Queensland has always been a separate team, from even before the Suns started playing, and have always been strong and in Division 1.
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AFL overtaking NRL in QLD
- Thread starter pulpdriver
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the quality and strength of the womens game in queensland is arguably the best in the country ..... kudos to who ever is in charge up there because its working
My leaguie mate up there is a p.e teacher who teachers at a number of different schools. He reckons all the cool chicks up there love to play 'AFL'.
It's kinda reflected in the lions side being mostly Queenslander and being so strong, they should play a professional level state game v Victoria imo, good promotion for the women's game and the strength of qld footy.
It's an Intetesting question that with all the talk of the possibility of men's State of Origin being revived if there is a place for Women's state of origin.
Ultimately the AFL will be looking for more content to sell to the networks, so there may be value in having women's senior SoO games televised Nationally.
The other useful function could be that if there is a competitive non-traditional footy state playing against a traditional footy state to a National TV audience, then that serves as reminder to an audience that otherwise may be unaware that footy isn't just a Southern state game.
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Yeah I'd be leaning into that in the women's game first, because I feel like in 5 to 10 years in the men's game, Queensland will be the only state that will be able to compete with Victoria. So start building that rivalry.
Another 4 players slated to go in the top 15 of the draft this year from QLD, to go on top of the past couple of years, remembering the Ashcroft boys and Fletcher are also Queenslanders. Their state team will be really strong in 5 years. Hopefully Aliir and Harris Andrews are still around when all the young midfield talent peaks. Also the good thing about state footy is it's quality not necessarily quantity of players from a state, coz you only need to fill one team with 23 players of high talent.
There was an interesting discussion on the ABC radio football show saying that
Perth Stadium was built for events, the W.A. government is trying to attract events
so it's logical that the W.A. government should host the AFL S.O.O.
S.A. set the precedent with the gather round which would be a lot more expensive.
- Nov 10, 2013
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- Hell no
Re Titans
“This lines up with the mail that I’ve got too. I’ve been hearing this for a while that the Frizelle’s have been keen to get control of the club in its entirety and to also just blow the whole thing up and start again,” Webster said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed the jumper. I wouldn’t be surprised if they made serious changes across the whole organisation.”
The Australian’s Webster went on to say: “The Gold Coast has been the Bermuda Triangle in rugby league forever and it’s time for it to work or not. And if it doesn’t, then I reckon they need to relocate it to the west of Brisbane.
“This lines up with the mail that I’ve got too. I’ve been hearing this for a while that the Frizelle’s have been keen to get control of the club in its entirety and to also just blow the whole thing up and start again,” Webster said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed the jumper. I wouldn’t be surprised if they made serious changes across the whole organisation.”
The Australian’s Webster went on to say: “The Gold Coast has been the Bermuda Triangle in rugby league forever and it’s time for it to work or not. And if it doesn’t, then I reckon they need to relocate it to the west of Brisbane.
I remember at the time they were saying this guy was appointed more by the nrl to sort out the gc coz they were worried about the suns and hardwick's appointment there. Gee it didn't last long, I think him and hardwick actually live in the same apartment complex.
Interesting that they are saying rugby league on the GC is the Bermuda Triangle. It used to be every sport - now it's just rugby league. Shows the kind of inroads we're making this year by spending almost the entire season inside the top 8. We're only scratching the surface of what's possible when the Suns are winning regularly. So much room for growth with footy on the Gold Coast and that's incredibly exciting for long suffering Suns fans like myself.
Andrew Webster is high if he thinks the NRL would ever let the Titans relocate. They'd reclaim their license if they ever got into struggles again, which isn't the case BTW. Commercially the Titans are doing fine.
All that's happened is that one of their owners who's almost 80 is starting to wind down and has sold his shares to their other owner, and their coach has decided to quit rather than seek an extension, probably because he's sick of dealing with the nonsense and knows they won't offer him a new contract anyway.
