Okay. Let me rephrase. The expansion teams of the afl is a joke. 70%+ of games thus year blew out by 50 points. The expansion has weakened the quality of the comp IMO.
8000 people showing up at GWS and Suns games was hardly worth the $100 million spent.
Just my opinion. Good topic!
Too soon to judge it this harshly.
And to be fair to the Suns their average home attendance this year was 13,645 to the Titans 14,405. Not a massive deficit there. No doubt helped by family passes being cheaper to Suns games than Titans games. GWS did average 8117 to Skoda, but that's still 75% of what Penrith averaged this year (10,858).
(That said, I'm on the fence as to whether Folau has been worth it. I think there's a combination of poor handling by the club, coupled with his disillusionment at struggling, that lead to some pretty poor performances)
Expansions cost money, expansions into competition territory more so. You can't half-arse this type of thing, and if a Perth NRL side was go ahead the NRL would need to make a similarly large investment to compete with already existing AFL, Super Rugby and A-League sides. Not to mention concessions would have to be made to move players west. The Western Force have lost a number of key players due to family - and essentially the "heartland" of the game - being on the east coast.
Personally I think a second New Zealand team would be a smarter move, not only for the NRL but for the game as whole. The Warriors pull decent crowds, averaging 15,257 this year. There's massive pool of schoolboy rugby talent that can be tapped into, plus there's no AFL to compete with. It might even help kick along a North vs South origin game. To me it feels like a lower risk genuine (ie not another QLD or NSW team) expansion.
