As per last year, for the benefit of those would couldn’t attend I’d just like to give a quick review of some of the questions raised at the CTSC ‘Meet The Directors Night’ from yesterday night (8th Feb2012).

The Two directors in attendance were Richard Wright and Brian Ashworth, with RW responding to the vast majority of questions raised.


The discussion suggested that RW will be issuing a statement regarding the progress of the stadium soon, there is a key milestone that should be achieved in about 6 weeks time and hence the statement should come around then and I’ll leave it that way.

2012 at The Coliseum – RW was asked to give a financial forecast for the club for the 2012. His current forecast based is that the club will return a loss at the end of the year in the region of £300K. For this to be redressed to a ‘break even’, if all else remains equal we need to have an average attendance of 8500 per game.

Season ticket sales for this year are up on last year by approx 400.

The sale of our existing ground will raise approx £13M for the Club, and WMDC will put to an additional £2M. This gives a slight shortfall in funding for the ‘exact’ stadium that we want, however with a review it may be sufficient for the build to go ahead on a slightly more modest basis with certain options removed. On this basis the Club will be 100% owners of the new ground.

RW spoke with some of the Salford board of Directors on Saturday and they alluded to their cost base in their new stadium, and the operating costs for this being very significantly higher than that of an older style ground such as The Willows or The Coliseum. For Castleford to ‘Break Even’ at the new ground under projected costs, we will need an average attendance of 10,000 per game.

Replica Shirts – This seasons home and away shirts have sold very well. When current stocks run out, the club will make the decision of whether or not to buy further stock, due to minimum order quantities from the supplier and relevant lead times of 2 to 3 months. RW suggested that the club may have to do it, however it will not be an automatic decision.

Richie Mathers – The condensed version is…..He did not feature in Basil’s core structure for the building of the team, Owen is Basils chosen fullback. Wakey had shown an interest in him. He was allowed to attend fitness training, but was excluded from tactic and set move sessions. He wanted to stay, and was cautious about certain stability factors with Wakey. Eventually he had to face the fact that it was the only option on the table for him.

Stobbarts sponsorship – Cas plus 4 other teams (Hull FC, Hull KR, Leeds + 1 other) opted against Stobbarts as the SL sponsor. The money which normally comes from this sponsorship to the SL, is split equally amongst the SL teams. Hence the money that would have come from Bet Fair would have been split. Instead, each team will be allocated 6 Stobbarts trailers for advertising purposes. It is not certain how much say we will get on what gets put on these trailers.

Post Salford game – we appear to have come through without any injuries.

Injuries general – All are recovering well. Youngquest 3 weeks….ish. Jackson just about ready. Millington, ready for Wigan game. Huby, still going to be a while but is making good progress. Snitch, just about ready.

Sundays’ game – On Friday or Saturday a notice may be issued asking for volunteers to help prepare the ground, walkways and terraces ready for Sundays game. At present the game should be regarded as on!

The Tigers Bar has apparently been re-carpeted, however other than that, very little if anything has been done in terms of ‘licks of paint’ etc at the ground during the off season, due to weather.


……that’s just about it, unless anything else comes to mind through the course of today!!

the crowd figures required to break even are very worrying even in a new stadium and i doubt very much we could reach either without a winning team.

Thanks for the review.

The other team to oppose Stobart was Wakey.

Hopefully some good news about the stadium for the announcement, although the part about options from the new stadium being removed and the average attendance of 10,000 to break even is quite worrying.

Smart move not allowing Mathers in to tactical and set moves training if he was going to Wakey, however, I still think the option to allow him to play against us and the no recall option could be costly for us.

What exactly is up with Youngquest? I don't remember seeing anything about his injury. Looking forward to seeing Millington in action and hopefully Chubbs back soon as well

Many thanks for that update, much appreciated. I was hoping to attend, but couldn't make it, so this is a welcome report!

Nice to see some relative positive news in there...I notice on the other forum that someone mentioned an a little more depth the situation regarding the "announcement" on the stadium in a few weeks time, hopefully that will go through positively.

The recurring theme to me is the money we need to break even. Clearly we, along with 90% of other Super League clubs run to a stringent budget, and I'm sure this explains the reason we are relying on juniors and younger players coming in/re-signing as opposed to paying out big contracts on players we can't really afford. Unfortunately most fans want the latter, but we've got to appreciate that it's not something we can really afford to do with an expected 300k loss! I can definately see why we put our vote towards the Betfair cash option now. A good cup run and the play offs would be nice to help swell the coffers too.