The media has jumped on that stuff and pulled out the old "club in crisis" headlines as clickbait, as they're want to do.
The NRL don't have any say in the appointments at the Titans.
Besides, the administration is and always has been the issue at the Titans, and even the best coach in the world would struggle with their constant meddling and chopping and changing. The Kelly family giving complete control of the club to the Frizelles probably won't improve things much either.
The only reason they didn't say the same about other sports is because it wasn't brought up, and everything you say about the AFL's potential on the GC if the Suns were winning regularly is even more true of the Titans and RL on the GC.
Don't let the Titans incompetence trick you into believing that there isn't massive latent support for RL on the GC.
What's wrong, couldn't they find the "code wars" stuff ?
- Sep 10, 2010
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Correct, Webster is engaging in typical clickbait hack journalism here. The NRL are never going to let the AFL have the Gold Coast to themselves, it's too big a talent factory to let that happen.
I think that can be said about both sports on the Gold Coast. There's so many Sydney/Melbourne ex pats or children of southern ex pats living here who either have a loose association with either sport or would be considered a casual fan of the AFL/NRL and I believe that casual interest would be activated/strengthened if one or both Gold Coast teams start regularly playing finals and/or genuinely competing for premierships. You get the bandwagon fans at first (we saw that with the Titans in the 2007-10 period) and then if you can maintain on field success for a sustained period then you will get rusted on fans that won't leave when the on field success dries up.
The next few years are going to be really interesting on the Gold Coast because we've never seen what happens with the GC community when the Suns play finals and it just so happens to coincide with the Titans being placed last on the ladder and their coach being asked to retire. The door is wide open for the Suns to make some serious inroads in the community while the Titans presumably get their house in order with a new coach and a list turnover.
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09 and 10 is the only time the Titans had a genuinely competitive team. The support they had in those seasons wasn't bandwagon support, it was 'we're not completely hopeless' support.
The last few years they've been averaging numbers similar to those early golden years despite coming 14th and consistently being one of the worst teams in the league for 15 years. In other words, the Titans have been growing healthily despite their incompetence, so imagine what they could do if they had even just an average team, let alone a premiership contender.
See this is kind of my point...
To make inroads into the community you're banking on the Suns making the finals for the first time at the same moment that the Titans win another spoon. Meanwhile the Titans average attendance has grown from 11k in 2019 to 17K and 16k respectively in 2023 and 2024, despite always having been in a transitional period with a new coach in that period.
They're still on track to hit somewhere around that 15-16k range this year, and it isn't a given that they'll come last either. The Titans could still realistically finish as high 11th/12th if results go their way, and any of the bottom 6 could slump to last. The problems with Des will make it harder for the Titans now though.
The Educator
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But have the Titans crowds increased or just the rate of (attendance) inflation?
They put up attendances implying it is over half full when most bays are near empty and there are pockets half full at best
I kid you not they are saying this game.....
...had 13,700 attending
while this game.....
...had 19,600
They put up attendances implying it is over half full when most bays are near empty and there are pockets half full at best
I kid you not they are saying this game.....
...had 13,700 attending
while this game.....
...had 19,600
stochastic
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Titans are averaging 13.9k at their Gold Coast stadium. Magic round is doing some heavy lifting with those quoted averages.
It holds 28k. Both those crowds look about right. Certainly the second one looks 70% full.
I'm going to assume you didn't live on the Gold Coast in 2007 or 2008 when the Titans were quite popular, despite not playing finals. I was one of those people who would get together with his mates and go to a Titans game in those years because there was a real novelty factor at the start with a new team/stadium and then it turned into actual on field success with finals in 2009 and 2010. The interest then dramatically dropped off from 2011 onward as they struggled on field and the crowds dropped accordingly. Probably didn't help that the Suns started in 2011 and casual sports fans that preferenced the AFL like myself stopped going to Titans games (I know several other people that did the same). They went from averaging 19-20k in those initial years to then averaging crowds in the 12-16k range for around a decade.
