I suspect the Council would pay them a respectable sum of money to surrender the head lease. Probably only a few million, I concede.

So all in all, a good bit of business for the RFL.

But they won't give/lend any money to the Bulls?

So what incentive do the RFL have to save us? They get a windfall if we go out of business.

No.

The other clubs would go ballistic.

Read Craven's YP piece. That material did not just appear out of thin air.

What state would you be in if those heartless bsatards at the RFL hadn't bought out your head lease?

Isn't he asking about the council rather than the RFL?

(on a side note, after reading these articles, everyone is claiming we were founded in 1907. Thank you Hood for celebrating The Great Betrayal and making everyone forget this is one of the oldest football clubs of any code anywhere in the world).

My bad. Apologies. Except Bradford Council are less likely than most to lend.

Yes i meant the council. The people with no money now that they have spent it all on a pond!

This probably isn't the place for that discussion, but that puddle is (imo) the best thing this council has done in generations.

Still in England, I think, although who knows what the Boundary Commission review will come up with?

£248,486.50 confirmed as the total raised - given on the Bulls Twitter moments ago!

Depends whether England is a state or a territory?

From the Bulls website

The good cop / bad cop act is annoying me, and I'm disposed to give what I can. Are those waiting to be convinced really going to buy this?

Have just pledged.
If we don't make the first 500K there are no guarantees what will happen with Administration. I would prefer to watch super league at Odsal. This may not happen if we go into Administration. The first 500k buys us time to raise the additional funds.
The 248K is what we have in pledges, add to this the actual monies collected over the weekend, the 12K to be raised from the widnes tickets, other funds that people have collected plus the income from Friday, real attendance and Virtual tickets and we should be close to the 500K.

Do not give up

I keep coming in from work and reading all these posts and trying to make sense of it all. I'm a highly intelligent woman with so many letters after my name that they won't all fit on the envelope but I really, really can't understand most of what is being mooted. Adeybull is giving fantastic support to people like me but he keeps lsoing me all the time (not your fault Adey - you couldn't do any more to explain). I just keep getting more and more depressed about the whole business, largely because I feel misinformed, underinformed and useless. I also cannot shake the belief that Peter Hood et al are driven by the ghost of Machiavelli which makes it so difficult to believe anything they say. Do Hood et al have the sort of proper advice they need? Are they taking it? Am I just being overly pessimistic?

Particularly when the things Ryan says are just silly. Why would interested parties be paying attention to a pledge which will only strengthen the potential seller's hand? The inference is that the interested parties don't have any money either.

"This income would enable the Club to meet some upcoming liabilities including player and staff salaries and a tax bill. Once these liabilities are met the Club would have a month to six weeks to explore other income / investment opportunities including the possibility of a new ownership model."

hmmm, thats a new one. Could this be an option for supporters to buy shares in a pledge stage 2 for the next 500k if new outside investment is not forthcoming? The membership donates in stage 1 to get to 500k, and then gets the option to buy shares and a representative place at the board room table in stage 2 in exchange for another 500k?

That's how I read it too.

If we assume we get 500k from donations. Then assume any outside investment is either small or waiting for administration, then the current BOD might have to find some way of reasking the membership for more help as a last resort. The only possible way this would be even remotely feasible is if at the next time of asking we get something tangable for any further money. Which would be a share of ownership in the club, presumably with a presence in some form on the board. Would still be a big ask to get the next 500k, but might be worth a shot.

Would I put more money in in this scenario?

possibly, but I would probably want to attend some type of extraordinary meeting for members explaining things face to face first.

any sort of new share issue is more time consuming to arrange than initial two weeks club had to work with. they have to issue prospectus's etc. I'd imagine thats reason they didnt go down that route for initial pledge but are maybe considering it for the 2nd amount?.

I'd go with that, and it might be only a fall back option which they were hoping is not needed if investment comes forward after we get to the first 500k....or it might be something they thought of this aft....or we might be reading a hell of a lot too much into one press release?

If the club does survive it will almost certainly be asking for further contributions from the fans. In the form of significantly increased season ticket prices.

The economic rationale for the cheap tickets was that increased attendances would result in increased commercial income, through sponsorship, advertising and beer sales.

It must now be abundantly clear to sponsors that actual average attendances are 3-4,000 less than season ticket sales. Fans have bought cheap season tickets knowing that they wouldnt be able to get to several matches. Once they've bought the cheap tickets ther're much more likely to stay away if performances are poor than they would be if they'd paid full price. They're probably less inclined to buy a shirt. And the beer queues aren't any longer.

It will be a major challenge for the club to restore prices to a more realistic level. Asking for further contributions on top might be a stretch.


.

This is a worry, so you pledge the 500K then what if no buyer? another 500K from where

Having gone through this pain in Wakey where the board wanted supporters to pledge or watch the club wither, we had a buyer who waited for admin and got the club for a song we lost some players and the new man honoured some debts

I have thought about pledging but looked at the response to Wakefield who were written off, it now looks a lot rosier for us 12 months on, I just fear the first pledge is a stay of execution if the duirectors have gaurentees whats the state of play with those?