Expansion of the National Rugby League

[citation needed] The NRL achieved further reduction in the number of teams through mergers of established clubs from Sydney and regional New South Wales.

On 12 December 2024, an as yet unnamed team from Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea was confirmed to enter the NRL in 2028, with the assistance of $600 million in Australian government funding.

[3] On 12 March 2023, News Corp reported a 20-team competition, potentially to reach this number before the beginning of the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane, was being considered by the ARL Commission.

[4] In July 2024, led by Andrew Abdo and the Australian Rugby League Commission’s chairman, Peter V’landys, it was confirmed the plan would be to add three teams to the NRL by 2030, of which two could be based offshore.

This franchise, which would have been known simply as 'The Bears', proposed splitting home matches between various regional centres as well as major cities that are otherwise currently without NRL representation, allocating between four and six games at a potentially upgraded North Sydney Oval.

[8] The club has also insisted that, in any form a Bears NRL team takes, it would seek to play between four and six home games at North Sydney Oval and return its colours, logo, and the 'Bears' part of its name.

The bid would be boosted by redevelopments to the club's home ground and intentions to target the south-west corridor between Ipswich and Logan.

In August 2024, it was confirmed, two of rugby leagues most famous teams, Ipswich and Newtown, had joined forces in a $20 million bid to form a historic partnership in the hope of being part of the NRL’s expanded competition.

Queensland could have a fifth franchise in the NRL, with the two famous clubs - both known as the Jets - combining to lodge a formal submission with a view to being part of a 20-team league.

[18] Following the allusion to a potential second New Zealand-based team, a resurrected Wellington Orcas bid was announced by former New Zealand Rugby League chair Andrew Chalmers.

[21] Since the Western Reds were not included in the NRL’s inaugural season, Perth is the largest Australian city without a team in the competition.

[24] WA businessman Tony Sage, the former owner of A-League club Perth Glory, registered the name West Coast Quokkas in April 2021, as a potential name for a new NRL side in the state.

He suggested such a team could be ready to begin competing in 2024, the year after the Dolphins began to play, and could also attract crowds of 20,000 at Perth's HBF Park.

Alongside this, they would follow a similar model to the one proposed by North Sydney Bears in which they would play a handful of games at their historic home ground of Henson Park.

Bid founder Justin Barlow proposed to base a Brothers NRL team at Corbett Park in Brisbane’s northern suburbs and primarily play out of Suncorp Stadium.

The team was also proposed to take a handful of home games each year to regional centres, and would be the pathway for junior rugby league players that come up through a club in the Brothers Confraternity.

In April 2009, a consortium from the Central Queensland region declared their intent to launch a bid for an NRL team to be based in Rockhampton.