Yesterday I bumped into a mate who has done some amazing stuff in the community league space in the last 15 years & he mentioned a couple of things. I'll add he's a honest fella who isn't one to gossip.
He's currently involved in one of the NZ based bids. A coach that his bid have lined up, if they got a license, also interviewed at the Bears. He said the Bears are heavily backed by some guy, whose name I can't recall but is one of the top dogs at Cash Converters. Apparently the interview was pretty much over before it started because the guys interviewing him were all high on coke & weren't even trying to keep that a secret.
More interestingly though was that he believes that the Warriors have the exclusive NRL rights to Te Kaha One NZ Stadium due to their long term sponsorship arrangement so the likelihood of a team being based in Chch were slim to fuck all
Huge if true