If you're going to reference crowd numbers, then at least be fair about it and don't include the Magic Round 'home' crowd at Suncorp that drastically pulls the number up for the Titans. They had one big boost when Hasler arrived in 2023 and then the crowds dropped off again when the public realised the team wasn't performing under the new coach and they've slipped back into the 12-16k range they were in before COVID. This is what the Titans home crowd numbers have looked like since COVID if you remove the Magic Round boost:
2021 - 11,773
2022 - 12,783
2023 - 17,053 (Des Hasler arrives)
2024 - 16,241
2025 - 14,431
The truth is their home crowds on the GC have never been close to the golden years. The closest they got was in 2023 when they just barely reached 17k and that likely had a lot to do with it being Hasler's first year at the helm. You're suggesting there has been healthy growth lately but there's actually been a clear decline occuring since 2023. So where's the growth in the last 10-15 years since their golden period? They averaged 14k in 2012 & 2013 and 13k in 2014, 2016 & 2017 vs averaging 14k this year. Am I missing something?
Not banking on that at all. That's why I wrote "I believe that casual interest would be activated/strengthened if one or both Gold Coast teams start regularly playing finals and/or genuinely competing for premierships" in my last post because I believe both teams can make inroads at the same time. There are plenty of people here for both teams to convert that aren't already associated with either team/sport and IMO that can happen simultaneously if both teams are performing well at the same time.
It just so happens that the Titans are at the bottom of the ladder while the Suns are having their best season ever and that obviously opens the door for even more community activation from a Suns' point of view, but that growth isn't reliant on the Titans being poor. The same thing happened for the Brisbane Lions when they finally got over the hump in 2023 and made the GF in the same year that the Broncos made the GF. Both teams experienced growth that year and then the following year the Broncos became mostly uncompetitive and the Lions made another GF so we saw that growth strengthen even more for the Lions without having a highly competitive Broncos team to go up against for the hearts and minds of Brisbane people.
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With the list GC are building they won’t be leaving the top 8 in any hurry. Not to mention Hardwick is a capable coach. It’s just a matter of making and winning that first final.
GC should have a sustained run at finals.
Compare to the Titans who are going nowhere fast. They have never had that sustained crack at finals and it’s approaching 20 years now.
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That's the way I see it as well and obviously there are going to be bandwagoners who will jump on in the first few years, but I think a sustained period of on field success is going to result in an increase of rusted on Suns fans that won't just ditch the team when the on field success eventually dries up (ala the Titans in 2011). I suspect you need around 5 years of highly competitive seasons in a row to achieve this and I think the Brisbane Lions have just recently done that after securing a premiership in their 6th consecutive season of finals footy in 2024. Now they have 70k+ members and a whole generation of kids who have grown up in Brisbane only knowing the Lions as a team that plays finals/wins premierships and some of them have grown up dreaming of pulling on the Lions jumper one day. I don't think it's unfair to suggest that Brisbane could hit 100k member in the next 5-10 years if they keep this up and that would be an achievement that would have been considered unthinkable just a few years ago. Sustained success is the best way to grow the game in expansion markets and both Queensland teams have huge opportunities to do that from here.
Getting past the tipping point of converting bandwagon interest into life long fans and becoming the most popular sport/team on the GC is what we're looking to achieve in the next 5-10 years and I'll just add that no Gold Coast team has ever won a national premiership/championship in any pro sport so there's a real opportunity for legacy up here if one of the GC teams can do it. I think we have an even greater opportunity than the Lions do/did because we're a lot closer to a 50/50 split in terms of local sporting preferences when compared to the Aussie rules v rugby league split in Brisbane. I believe we have a genuine chance to become the most popular team/sport on the Gold Coast over the next 5-10 years if we can have a sustained period of success on field and that's an incredibly exciting prospect to think about, whereas I don't think the Lions can realistically overtake the Broncos/rugby league in terms of popularity, no matter how much they win. They can certainly close the gap, though, and that's what I believe we've seen over the last 6 years. Having said all that, the Titans can still change their fortunes if they secure a big name coach and turn their list over, which I'm half expecting because I think the NRL would be keeping an eye on what's going on with the Suns at the moment. Like I suggested before though, both GC teams can experience growth at the same time and grow simultaneously if the Titans can get it right.
