The problem that arises is the rationalisation process. Several Sydney teams are going to have to merge or be cut unless they are able to meet the NRL’s criteria for inclusion in the 2000 competition. It seems as though the wealthy and strong performing Sydney clubs e.g.: Parramatta and North Sydney, should have preference to stand alone over the poorer and weaker clubs, e.g.: foundation clubs Souths and Wests, but even they may have to merge in order to fit into a 14 team competition. For example if both St.George and Cronulla who are geographically close were able to stand alone it would not be fair if there was another region of Sydney which was not represented. There are many arguments and issues far from resolved, and with all this uncertainty I decided to conduct a survey via the Internet. I was trying to find out how important a football fan’s team really is to them. If their team did not meet the NRL’s criteria would they still follow the game?

As a loyal supporter of the game of Rugby League for ten years I was very keen to find out more about the issues concerning the future of the game like the issue of the reduction in the number of teams. Too often I have heard the game’s officials arguing about the future and giving their opinions. I wanted to know what the supporters thought, because without them the game would cease to exist.

The main question I asked in the survey was "Would you still follow the game if your team was not included?". This is very difficult for some people especially since it’s still eighteen months from now when all will be revealed. This question is of special interest to me. I am not sure about the answer but I probably would remain an NRL fan as I have been one for so long.

I chose the Internet as my method of investigation and placed the survey on the Internet, as the Internet is a quick efficient way of retrieving responses if dealt with the right way. When I first had the survey up and running it was very hard to get responses as it was only reachable via an address. Then I contacted the owner of one of the NRL pages, Glen and asked him if he wouldn’t mind creating a link to my page on his page. I would not have retrieved so many responses if it hadn’t been for Glen’s NRL page advertising my survey.

Rugby League in Australia began in 1908 in the heart of Sydney which is the inner city, with nine original clubs; Souths, Easts, Wests, Norths and Balmain whom still exist today, plus Cumberland, Glebe, Newtown and a Hunter Valley team who left the competition in 1909. All the teams in the early days were geographically close together so there was a strong rivalry and tradition that continues to exist today.

Other famous clubs St.George, Canterbury, Manly and Parramatta were to join the competition in the first half of the century and establish their traditions later with many premierships, which are still remembered proudly by their fans. Souths have been most successful with 20 premierships, yet are one of the teams most likely to merge. They have been unsuccessful in the 1990’s because of lack of money to buy quality players. St.George won a remarkable eleven premierships in succession (1956-66), but are looking to merge with Illawarra. It wasn’t until 1982 that the NSWRL expanded beyond Sydney with the inclusion of Illawarra and Canberra and then six years later Brisbane, Newcastle and Gold Coast joined. Brisbane is one of the richest and most successful clubs in the NRL and has already been guaranteed a position in the 14 team competition.

The ARL v Superleague War which began in 1995 placed the game in turmoil. 1994 had been the ARL’s best ever season according to them with crowds, TV ratings and overall public interest in the game very high. 1995 was going to be a continuation of the rise of the game with teams from Perth, Auckland, South Queensland and North Queensland joining the competition. But News Limited’s vision of a Superleague bringing the game of Rugby League to the world through Pay Television took the focus from the football field and into the business world and the courts.

Superleague was busy signing up players in anticipation that it would begin its competition with ten teams in 1996. Three Sydney teams were included in its plans and the other teams from major centres around the country, also Auckland. The first three clubs to join Superleague, Cronulla, Canterbury and Canberra were even threatened with expulsion from the ARL, however it did not eventuate. In 1995 players who signed with SL were not allowed to be considered for ARL representative fixtures which only increased the ill-feeling. ARL won a court case over SL in February 1996 so it could not go ahead and although SL teams forfeited first round matches of the 1996 Optus Cup they were forced to play. But in October of that year SL won a court case over the ARL allowing SL to go ahead in 1997.

It was the first and hopefully only year that there have been two competitions in Australia. Crowds, TV ratings and overall interest were down. SL did not live up to expectations, hardly providing a State of Origin quality game each week as News Ltd believed it would. While the ARL’s standard seemed higher it was hardly like that of 1994. In December 1997 the two parties reached a compromise for a 20 team competition in 1998 but both readily conceded the game needed to be rationalised.

Hypothesis: The majority of Rugby League fans who support teams which may not meet the NRL’s criteria for inclusion in a 14 team competition in 2000, will remain Rugby League supporters opposed to joining the growing army of AFL fans or other fast growing sports.

I chose this hypothesis because I personally believed that most fans of Rugby League follow the game as a whole and not just their own team. I thought that they would still support the game if their team had to merge or be cut and I set out to prove/disprove my theory. I thought that an Internet survey would be a new and reliable way of testing my hypothesis.

The hypothesis always included the expected outcome of most fans still following the game if their team was merged but it has been rewritten several times. The original hypothesis was written with the knowledge that there would be 16 teams in 1999 and then 14 in 2000. But soon after it was announced that the competition would only be rationalised to 14 teams in 2000. In July the talk of mergers has again been raised so maybe the original hypothesis could be the most accurate.

In researching this topic I intended to investigate much more than just the main question apparent in the hypothesis. The survey can be split into categories i.e.: age, area, favourite sports, favourite team, length of time following game, games, Rugby League on TV, amalgamations and mergers, Superleague, Magazines/Newspaper, have you played?.