An article on Fox Sports talks about setting KPI's to decide how to move teams out of Sydney. Tallis and Geyer set some KPI's based around Sponsorship dollars, average crowds, Membership numbers. commitment to juniors and On field success.
I have picked two metrics to consider firstly average Sydney crowds since 2015 according to Fox. The top four teams in order are Dogs (15,011), Eels (14,602), Rabbitohs (14,358) and Tigers (14,226).
The Top 4 membership numbers are according to Fox; Rabbitohs (29,597), Eels (25,250), Dragons (20,642) and Tigers (20,155)
Whilst these numbers are interesting, they are important given that they directly link to revenue. However these crowd numbers appear to be based on average Sydney games (all games) since 2015, If you look at what the Eels have achieved this year for all home games it is 177,643 for ten home games at an average of 17,764. This includes home games at Bankwest, ANZ and TIO stadium in Darwin (5,391, smallest crowd for 2019).
If you extrapolate our 7 games at Bankwest we drew 147,700 spectators for an average attendance of 21,100 people. The smallest crowd for an Eels home game has been 16,228 against Penrith on a Thursday night. The largest of course was the opening against the Tigers on Easter Monday 29,047 Round 6,
There is no indication from the NRL that they are going to reduce teams or if they have any KPI's in mind. But if you were to look at the Eels numbers there is certainly a compelling case to keep them in Sydney based on any resonable metric.
Replies
Eels are going nowhere. BankWest with big crowds, huge memberships, new home base in Kellyville, huge junior numbers.
Ditto Penrith.
As for the rest it’s hard to say.
Dragons are already based in Wollongong. They could easily call themselves an ‘out of Sydney’ team that just takes a few games to Sydney each year. So there’s one team that’s not a Sydney team if they were forced to define themselves that way
The Roosters makes the most sense. No juniors, smallest crowds and memberships but successful on the field. They’d be a gift to any new region. But they have ENORMOUS power within the nrl so it won’t be them.
You could make a case for Sharks, Wests Tigers and Manly as well.
Souths, Bulldogs both do well by all metrics and won’t be moved
Manly have lower crowds and memberships on the numbers given
I did a quick list using those numbers in the article (including the ones you didn't mention)
Basically what I did was rank each team 1 to 9 (best to worst) in each category (combining the finals & premierships into 1)
9 points for 1st down to 1 for 9th, there were a couple of ties so if for example there were 2 teams ranked 8th they each got 2 pts and no one got 1.
Anyway.....
Souths came in 1st with 31
Parra were on the next row with 23 withba few other teams
Then it was down to 18 for the next group.
Manly were well behind the rest with only 7 (lowest ctowd and memberships, only 3 juniors in the squad which while not last wasn't to far off it, & were middle of the pack in terms of number of finals made
BIG NO.
But from a supporters perspective there are too many games played in the Sydney Metro per weekend. It is too expensive to take a family to 2 home games a month. 1 game a month per Sydney Team and the games would be sold out every time, throw in some food vouchers into the ticket and you could charge even more per game /month verse game/fortnight.
Yes I am saying that teams should only play once every 2 weeks
But saying all this - why would you go with the current state of refeerering .
Kpi & metrics mean swear f all
i see someone post that Souths come first in metrics , ummmm remember last time game used such metrics , Souths were last and kicked out of the comp . Success is a cycle , how a club performs on and off the field changes in cycles
The rootsers for instance today may have the last supporters , but if they are a top 4 side year on year out and win comps for next 20 years say , you don't think there fan base will increase , new generation of kids that begin to follow the game will see them as successful and start following
it is all cyclical . What the game should do is dangle a carrot for relocating Sydney club, to encourage a team to relocate
They tried that
It was called the Northern Beagles
I think our average at Bankwest is pretty good (21,100). The test will be to reproduce those numbers again next year.
We seem to be getting good turn up from the away teams so far. A lot of Knights fans there on Saturday.
I agree with MM the Eels make a compelling case.
Completely wrong thinking. The Sydney based clubs are the games foundation. The NRL could, and should be doing so much more to commercially grow the Sydney clubs. They could start by maximising Sydney rivalries, particularly on Sunday afternoons. Make the Sunday afternoon fixture a massive Sydney derby every weekend.
We should be trying to strengthen the games foundation, not weakening it.
This^^
Yep agree Brett. The NRL seem to be forgetting their own base and chasing pipe dreams to try to grow the game. They need to strengthen Sydney as a powerhouse foundation of the NRL. By all means have every club take one game to country areas, but this needs to be strategic in fostering growth in those areas, like Parra have been doing in NT.
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