Papua New Guinea greet the PM's XIII

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKpigNzgw_U/?taken-by=boydcordner

Damn.

It really sucks that the corporate dollar rules the game. There is no place more deserving of a team.

Krump wrote:It really sucks that the corporate dollar rules the game. There is no place more deserving of a team.

Indeed.  Watched this footage this morning and thought the same thing.

How much does it cost to run an NRL team? According to the annual report of Brisbane Broncos Limited, in the 2015 calendar year the Broncos had revenue of a bit over $40M, expenses of a bit over $36M, for a profit before tax of $3.7M, and tax of about $1.2M and an after tax profit of $2.5M.

Now I'm guessing the revenue and expenses of the Broncos is probably the highest in the league, and even though to get in to the comp would probably require some more costs for flights etc, but surely at most it would cost under $50M per year. Obviously a fair bit of that would be offset by sponsorship, gate revenue, NRL grants etc, but even if it didn't, given where PNG sits on the world stage, then for the PNG people, and what it could do for the psychology of their people as well as their economy, there would probably be a good argument for it to be a PNG government funded team (and that's without even a political argument that BHP or some other corporate could give very tidy sponsorship in recognition for the raping of their environment they've done in the past, while still making great profits out of some of the most profitable gold deposits in the world).

They would need a reasonable NRL standard stadium and probably some special gated community with security, but financially it probably isn't out of the equation. It probably is more the point that the NRL is not interested in expansion (If Perth, Central Coast, 2nd Brisbane team are told they're not in, then I don't think any other bid is going to be able to convince them.

I think one of the issues is the reported violence in the area. Plus travel and fixtures, would be quite draining you would think.

Honeysett wrote:I think one of the issues is the reported violence in the area. Plus travel and fixtures, would be quite draining you would think.

Oh no doubt. I imagine trying to get players to move there wouldn't be an easy sell, and the first thing they would have to do is get a marquee name like Adrian Lam as coach (could there really be anyone else), but he might not be interested. It would be nice to think that the NRL could actually be involved in something that for the country, transcends sport, but that is wishful.

The travel issue could probably be overcome as much as it is for say the Warriors and Cowboys. Also there could be other things that could be done to help minimise any travel inconvenience. For example, Darwin and Cairns have hosted matches in recent years, and you'd think PNG would attract fairly small crowds away normally, so they could be the designated away team for those take away matches. I'd imagine travel to those cities would be easier than Sydney. They could also schedule a few back-to-back games in Sydney and SEQ each year, which would give the players and their families a good excuse to get away from Port Moresby and have a few more days in Oz (eg they play 2 home matches in PNG, then play Cronulla and the Tigers in Sydney in consecutive weeks, followed by 2 PNG matches, followed by Broncos and Gold Coast away in consecutive weeks. Then they might go PNG, Darwin, PNG etc)

Where there is a will there is a way (except for player recruitment). Unfortunately I don't think there's enough will from the people that matter.