NRL expansion: Support grows for 18-team NRL competition | What’s the Buzz

Rugby league’s powerbrokers are pushing for an 18th team within the next five-years, Phil Rothfield reveals the preferred location.

Could we see an 18th NRL franchise join the competition in the next five years? Picture: Getty Images.

There is growing support among NRL powerbrokers to increase the premiership to 18 teams over the next five years.

A 17th franchise in Brisbane will be revealed next week but it is only the beginning of a long term plan to eventually have 18 clubs and nine games every weekend.

It could mean the NRL will have five clubs in Queensland.

Influential Sydney Roosters chairman Nick Politis spoke of the benefits of further expansion at a meeting of the 16 club chairmen and chief executives on Thursday.

Not one person in the room spoke against it.

Could we see an 18th NRL franchise join the competition in the next five years? Picture: Getty Images.

“We should have two new clubs in Queensland,” Politis said, “We need to grow and we need new customers. More eyeballs on TV and more product will bring more revenue from the broadcasters and that’s what we rely on more than anything else.

“You do that by increasing the number of clubs, have an extra game and go into new areas.”

A ninth game would increase TV revenue by approximately $250 million over five years. Politis, a self-made billionaire, has support from some of the most powerful people in the game.

“Every successful company expands,” Politis said. “You stay stagnant, you go broke.

“A company like Woolworths goes into a new area and picks up 10,000 new customers. “New NRL clubs will do the same and keep growing over time.

“The three groups bidding to become the 17th team are all financially strong with good business structures. Why turn two of them away?

“They should be encouraged to be patient and eventually become the 18th team or we look at an area like Rockhampton

Sydney Roosters supremo Nick Politis believes there is a lot to gain from expanding to an 18-team competition. Picture: NRL Photos.

Politis points out how the NRL had 20 clubs before the Super League war.

“Look at the people we lost when the North Sydney Bears folded,” he said, “They didn’t go to Manly and they didn’t cross the bridge and come to the Roosters.

“They went to the Swans and the Waratahs. We lost thousands and thousands of rugby league fans.”

The obvious question around 18 teams is the depth of the playing squads.

Many believe there are not enough quality players for 16 clubs, let alone more.