Brisbane Broncos

Inaugural season: 1988

Home field: Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, Australia

Owner: News Corp Australia, majority owner

Team colors: Maroon and gold

Overview

The Brisbane Broncos are a professional rugby team that plays in Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL). The Broncos franchise was established in 1988 and has since gone on to become one of the most successful and popular teams in Australian sports. Brisbane has won six league premierships and qualified for the league finals series in all but seven seasons in its history. Of the sixteen current teams in the NRL, the Broncos are the only one publicly traded on the Australian stock exchange. After falling on hard times in 2020, finishing the season in last place with a 3–17 record, Brisbane returned to form in 2023, advancing to the league’s Grand Final, where they came up just short of winning a title.

History

The sport of rugby was first played in the mid-nineteenth century at the Rugby School in England. It was a rougher variation of football—or soccer as it is known in the United States—in which players are allowed to use their hands and tackle opponents as they try to advance the ball. As the sport became more popular, it spread throughout the British Empire. In the early twentieth century, rugby players in Australia formed their own professional organization, establishing the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) in 1908. The NSWRL, which consisted primarily of Sydney-based teams, remained Australia’s premier rugby league for the next seven decades. In the early 1980s, the league expanded to include teams outside the Sydney area but still within the state of New South Wales.

In 1988, the league expanded again, this time adding two teams outside of New South Wales. Among those additions was a franchise in Brisbane, the capital of the northeastern state of Queensland. The team was founded by former players Barry Maranta and Paul Morgan, who had played professionally in the Brisbane Rugby League. Originally, the pair considered naming the team the Kangaroos, but because Australia’s national rugby team also used the name, that idea was abandoned. Other ideas for a team name included the Queensland state flower, the Cooktown orchid, and Australian animals such as the brumby, possum, and kookaburra. In the end, the team decided on the Brisbane Broncos, a name chosen for its alliterative qualities as well as its association with the Denver Broncos— Maranta’s favorite National Football League team.

Maroon had been traditionally associated with rugby in Queensland—its state team was nicknamed the Maroons—so the Broncos adopted a maroon-and-gold color scheme. Their original logo featured a gold horse surrounded by a maroon shield design. In 2000, the team updated its logo to feature a stylized maroon horse’s head outlined in gold.

The Broncos began their inaugural season on a roll, winning their first six games, but ultimately finishing out of contention for the finals series—the equivalent of the NSWRL playoffs. Brisbane made its first finals series in the 1990 season, but fell short of reaching the championship match known as the grand final. In 1992, the Broncos went a league-best 18–4 and won their first premiership with a grand finals victory over the St. George Dragons. Brisbane defended its title as league champion in the 1993 season.

During the mid-1990s, an attempt to create a nationwide rugby league resulted in the formation of two competing rugby organizations. On one side, the Australian Rugby League (ARL) replaced the NSWRL, while the Super League—a venture backed by the media giant News Corporation—emerged as its main rival. In 1997, Brisbane jumped from the ARL to the Super League and won the league’s premiership title. However, two competing rugby leagues proved to be financially unviable, so in 1998, the leagues reformed as the National Rugby League (NRL). Brisbane won the inaugural NRL premiership in 1998 and won the title again in 2000.

Counting its season in the Super League, Brisbane made the finals series each year from 1992 to 2009 and advanced to the series twenty-six times in its first thirty-three seasons. The Broncos also won their sixth premiership title in 2006. During this period of success, Brisbane grew to become one of the most popular rugby teams in the nation. The team routinely had some of the highest attendance figures in the NRL. In 2013, the franchise’s value was estimated at $18.6 million in Australian dollars—the fifteenth most valuable Australian sports franchise at the time.

In 2015, the Broncos made their seventh grand finals appearance but lost to the North Queensland Cowboys 17–16. Brisbane made the finals series for the next four seasons but ended the 2019 campaign with an embarrassing 58–0 loss in the series’ opening game. The Broncos slumped badly in 2020, finishing the season with a league-worst 17 losses. It was not only the most disastrous season in franchise history, but also the only time the Broncos earned the NRL’s wooden spoon "award" for finishing in last place.

The Broncos gradually improved in 2021 and 2022 before finishing the 2023 season with an 18–6 record and a berth in the Grand Final against the Penrith Panthers. Brisbane got out to a 16-point lead with 26 minutes to play and seemed on the verge of winning a title. However, Penrith stormed back to win the game and the championship, 26–24.