I guess this reiterates the importance of trying to attend home games for the casual/non season ticket holder fan...I think with the financial position, along with the new stadium on the cards, we could really do with getting down and taking as many friends/casual supporters along to hit that average figure (which does seem a little optimistic to me). The 10,000 figure for the proposed Glasshoughton is also quite optimistic too. The first season there I'm sure we could achieve that due to the "new factor" tied with the curiosity of away fans, though after that, we'd definately be relying on on-field success to hit figures like that.

An achilles injury I believe. I personally don't think he was ever 100% fit after the injury he had last year that ruled him out for a long period, he seemed to loose that extra yard of pace that had him going the length of the field at an almost regular rate early on.

Good post, was thinking along similar along similar lines myself, i wonder if he break even figure is just relying on ticket sales, are corporate sales included? presumably we will host some international games, cup semis and nl grand finals so has that been included?

Is the break even figure for if we spend full cap (most times when this sort of figure is mentioned it is)?

I wonder how much info we can get from salford about costs as they dont own the ground and dont make money from beer sales etc, so our income should be much larger (how much money are salford losing?

).

Good news that we should be getting a signature from the buyer soon, would guarantee us another licence after this one if we get our stadium by 2014.

Brian Ashworth spoke to me at the bar and told me that the basic grounds overheads per game at Salford is £18k per game.

I would have thought that corporate sales and beer (and food) income will make up a big chunk of that (money salford wont get but we will).

I seem to recall it being mentioned a while back that we would have a bar open 7 days a week to gain income from the xscape location 7 days a week is this still the case?

Interesting news that, few obs for what my opinion is worth:

The Stobart deal is a bad deal, innovative, eye catching, but ultimately in business terms it is a bad deal. Unless the RFL who went to pains to point out they could bring other things in, are going to unveil a cash deal with someone else - The Budweiser Play-offs or something equally Americanised.
The deal actually only serves to make the division a 2 division split between the people who spend the cap anyway and the clubs who need that money.

The stadium; that is realistic, the operating and running costs are going to be higher, it may be more efficient environmentally, but the upkeep and management is always more expensive. Not to mention the business rateable values. I think it is a good move by the club to show the business projections, it shows the inherent risk of moving as well as the risk of not. It is not a magic bullet and the financial risk to our business will be greatest in the three seasons after we move. That is true of everyone - if you ask the Salford chairman, if they struggle, get a negative spiral, finish bottom 2 for the next 2 seasons - then their franchise is hugely in danger, the stadium is just one factor - so it is risky moving as not.
Anyone who feels even remotely connected to Cas needs to show their support now and right through the process and stick with it through THICK and thin. The additional opportunities for corporate revenue's don’t just magic themselves up either; a larger footfall in the crowds and programme purchases makes us more attractive to corporates and that creates a cycle - look at Hull since their move to the KC - but it has to be sustained. It is risky but can be done with momentum.
They key to finanical success is to have revenues on NON-match days so the extras we strip out, might be the thing that makes it viable.

Any money spent on Wheldon Rd is a waste of money, so not fussed about that. £300k loss, well to be honest considering the operating costs related to stadium and planning we have put in, I am not surprised and couple that with the downturn in leisure spending of the public, it is to be expected. I think there will be a lot of families this season or couples if you look at a season ticket bill of £400 say, or a summer holiday of £600 for a week away, it is a real choice people are making in the world at the moment, not to mention those who are unemployed or at risk of losing their jobs.

Injuries, can't be helped, I would rather take time and bring people back slowly than press people into coming back sooner. We all know that the risk of re-injury is more likely in the comeback phase.
I can’t wait to see Youngy, Huby, Jacko and Millington in the 18, add those in to the side from last weekend and there is some depth there. But the challenge for them is to work their way back in to the 17, they won’t walk in.

On the whole, not much to say - but I do respect Richard for explaining the parts that we can play, we do put a lot of responsibility on the club, rightly, but similarly what responsibility the public and fans have to make it sustainable and how many people we need.

Feel free to ignore and disparage.

It was generally a very positive evening as you can see from the information. Always well worth the entrance fee.