A-league Expansion - Derbies

I'd be guessing decent chance it's SIU, but another good option would be to try and get the Dragons branding from Mainland football.

Other branding could get more interesting. Christchurch City? Canterbury Athletic? Cantabrians? 

Hard to say what happens to SIU if it isn't them, as that would depend entirely on the stability and money of the OPL. Maybe they pull out to focus on Chch Utd, maybe they keep going independently or take on loanees from the A-League side.

You played Rugby League in NZ or ever been to a local club game?  It's 80% very heavy Maori & Polynesian. I played 2 seasons in the Manawatu when at Massey uni in the 1990s (hooked in by the famous 1989 Winfield Cup GF Canberra v Balmain) I doubt the demographic has changed much.

In fact if you look at a Kiwis team in say the 1980-90s with the likes of Mark Graham, the Sorensons, Clayton Friend, Brent Todd, Gary Freeman, Jarrod McCracken, Dean Lonergan, Dean Bell, Dane O'Hara, Gary Kemble, Gary Mercer, Brent Stuart - those Pakeha guys just ain't there anymore in any number. The pale skinned guys in the Warriors tend to be Australians.

For sure the sport is followed by all parts of NZ society, but it is primarily played by Maori & Polynesians. The exception being Canterbury, and the West Coast - though league there now has basically died as most of the coal mines have shut down. A decreasing, aging popn.

Rugby Union is yes heading the same way, but not quite to the same degree. You will always have those Southland, Otago, Canterbury, Taranaki farm boys (eg Barretts) who go off to boarding school and for whom the First XV is the wet dream.

Yipe participtation rates don't translate linear to sports interest, and turning up to watch your local professional club. There will football Euro snobs in Auckland that go to Warriors games, maybe because they know they are watching the best league players on the planet with the NRL. But then to them the A League will be meh, as it will be all about the EPL to them. Lots of older rugby players turn to social football into their 30s, as it's easier on the body. So they are a football participation stat, but yes they likely still have a big interest in the All Blacks. Stuff like that.

But for sure Rugby Union will be worried about the growth of both rival codes, and the thought of potentially there quickly being two new rival pro clubs in Crusaders territory. It's just that in each case the battle lines are different.

Yes, there has been an amazing change in the NZ sports landscape. I left NZ a decade ago. Coming back last year for a big kiwi family Xmas was an eye opener. All my nephews and nieces were heavily into football, most of them played regularly for a club. All my brother's,  who like me played some rugby in our youth now follow football or league or both. The heated discussion over Xmas lunch was between the Nix and AFC supporters. All the Wellington rugby clubs we played for no longer exist. It seems to me that the trajectories of football and rugby are going in opposite directions.

Football in NZ certainly on the rise. The participation figures are strong. Interesting some of the highest growth figures are from Asian kiwis….around 18%. The arrival of a third NZ AL club is going to happen one day. Christchurch will embrace it because it’s their team in their city and it will fill a gap in summer. It’s certainly a great time to be a football fan in this country

This is an interesting discussion and one I dare say that has been going on for more than a decade. I remember when was a kid trying to decide what sport I wanted to try. There was none of this ripper rugby, or small field footy but footy was the final call. Little white boy safety was a factor. At that time there was no pro footy teams in NZ, we now have 3! The wasnt even the Warriors back then so league was never a consideration. Even though my local league team was apparently dominating. 80's to mid-90's rugby has owned the NZ fans' dollar and they've gotten lazy and slow. they've tinkered with the game making it unwatchable, a lot of rugby fans drifted to the NRL because it was fast and physical, then the Warriors came along and their fans are now locked and loaded for life. The too are now behaving a little preciously and privileged about getting a second team in NZ. Football has steadily been growing amongst youth for decades. The work being done at youth level, particularly with the girls at the local clubs has been a huge success. Despite NZF being run by corrupt muppets for years there has been strong growth. Rugby and league have been very slow with their introduction of women's teams. 
Auckland has been the perfect test case for creating a footy team, the city tried twice before getting it right. If Christchurch followed in their footsteps with fan engagement then there is no reason they couldn't have as good a following, the have the perfect venue and they are starved of quality product.
Rugby is trying almost too hard to win their fans back to the stadium, the product they is broken, noone really understand what they are watching most of the time. Our National team isnt as dominant as it was in the 80's, it's not the only thing we get to watch any more. 

The argument that because both rugby codes are increasingly "brown skinned games", this is a limiting factor on them, seems a bit weird given current demographic trends. White folks aren't breeding, to be gross about it.

BTW, if my cricket club is any indication, that's also becoming a "brown skinned game". I don't know what game white racists are going to play because football is multi-ethnic.

Some of the worst instances of onfield sports racism in NZ have occurred in the Auckland football scene, so the code shouldn't feel too smug in that space. And I'm sure it doesn't.

If the Warriors finally win the NRL comp it won't mean a boom in kids playing League. But it will increase the sports profile and give it a boost. It will be one big party. A 2nd NRL team in ChCh will also be a big filip for the sport in Aotearoa.

