Cowboys NRLW relocation to Cairns presented to city’s leaders
Relocating the Cowboys NRLW side to Cairns is about more than just repaying the city for the region’s financial and talent contributions to the club.
Cairns business and community leaders were presented with a series of glowing statistics on how the region has propped up the balance sheet of the North Queensland Cowboys, which is set to “show love” to the Far North city.
But the club’s chief executive Jeff Reibel confirmed “fortifying” the supporter base outside of Townsville was a significant factor motivating the relocation of the Cowboys NRLW side to Cairns.
At a breakfast event hosted by Advance Cairns, the outgoing CEO and chairman Lewis Ramsay called on the Cairns community to embrace their vision as they unveiled new details of the club’s high performance centre at West Barlow Park and new leagues club on Bunda St.
“We’ve got about 170,000 fans in the greater North Queensland region, 68,000 fans are actually from Cairns,” Mr Reibel said.
“It shows that affinity is here – the opportunity to place an NRLW team and give them an identity and their own community.”
He said the Far North’s contribution to the Townsville-based club included 37 of its 330 mens players – the most of any region over the course of its history - about $180,000 in revenue generated per trial game, 15 per cent of all Cowboys merchandise sales, as well as membership and corporate sponsorship support.
“Why now; the fact is after 30 years the club has built a bit of a balance sheet, and in return for being able to build a balance sheet we have been able to turn to a more boots on the ground strategy.”
Mr Reibel said he accepted the Cairns public’s cynical perception of how the Cowboys’ timing of expanding its presence in the Far North coincided with investments and the introduction of Papua New Guinea into the NRL.
“I can see the perception,” he said.
“This is our territory, and having two NRL teams in the greater region of North Queensland would be very difficult for both teams to succeed, and that’s everything from talent pathways to commercial.”
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He said when expanding, the NRL needed to consider the fanbase available within a club’s footprint and pointed to Sydney’s teams which he said shared access to about 900,000 residents each, while North Queensland had about 600,000.
“This is about keeping North Queensland, and the Cowboys in North Queensland,” he said.
Mr Ramsay told the breakfast the Cowboys women’s team was supportive of the move to Cairns, while doubling down on his comments about poor crowd numbers in Townsville which he attributed to kick-off timings set by the league and broadcasters.
Originally published as Cowboys NRLW relocation to Cairns presented to city’s leaders
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