Intrust Super Cup
| Queensland Cup | |
|---|---|
Current season or competition:: 2016 Queensland Cup season
|
|
 |
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| Sport | Rugby league |
| Instituted | 1996 |
| Inaugural season | 1996 |
| CEO | Peter Betros |
| Number of teams | 14 |
| Countries |
 Australia (13 teams) Papua New Guinea (1 team) |
| Premiers |
 Ipswich Jets (1st title) (2015)
|
| Most titles |
 Redcliffe Dolphins (5 titles)
|
| Website | www.qrl.com.au |
| Broadcast partner |
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| Related competition |
National Rugby League New South Wales Cup |
The Queensland Cup is the top level of rugby league football in Queensland, Australia. The competition, called the Intrust Super Cup (due to sponsorship from Intrust Super) is contested by fourteen teams, twelve of which are located in Queensland, one in New South Wales and one in Papua New Guinea.
The Queensland Cup is the present-day embodiment of Queensland's top-level club competition. This replaced the Winfield State League in 1996 and accompanied the Brisbane Rugby League (BRL), before becoming the premier competition in 1998 following the disbanding of the BRL.
From the early 1920s to the 1970s, the Brisbane Rugby League premiership was the premier competition in the state, and was a thriving success boasting big crowds and large, loyal supporter bases with the respective clubs. Like its NSW counterpart, the clubs were constant, with new teams rarely entering the competition. Traditionally, the clubs were Valleys, Brothers, Norths, Souths, Wests, Easts, Redcliffe and Wynnum-Manly. However, when poker machines were introduced in New South Wales, but not in the Bjelke-Peterson Queensland, the NSWRL's clubs were able to entice Queensland players south of the Tweed with the lure of more money.
This, combined with the admission of non-Sydney teams like the Canberra Raiders and Illawarra Steelers, saw the NSWRL competition during the 1980s begin to supersede the Brisbane competition in popularity and media coverage. Also, other sports were establishing national competitions, and by 1986 the admission of a Brisbane team into the NSWRL had become inevitable. Finally in 1988 both the Brisbane Broncos and Gold Coast Giants gained entry.
Although the Broncos' signings of many great BRL players like Wally Lewis and Gene Miles got many Brisbanites behind the new team, there were severe ramifications on the local club scene. In the space of one season, the amount of coverage given to the competition in the three media forms dropped significantly, as did attendances at matches.
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