The NRL (alongside the AFL) is a monster with a just announced $5.3 billion TV rights deal. They give more to each NRL club in their comp annually (about $15-16m) than the APL gives to all it's 12 clubs combined!!

A 2nd NZ NRL club would be launched with all that financial muscle and would be a success. It could be sell out crowds, all the first season.

But again I don't see much growth in the code's participation rates. It might grow to be over 30,000-35,000 players in total not much more than that.

League's threat to rugby is again poaching the best elite young talent, eroding it's fan base and maybe some commercial sponsors jumping ship. 

But the big awareness issue of CTE/early onset dementia cases with both the rugby codes, is only just starting out. Saw a video the other day of that German new AB Segner playing in Frankfurt as a kid, who runs through the tackle of another smaller kid, to score. The smaller kid being visibly concussed before he hits the ground. Not a great look. 

Football's threat to rugby is all about participation rates. Young kids who's dads (and mums) played rugby, now being 100% football kids.

I've got mates who played rugby all their sporting lives but whose kids now, know very little about the oval ball. One is even a prominent rugby journo in NZ, but his Arsenal mad son has no interest in all about going to the rugby with dad.

And that's the danger for rugby. Who are the fans of the future? Rugby crowds to my eye on TV look quite old on average now. Could it be in 10-20 years that ABs tests don't always sell out??

If the Rugby bosses don't have some concern of football's growing player numbers in NZ, and possibly a 3rd A League club, they are not very bright at all.

Come on coochiee  your better than that i live in Wainuiomata so what do you think,my fathers family were a big part of Randwick and the Rugby League Community in Wellington for a long time so while i never played League myself i have been in and around the game for years.
Im not disputing the fact football is popular amongst younger people but people are kidding themselves because that popularity just isnt translating into more people going to games. Yes AFC have had a good couple of years but lets see what happens when they come back to the pack,also how many of those attending were actually football people and not there because it was the latest place to be seen attending.
Walk into most pubs clubs while a good game of league or rugby is on and you will probably find lots of people watching,dont think you could say the same about a game of football. The issue ALL games have is getting those people to walk through the gates.
Im not a Rugby fan by any stretch of the imagination but they arnt going to just continue on as they have done and give up their dominant position easily its just to entrenched.
To be honest i dont see the need for people wanting or claiming for one to be more dominant than the other as i think all 3 have many fans that crossover and attend the  other codes games. If anything the codes should be working more together to see how best to get attendances up as their real competition isnt each other its what people are watching on their screens.

I have a different angle on this one.. As someone who is not from NZ originally but lived in NZ for a number of years and just recently went back to visit, I think the whole numbers game is not really translated into anything more then that, just numbers.

I was travelling the South Island recently, and I noticed that despite all its popularity, very few people actually talk about it & in fact very few journalists actually write about itit... There was no public screenings for the NZ games (why cant Aotea square in Auckland be used) like in Australia for example despite the games being in a good time, and it seemed to be very little promotion of it anywhere? In fact, the majority of people who were watching the game in the pubs where the large Argentine & Brazilian working holiday visa population that reside in the South Island, not one single Kiwi. 

Also, I think come the rugby world cup next year, peoples attention, the media, and the everyday Joe Blow will focus and talk about it.. The all blacks just sold out their game in Christchurch, and Crusaders I think sold all their games since April when the new stadium opened.. Its similar to rugby in Argentina, every time the world cup is on, and Pumas do well or beat the All Blacks, rugby fans in Argentina think it will become a massive sport after football and we might have a professional league, after a week of excitement everyone forgets about it until the next world cup... (As of right now, its still behind football and volleyball and hockey in terms of participation & viewership).

I live in Melbourne, and everytime the Socceroos are on or Matildas, football people here go "Hi look!! our sport is popular!! People watch it! it will overcome AFL soon, we just need government funding as we have the demographics  & playing numbers !".. 6 months down the line, Collingwood and Carlton attract 90,000+ at the MCG & Melbourne City hardly gets 6,000 down the road.. 

Countries where sport is so into engrained into the peoples psyche, might go through peaks & troughs, but ultimately its the people's game, nothing will change it.. Rugby in NZ is going through a tough time I think mainly due to the people running it are not doing a great job at it, and the economy of rugby has changed in last 15 years or so, but come the Springboks tour later in the year & next years world cup, it will be the main sport that grips the country... The water cooler conversation around the offices will be who should start number 10 for the All Blacks & what to do with a struggling line out, not "Did you see how well Callum McCowatt is doing at Silkeborg" or "How about Ben Waine's form at Port Vale"

I think what will change it is if NZ get a proper domestic league that is televised week in week out with regional teams (NPC is very popular in the regional provinces if I am not mistaken) & a football loving lad from Gisborne can grow up supporting his local team when they play a Otago team lets say, but until then, I think football will be a popular participitant game, and nothing else.. sadly.


Just my opinion :)