Could Buzz's idea work?

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eagles2win

Bencher
Two Conferences Sydney (call it the Fulton or whatev's) and the Rest (the Beetson) playing each team within it's conference twice and then the other teams once

Sydney Conference
Manly, Easts, Souths, Canterbury, Parramatta, Penrith, Wests, St George Ill, Cronulla

Rest

Broncos
Brisbane 2 (Brothers, Bombers, or Jets -take your pick)
Newcastle
Canberra
Melbourne
Perth (Pirates or Reds)
Titans
Cowboys
Warriors

Maybe give the power for each conference to add teams into it's conference ie comp decides to grow - Sydney gets the Central Coast to bring teams to a nice even number.
Rest - potentially options galore
 
Have to compensate the 2nd conference for all the extra travel. Hardly fair really plus the Beetson conf rely heavily on playing traditional Sydney teams for larger crowds.
 
In some ways I agree mick, but the NRL needs to look at why bar a few exceptions (Manly vs Melbourne, Manly vs Newie, Warriors vs anyone that has a kiwi presence locally ) attract poor crowds.
If you were given the choice of say going to a Manly vs Brisbane game at Brookie or Manly vs Canterbury - I'd say you'd go to the later.

The other part is this expansion has to happen - I think Brisbane could easily support 3 teams + the Broncos
WA has to happen - adds so much more $ for the next tv deal.
Not to mention New Zealand to much talent and Sky would add more tv money.
PNG at a guess 25 years away to even look at getting in the NRL but would be great to see in the nrl.
Sadly can't see the Central Coast getting a NRL side in the near future.
 
castle eagle said:
Moondog said:
I'm just surprised he had an idea...

maybe he overheard zorba talking to ritchie about it

Please, not his idea. Conferences have been tossed around for years. It was brought up again after round 1 where so many games were in Sydney and overall, poor crowds were recorded. It was already considered to have all of the Sydney teams play each other twice, which is more in the way Channel 9 think of having Brisbane on Friday night TV.
This is what will happen. We have all wanted the NRL to run as a business and this will be some "account executive" role to maximise interest for both TV and fans. Shame they haven't heard us say each team should play each other twice in a season or possibly scale it back, each team plays each other once. Level playing field? I am sure the NRL are saying, why bother.
 
Personally I think the standard of play his slipped too much in the last 5 years to consider adding more teams.

Better idea would be to get rid of 2 or 4 teams. Gold Coast and Melbourne would be obvious picks.
 
I agree with Conferences but I don't agree with Sydney/non-Sydney split. Perhaps construct a divide before each season based on previous years table, but then you risk losing local derbies and grudge matches.

Looking at the current teams, the best split to keep interest in the contests it produces that I could come up with is;

Group 1 - North Qld, Brisbane, Gold Coast, St.G/Illa, Cronulla, Penrith, Canberra and Wests Tigers.

Group 2 - Newcastle, New Zealand, Manly, Souths, Easts, Canterbury, Parramatta and Melbourne.

Still some obvious gaps in head-to-heads and I could only imagine the outrage from Buzz if the Dragons didn't face Souths and the Dogs. But his idea alone sees Manly missing grudge matches against Newcastle and Melbourne, and the Dragons missing out on Broncos and Melbourne match-ups, all holding strong modern day interest.
 
It would have pros and cons to it but I don't think it's necessary. If this conference thing is an answer to crowd numbers being down then it's the wrong answer.
 

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