Comment: Why NRL expansion plan comes up short again

Rugby league doesn’t have the player talent pool, administration depth nor locational options for a 20-team competition, writes Dean Ritchie.

The Panthers celebrate with the NRL Premiership Trophy after victory in the 2022 NRL Grand Final match between the Penrith Panthers and the Parramatta Eels at Accor Stadium on October 02, 2022, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Let’s be frank, this is pure madness.

Rugby league doesn’t have the player talent pool, administration depth nor locational options for a 20-team competition.

Where on earth is the game going to find another 100 players of NRL standard?

Every player pool has been drained.

The last thing rugby league and the game’s broadcasters need are two games each week where the standard plummets to mediocrity.

There may be enough players for one additional franchise that would balance the competition to 18 teams.

But two more? No. And where would these expansion teams be located?

Rugby league isn’t a truly international game. We just don’t have vast horizons that remain untapped.

The Dolphins have made a stunning start to inaugural season in the NRL. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

PNG: Too dangerous and don’t have the infrastructure.

Pacific Islands: Don’t have the corporate clout or facilities. Tonga and Samoa hate each other.

New Zealand: Why go back to NZ when the Warriors have floundered for the past 28 years?

Brisbane: It took 34 years for the game to offer up a second side outside the Broncos? Another club would squeeze four sides in cluttered southeast Queensland.

Adelaide: No appetite from them or us.

Perth: The logical choice but still a gamble give it would take 10 years to develop Western Australia’s junior rugby league pathways.

North Sydney: One hundred per cent. The game needs Norths’ history and character but where do they play? Most likely out of Perth with three games a year at North Sydney Oval.

Gosford: Too close to Sydney. Fallen off the radar in terms of expansion.

Coffs Harbour: Been discussed but little interest from the NRL.

Cairns: Nup.

Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, Euan Aitken and Tesi Niu celebrate victory after the Dolphins beat the Canberra Raiders.

Rugby league had 20 teams in the mid-1990s and it was accepted way back then that the number was too many.

In 1995, six teams didn’t win more than seven games. In 1996, eight of the 20 sides couldn’t reach double figure in the win column.

And that was before the game surged through the Pacific nations signing emerging talent.

There just isn’t anywhere left to pillage for player identification.

And where are we suddenly going to find more administrators capable of taking the game to another level?

Rugby league doesn’t have the necessary choice for another three clubs. Yes, there is some money to be made but at what price?

NRL expansion reality: Will 20 teams destroy the league?

Comment: Peter Badel

ARL Commission boss Peter V’landys has always believed the NRL has the potential to dominate the AFL as Australia’s premier football code.

A 20-team league would crush the AFL and make the NRL the powerhouse competition of Australian sport.

AFL chiefs have consistently shown brilliant broadcasting savvy and sagacity in brokering monster TV rights deals that have shone a forensic torch on the NRL’s seeming inability to get it right at the negotiating table.

But the AFL enjoys some broadcasting aces. One, a longer match, which creates more advertising opportunities. And, two, the AFL’s 18 teams means one more match per round compared to the eight games the 17-team NRL can offer.

The NRL could crush the AFL with a 20-team competition. Picture: Getty Images

But 10 matches per round in a 20-team league is the NRL’s expansionary trump card to ascend to the No.1 throne.

In terms of eyeballs, the NRL has an argument they are already bigger than the AFL, which will never grow as an international game.

Last year, the NRL attracted 118.96 million viewers on TV compared to the AFL’s 106.27 million.

Adding live crowd attendances from premiership matches last season to TV viewership for an overall figure, the NRL totalled 140.78 million fans, while the AFL reached 133.28 million people.

Peter V’landys has always believed the NRL has the potential to dominate the AFL. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

The challenge for the NRL is whether they truly have the playing depth to sustain 20 teams.

An extra three teams would mean 90 more full-time players and that imposes huge development pressure on the code.

The NRL’s new 17th franchise this season, the Dolphins, failed to sign a marquee star — even with the clout of super coach Wayne Bennett.

The NRL faces some embarrassing blowout scorelines in the embryonic years of an 18 or 20-team league but V’landys is a proven action man prepared to take risks for big-picture rewards.

In racing, his creation of The Everest proved a $15 million bonanza.

A 20-team Telstra Premiership could be rugby league’s Everest.

Originally published as Comment: Why NRL expansion plan comes up short again