Gold Coast is RL territory - the people have spoken!!

[Willis 21]

Great crowd today for the NRL game on the Coast...

17,000 people showed up to watch a side 1800 km's away play another side 1,000Km's away...

Of course the Brisbane Lions from up the road could only get 12,000 to their match, and who can forget the 8,000 that showed up there earlier this season to watch Melbourne v Adelaide?...

Bring on the GC Titans... The people have spoken as to their preferred sport...

Gold Coast = NRL Heartland...

[Beaussie]

Last year's grand finalists and a QLD based team vs an in-form Bulldogs outfit and the crowd was 16,231 not 17,000. Down on previous NRL crowds at Carrara too. Weren't the NRL expecting a sellout for this game?

I'm confident that once the AFL commits to a Gold Coast team, AFL crowds will out number the NRL crowds there. Plenty of ex-pat Victorians and general AFL fans up there to ensure that.

[Willis 21]

Ok.. roll on 2015 for your Gold Coast team...

In the meantime I hope they are happy with the Kangaroos playing a couple of games a year up there...

Also - Carrara is a shocking ground, and I can't see the QLD goverment kicking in any more dosh for improvements to the stadium after the purpose built $100M rectangle stadium is completed for the 2008 NRL season...

The ship has left the port mate...

[Beaussie]

Ok.. roll on 2015 for your Gold Coast team...

Trust me when I say a Gold Coast AFL team will happen well before 2015.

Also - Carrara is a shocking ground, and I can't see the QLD goverment kicking in any more dosh for improvements to the stadium after the purpose built $100M rectangle stadium is completed for the 2008 NRL season...

The ship has left the port mate...

You don't think the Federal & QLD governments and Gold Coast city council would not provide the finances necessary to ensure the Gold Coast get an AFL team?

No doubt the AFL would kick in some money as well. Oh and redevelopment work is already happeing at Carrara.

[Willis 21]

You must think the Qld government is made of money...

The redevlopment would cost tens of millions for a proven unpopular sport...

What would the AFL bring to the Gold Coast? Nothing, and they know it.

The AFL will concentrate on Western Sydney... one basket-case at a time fellas...

[Beaussie]

Proven unpopular sport since when?

Meanwhile the AFL at the very least still has one thing going in its favour on the Gold Coast:

Titans challenge to AFL
SELINA STEELE and GREG DAVIS
18jun06
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au...5E2764,00.html

THE Gold Coast Titans have challenged the AFL to take their best shot at rugby league as the rival codes intensify their battle for the tourist strip.

Gold Coast mayor Ron Clarke confirmed this week the AFL had begun negotiations for Carrara Stadium to host four home-and-away matches next year as well as two pre-season games.

It follows this week's AFL chief executives' conference in Melbourne and recent in-house discussions between the AFL and the Gold Coast City Council over the issue of tackling the Titans head on.

Brisbane Lions chief executive Michael Bowers joined the turf war, saying his club was needed to help the AFL maintain a major presence on the Coast.
The Titans will make their NRL debut next year and the Gold Coast will host today's clash between North Queensland and Canterbury at Carrara Stadium.
Clarke, whose brother Jack was a premiership captain with Essendon, said the AFL had to act before he stepped down from office in two years or the code would risk becoming a second-class citizen.

"I have an affinity with AFL and who knows if the next mayor will have the same passion," he said.

"I'd like to get things going sooner rather than later because of the Titans but Carrara will remain mainly as an Australian rules venue.

"The AFL just can't throw it away.

"They've created an interest down here and the best way of keeping the interest going would be to include Brisbane Lions."

Bowers added the AFL needed to have a fair fight with the Titans.

"Trotting out a struggling Victorian club all by itself won't be as good as having the Lions making a significant presence down there to prepare the soil for what might happen in the future," Bowers said.

"We think the AFL, to put its best foot forward, should schedule Brisbane to play more games down there.

"It needs that sort of commitment to compete with the Titans."

However, Titans managing director Michael Searle said his organisation did not feel threatened by the renewed onslaught on rugby league.

