that’s funny!
It has massive external competitive pressures. It has massive pressure from AFL. It has massive pressure from soccer. It has massive pressure from Rugby. It has pressure from Basketball.
Go find out how much the local Rugby League club is charging juniors for rego.
Now go find out how much the local soccer club is charging juniors for rego.
24 professional NRL teams in two divisions would better monopolise athletic talent. It would give more market for TV rights. And also create a straight home & away season that would be better than however they figure out the draw now. I’ll go out on a limb and make the same assumption for AFL.
Yet they still don’t do it …
And Rugby is struggling. It’s struggling bad. There are high school students who have never seen the Wallabies win a Bledisloe Cup. They need player development really, really bad. And Rugby comes from the money side of town, yet they can’t set up a national competition that works, let alone two divisions. Maybe a shit load of teams isn’t the answer, maybe it is?
BTW, has anyone solved the travel problem for 2nd div teams? Contra deals with Tiger?
And for those playing at home, the English Rugby League comp has three divisions with promotion and relegation.
Wait, when did the NRL players have to compete with AFL players or soccer players or basketball players in rugby league? If you’re not going to read, or are too thick to comprehend, then there isn’t much point is there?
The NRL does not have to care about whether their player base is slightly better or slightly worse at playing the game of rugby league. People aren’t going to notice that NRL players are 0.5% worse at rugby league than they used to be, and therefore switch to watching AFL. If they like watching rugby league, NRL will be the best place to watch it no matter what. If fans are going to switch sports it is going to have many orders of magnitude more to do with marketing, media narratives, demographic changes, etc. than it will to the objective standard of rugby league played in NRL.
I’ll leave it to you to search the interwebs and education yourself on basic microeconomic concepts like “diminishing returns” and “profit maximisation”. TL;DR is it turns out that you can’t just ramp up quantity indefinitely and profit more.
Because NRL does not have the secondary objective of raising the level of rugby league played in their league…
Oh dear.
Where does the talent come from? Of course the NRL is competing with the other codes/sports.
Both the English Super League system and the English Rugby Union have P/R in place.
Why? Because despite being second/third fiddles to football (like football is here compared to AFL/NRL) they have millions & millions of people crammed into an area about the size of Victoria. They can make P&R work as they don’t have the oppressive travel costs we do here and there is more money to go around because its generally a much bigger economy.
No one supporting P&R has been able to come up with a valid reason how P&R could work in Australia except “because Europe”. Nope, that ain’t gonna cut it.
FFA to fund an entirely indigenous team based in Darwin in the 2nd division with indigenous players from whoke country and run with a strong indigenous community focus. a) Just a good thing to do, b) Only professional sports team in Darwin so good for the game, c) CSR minded corporates would jump on board reducing some of the travel cost burden. Semi stolen idea but I’ll take credit. Would be the 2nd team of everyone (who isnt a bald knob called Peter Dutton - google ‘Peter Dutton sorry’ it if you don’t get the reference, then ‘1997 maccas’).
Had a thought while watching the npl game.
How about a-league clubs have proper reserve sides instead of playing state leagues? Still have a strong youth focus but not as strict. 10 teams (no nix) means you only need 6-8 more to make a strong b-league and less of a risk financially. You’ll have half a team not getting a game who’s already full time + staff/facilities. Bring in pro+rel/expansion in 2+3 years once the financial details of the league are ironed out.
I think clubs would consoling about more operating costs
They’re saying 1m a year aren’t they? That’s mostly wages and travel. Were already paying a large chunk of wages on squaddies who don’t play as is.