Second Brisbane side no quick fix: White

A second NRL team in Brisbane won’t be a guaranteed success, Broncos boss Paul White has warned.

There have been renewed calls for another Brisbane-based club to be introduced at the expense of one of the nine Sydney teams after Wests Tigers’ woeful last-round crowd attendance.

Another Brisbane team is expected to boost average NRL crowd attendance up to 20,000 a game and help significantly boost TV rights funding.

However, White said another Brisbane NRL club could not just expect the Broncos’ success.

He said it was no picnic competing for the corporate dollar with fellow national sporting franchises Queensland Reds, Brisbane Lions, Brisbane Roar and even AFL’s Gold Coast Suns.

“Our sponsors almost doubled over the last seven years,” White said.

“People say it is because we are in the Brisbane market but we have worked really hard.

“It’s not a matter of just coming to Brisbane and thinking the money will flow in.

“We have got the Reds, the Suns, the Lions and the Roar and we all know how they are going financially.

“It’s not just a matter of bringing a franchise to Brisbane and thinking it will be profitable from day one.”

The NRL are believed to have postponed expansion plans until at least 2020 despite the emergence of prospective franchises Brisbane Bombers and Ipswich.

However, calls for a second Brisbane team won’t go away after just 6,891 attended the Wests Tigers’ last-round loss to Gold Coast at Campbelltown.

Another Brisbane team is expected to help boost the average NRL crowd from 15,000 to up to 20,000 with a game every week at 52,500-capacity Suncorp Stadium and inject more TV rights money.

White did not believe a team should be added to the competition simply to boost TV money.

“I don’t mind the argument being proposed (of another Brisbane team),” he said.

“(But) quite clearly we are not in a position as a game to sustain more than 16 teams.

“We can’t talk about expansion as a tactic for TV rights – we’ve got to talk about it as a strategy.”

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