"We will still be the only Gold Coast-based team playing in a national competition so I don't see this having an impact on us and we certainly won't be changing any of our strategies or plans as a result of it," Searle said.

[Willis 21]

Good to see the Gold Coast council telling the AFL to fark off over their attempts to reduce the capacity for Carrara next year...

Suck sh!t you AFL turds....

This article exposes the AFL attempts to run interference on the Gold Coast..

Gold Coast battle ground in bigger war
By Stuart Honeysett
July 29, 2006

THE stoush between the NRL and the AFL this week over Carrara Stadium sounded like nothing more than a petty squabble over 3000 seats. Both codes, however, knew the stakes were much higher than that.

The origins can be traced all the way back to March when Gold Coast Titans managing director Michael Searle sat down for a meeting at Carrara Stadium with AFL representatives and members from the local council. "The AFL made their intentions clear in a meeting in March and that's what set this off really," Searle said.
"Their attitude was there's no way in the world AFL will ever co-exist with rugby league.
"Ever since then we've been diplomatically trying to resolve the issue behind the scenes.
"But it got to a situation where we ran out of time.
"We've got to launch season tickets and we've got all these things to roll out and we were being hamstrung by an organisation hellbent on running interference."
That interference, from the Titans' perspective, started shortly after May last year, when the NRL announced that Gold Coast had been invited to join the 2007 competition.
Titans representatives had been lobbying the league since 1999 - a year after the last of the Gold Coast entities disappeared following a 10-year stay in the region.
It was a decision the Titans believed made sense. The tourist strip has exploded in recent years. Nearly half a million people live there and more than 80,000 tourists visit every day.

As part of the licensing agreement for admission, the Titans had to guarantee they would be able to play out of a rectangularly configured stadium. At that stage, the club thought Carrara Stadium would be its permanent home.
Enter Gold Coast mayor Ron Clarke.
The former Olympic runner and self-confessed AFL fan (his brother Jack played 263 games for Essendon) pushed hard for a new $160million stadium at Robina for the Titans to call home so Carrara could remain an oval.
The AFL soon made its move with the Kangaroos announcing they would use the Gold Coast as their home away from Arden Street. There would be 10 games staged over the next three years, including three in 2007, and a cash injection of $1 million into the local coffers to sweeten the deal.
League observers smelled a rat.
While an NRL team might not have been on the Coast since the last franchise folded in 1998, the AFL had not had a team based in the area since 1992.
"The sudden emergence of the AFL on the Coast after the arrival of the Titans makes clear that their intentions are to run interference with the Titans' first season," NRL chief operating officer Graham Annesley said.
Things deteriorated even more rapidly once the battle began for Carrara.
The AFL maintained that it had a moral say as to what might happen at the venue after committing $1 million. The NRL and the Titans claimed a deal was being broken if the ground wasn't squared off with 3000 temporary seats.
There were greater fears from a league perspective that the removal of 3000 seats would be just the start. The Titans were aware the AFL wanted to build grandstands at the northern and southern ends, which would further reduce capacity by another 3000.
Suddenly, what should have been a 20,000-seat stadium would be cut back to 14,000 seats, a clear breach of the commitment that had been given to the NRL.
The NRL was angry that Cllr Clarke would entertain a code that had not committed a team to the region, while the AFL wondered what was the point of committing $1 million to the ground if it had no say over it.
The issue came to a head when the NRL threatened to solve the problem by switching the Titans' home games to Brisbane. It was a drastic move and would have been a sad start to the club's first year in business.
Agreement seemed to have been reached at a council meeting on Tuesday, when deputy mayor David Powers and two other councillors agreed that the Titans had a right to play out of a rectangularly configured ground at Carrara.
Cllr Clarke appeared to do an about face on the issue after announcing the draws could be arranged to ensure the Kangaroos and the Titans could co-exist peacefully.
Searle was delighted with the dispute being settled but knows the war is far from over.
"Sydney has eight NRL teams whereas on the Gold Coast there's only one NRL team," Searle said.
"The AFL is clearly going to be here and do whatever they can to interrupt and try to minimise the impact of the NRL."

The Australian

Good luck AFL wiith your 8000 crowds for the Kangaroos next year...