Anyway. It appears to be set up nicely for the Suns to experience significant growth over the next decade, but I also know you can't count your chickens before they hatch in this league so I'm just trying to focus on securing a finals berth this year and the long-term stuff will become more apparent later on when we have proven ourselves in September. Hit your short-term goals and then suddenly the long-term goals don't seem so far away.
With all due respect, you are just factually incorrect.
The Titans have only averaged more than 19k once; 21,618 in 2008.
Their average attendance in their "golden period" (which wasn't so golden FTR) was-
07 - 16,815
08 - 21,618
09 (semi) - 18,871
10 (prelim) - 17,877
11 (spoon) - 15,428
After they won the spoon in 2011 their numbers trend downwards until 2015, where they tank to 11k, before trending up again after their third finals appearance in 2016 (8th also-rans), peaking again at 14k in 2018, then they bottom out at 11k again when they win the spoon again in 2019.
Source- https://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/teams/gold-coast-titans/seasons.html
2007 and 2008 aren't particularly representative of anything as the novelty factor of having a new team was carrying them, as you yourself recognise. Aside from that the numbers show more or less what I said they did; 2009, 2010, and the start of 2011 shows the potential when the team isn't literally one of worst few teams in the league. Then their numbers bottom out in 2019 before heading in a general upward trend despite the team continuing to stink the joint up, until in 2023 and 2024 when they start to look similar to the numbers they were drawing in those golden years.
Their attendance is probably going to take a hit this year, but it'll likely still be decent considering the circumstances. Who knows what they'll look like going forward though, as talk in RL circles is that Rebecca Frizelle is looking to completely clean the club out and make some very radical changes. She's already handed a bunch of people their notice, including basically all of the coaching staff, and talk is that they might even go so far as to completely rebrand the club. In other words the Titans might not exist as the Titans in a few years time, which makes it very difficult to predict how things might go for them going forward.
BTW, Des didn't take the head coach role until in 2024. So his presence doesn't explain the 17k average in 2023 (they came 14th BTW), nor is Des that much of a big signing that it'd impact crowds anyway. The only coaches with a big enough profile to move the needle like that are Wayne Bennett, Craig Bellamy, and debatably Ivan Cleary.
Des isn't, and never has been on that level. He isn't even in that pack of second tier highly respected coaches anymore. He's more of a has been that hasn't been at the cutting edge of the game in over a decade at this point, but I guess that comes with the territory when your nickname is the Mad Professor.
At this point you're not talking about 'community activation', whatever it is you mean by that exactly. You're just talking about a bandwagon forming because the team is successful.
Don't get me wrong, success helps in the long term, but for the most part that kind of bandwagon support isn't genuine growth or reliable support, it's the sports equivalent of a sugar rush. Little more than a passing fad.
By that logic all increases in attendance are from a bandwagon effect.
There is another effect that I'll call "lifting gthe lid on repression".
People do want to see their uncompetitive and continually beaten so when people
see their team as competitive they will start/resume attending games.
The G.C. are far from the bandwagon effect which is " I'll go and watch the Suns because they are the flavour of the month" or there is so much media attention around this event I'll go and see what the fuss is about.
- Nov 10, 2013
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- Hell no
11 games at Carrara is a must. Gave every two weekends. One week away one at home as best they can fixture that like they do for Perth and Adelaide teams. Helps with the routine.
Absolutely. If they keep playing in Darwin they will miss a massive opportunity to build habit forming attendance patterns every second week. They will be a contender for the next decade. With some thoughtful fixturing I reckon they can push towards an average of 20k in the next season or two.
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