Melbourne and Leeds - Rugby League

Is it a coincidence that Leeds Rhinos and Melbourne Storm are regularly dominating Rugby League?

Of course not, this is in my view a result not just of the salary cap (and clearly in the case of Melbourne the breaching of it) but also the fact that these two wealthy large-ish cities have only one top Rugby League club to which resources can be applied.

Leeds was previously a rugby league town until AFC Leeds United came along. 

Melbourne was and is an AFL hotbed. As was pointed out 20,000 more turned up for the AFL Grand Final in Melbourne compared to the NRL one (mind you the capacity at the stadia is restricted by size + how many let in + no Sydney teams in the final etc)

Note the number of Queenslanders in the winning teams at Melbourne and the number of non-Leeds players in the Leeds teams. For instance, Kevin Sinfield from the recent past is a Salford lad.

If Manchester had a rugby league club it could dominate (without a salary cap). Salford is close to Manchester but is not Manchester.

Wigan had its success as local businessmen would bankroll the club “giving back”! The salary cap gave more chance to Leeds as it was wealthy and also the club which owned the Cricket Ground next door too until it sold it! Thus it was the wealthiest club in some sense!