With the NRL Commission getting ready to debate which South East Queensland team will get the nod for the 17th team, the Wooden Spooners have exclusive inside information that NRL dynamo Peter V’landys has already sorted out the 18th NRL team as well.
But V’landys is not just a great sports administrator and NRL saviour, he is also a problem solver on a world scale.
That’s because he is not only solving the 18th NRL team issue, but also the current tensions between Australia and China – by creating a new NRL team to be based in Shanghai: the Shanghai Pride.
V’landys has proven himself to be an outstanding sports administrator, possibly the best ever, by getting the NRL restarted and run smoothly among the COVID-19 chaos. This new 18th NRL team out of Shanghai will be his biggest challenge yet.
As battles over wine, lobsters and various other commodities are raging between Australia and China, V’landys knows the product that can bring the countries back together – rugba leeg.
What better advertisement for Australia and value for money product for the Chinese people than the great game of rugby league?
The smart Chinese people could work out a way of harnessing the energy from the big contacts into green energy and power parts of Shanghai just from hit ups within the first three seasons. And attaching some sort of wind apparatus to the flying wingers will do the same. Josh Addo-Carr could power a handful of suburbs on his own!
Then there’s the soaring value of the Chinese equivalent of Stimorol playing cards. One can only hope that they accurately identify the age old recipe for the chewing gum and its brick/tungsten-like strength.
Not to mention the many, many Chinese sponsors that will be clamouring over the Shanghai Pride to get on the jersey, shorts, underpants, and headgear to sell their business to Australia and the world via the new, friendlier medium of rugby league rather than governments. Huawei were Canberra’s major sponsor for nearly a decade, so they’d be absolute morals to sponsor the Pride.
And with the Chinese aggression towards other countries and military maneuvering in the South China Sea, rugby league would also reduce the aggression on the world stage as it localises on the home ground of the Shanghai Pride and through the passionate fans.
Who needs big war ships and display of military might, when it can all be done on a small green rectangle every week in the NRL?
World domination may end in the first weekend in October.
So V’landys has added world peace to his exploding CV.
Other sports, namely the AFL, had a nibble in the Chinese market with an annual game in Shanghai, but it was a pittance compared to Peter “All-in” V’landys.
No one-off game here. A new full time team, a full home and away schedule, and a long-term player development identification system for all schools in the Shanghai district and regional player development camps in other cities and provinces.
Speaking of schedules, how would the travel back and forth from China work? Easy. The Pride will undergo mini-tours to Australia and New Zealand (when the Warriors eventually return home) for a block of three to four away games. The other 17 NRL teams would return the favour, allowing the Pride to play a block of three to four home games. Rinse and repeat.
And how would this affect broadcasters, specifically Fox League? We can safely assume that Nein won’t have a bar of the Pride for the first few years; the great Ray “Rabbits” Warren hates leaving Sydney due to his fear of flying, so getting the legendary commentator to China will be impossible.
Shanghai is two hours behind Australia (not including daylight savings, which would only be a factor in the first few rounds anyway), so Pride home games are perfect for Fox. If the Pride kick-off at 8pm local time, that’s 10pm Australian time, allowing for natural Friday double-headers (no more awkward 6pm Friday games), Super-Duper Saturday quadruple headers, while an earlier Sunday game is perfect for triple-headers. The possibilities are endless!
While they are unable to use the Lion nickname (due to an amateur football team having that name), in pure V’landys style he has negotiated an agreement and partnership between the clubs to allow the Pride name to be used.
They will play in the colours of the Chinese national sporting teams of red and yellow, which give it a distinctive kit to be sold to the millions of new rugby league converts and will have no direct competitor in the NRL.
One may wonder how rugba leeg will make it big in Shanghai where AFL failed, and that’s because V’landys is the man behind it, and he’s going all in again. And he’s very rarely wrong.
Will he get Shanghai Pride right? Of course he will, and he will remind everyone when they win the premierships from 2028 to 2031.
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