The Broncos play at Suncorp Stadium, a 52,000-seat venue in Brisbane. The stadium was originally built in the early twentieth century before undergoing extensive renovations in 2003. The team is the only publically traded franchise in the NRL, listed on the Australian stock exchange under the name Brisbane Broncos Limited. In 2007, the media company News Corp Australia purchased a majority share of the team.

Notable players

To make a splash for their inaugural season, the Broncos signed Australian rugby legend Wally Lewis as their first captain in 1988. Lewis, who made his debut in 1978, had already forged a reputation as one of the game’s best players and was nearing the end of his career when he began play with the Broncos. Lewis played only three seasons in Brisbane before leaving after the 1990 season. After his retirement, he was inducted into the Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame, and in 1999 was named one of the sport’s Immortals—an honor bestowed upon only thirteen players in history.

Allan Langer was the Broncos’ team captain for their run of success in the 1990s. Langer was part of four premiership-winning teams and is considered by some to be Brisbane’s best all-time player. In 1992, Langer won the Clive Churchill Medal as the player of the match in the grand final. He also won the 1996 Dally M Player of the Year, an award presented to the most outstanding player over the regular season. Langer was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2008.

Darren Lockyer joined the Broncos in 1995 and was part of premiership-winning teams in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2006. He won the Clive Churchill Medal in the 2000 grand final and was awarded the Golden Boot Award as the world’s best rugby player in 2003 and 2006. Lockyer entered the Hall of Fame in 2008. Steve Renouf played with the Broncos from 1988–1999 and remains the team’s all-time leading try scorer with 142 as of 2024. In rugby, a try—short for try on goal—occurs when a player places the ball on the ground inside an opponent’s goal area.

An imposing player, Shane Webcke spent his entire career with Brisbane from 1995–2006. Known for his toughness, Webcke made twenty-four tackles in the team’s 2000 grand finals win despite suffering a broken arm in a previous game. He was named to the Hall of Fame just two years after retiring. Petero Civoniceva played on three Broncos’ championship teams from 1998–2007. Another formidable tackler, Civoniceva left Brisbane in 2008 before returning for his final season in 2012. He was named to the Hall of Fame in 2018.

Corey Parker played for Brisbane from 2001–2016 and is the team’s all-time leading scorer with 1,328 points. Parker was an accomplished goal kicker, amassing 586 drop goals over the course of his career. A player accomplishes a drop goal by dropping the ball on the ground and kicking it over the crossbar on the goalposts. Gorden Tallis came to the Broncos in 1997 and soon earned the nickname “Raging Bull” for his aggressive style of play. He was part of three championship teams and earned the Clive Churchill Medal in the 1998 grand final. He retired in 2004 and was eventually inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018. Wendell Sailor played with Brisbane from 1993–2001 and had 110 tries during his time with the Broncos. “Big Dell,” as he was nicknamed, was part of the franchise’s 1998 and 2000 title-winning teams.

Bibliography

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Coomer, John. “‘Brisbane Broncos: All-Time Greatest XIII.” Rugby League Opinions, 23 Apr. 2017, rugbyleagueopinions.com/brisbane-broncos-greatest-team-best-players-nrl-nswrl-rugby-league-history/. Accessed 28 Sept. 2020.

Danks, Chris. “An Evolving Timeline of the Worst Season in Brisbane Broncos History.” Sporting News, 19 Aug. 2020, www.sportingnews.com/au/league/news/nrl-news-2020-brisbane-broncos-worst-season-nrl-history-timeline/1qms34vt2hjld1wfobdgtchuwp. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.

Gallaway, Jack. The Brisbane Broncos: The Team to Beat. U of Queensland P, 2002.

Griffiths, Ellie. “A Brief History of Australia’s National Rugby League.” Culture Trip, 14 Dec. 2016, theculturetrip.com/pacific/australia/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-national-rugby-league-australia/. Accessed 28 Sept. 2020.

“Hall of Fame Inductees.” National Rugby League, 2020, www.nrl.com/hall-of-fame/players/. Accessed 28 Sept. 2020.

Tedeschi, Nick. “Nathan Cleary Inspires Penrith to Stunning NRL Grand Final Triumph Over Broncos.” Guardian, 1 Oct. 2023, www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/oct/01/nrl-grand-final-2023-penrith-panthers-brisbane-broncos-nathan-cleary-match-report-results-winner. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.