Seems like 2009 was a marginally better year financially for some clubs. In 2008, the only club (I think) to make a profit was Hull FC. The league table of profit/loss for 2009 is as follows (assuming I've got the right entities) and shows 4 clubs in profit and a further 3 with a loss < £100k (although I'm being a bit generous with Wigan and using their pre impairment/depreciation/interest number). Leeds profit is before a hefty exceptional income of £3m from a transaction with Yorkshire CC. The average loss excluding Harlequins, which IMO distorts the underlying picture, is -£103,630.


Leeds 720,871
Warrington 159,514
Hull FC 77,141
Castleford 26,679
Salford -19,651
Wigan -40,715
Bradford -72,209
Wakefield -202,379
Huddersfield -823,739
St Helens -861,810
Harlequins -1,936,804
Average excluding Harlequins -103,630

This excludes clubs whose accounts are overdue, ie Hull KR and Crusaders.

Where did you get this info?

suggests herself

Companies House - you can download them for £1 each. They don't all have a full profit and loss account, but you can work out the profit by the movement on the profit and loss reserves in the balance sheet. The best ones for commentary are Wigan, Saints, Leeds and Bradford as they have a directors report where they talk about trading performance in the year and factors affecting it - Bradford's for example references Greg Bird, injuries, Macca having the full cap at his disposal, lottery etc.

I think Wigan have said the Grand Final success took them from loss to profit in 2010. They are heading the right way though after years of, well to be honest, not being run as a club at all under Dave Whelan.

Would imagine they'll be into profit for this year. More success on the pitch GF appearance, and also some exceptional costs over the last few years for Noble and Fielden not being repeated.

Will be interesting to see the financial performance of Saints once they get rid of the financial millstone of Knowsley Road's maintenance.

You were quick off the mark there Mrs B, given some of those accounts were only available for download this morning!

whats up with the giants?

new stadium, reasonable crowds thats a massive loss to be posting.

Its way better than the previous year, mind. At least you can do that when you have Ken Davy bankrolling you.

Not enough paying customers i would say.

Why does Harlequins distort the "underlying picture" but Leeds does not?

The Mean excluding both Harlequins and Leeds is more like -195,000 almost double the figure compared with excluding only Harlequins. Given both HKR and Crusaders are likely to post losses (of varying degrees) the profit posted by Leeds may well be considered the more exceptional of the two figures.

As it stands Harlequins losses are 2.25 times the second highest posted loss (Saints) and 2.35 times the third highest (Hudds)

Leeds profits are 4.5 times the second highest profit figure (Wire) and 9.4 times the third highest (FC)

That suggests to me that actually the profit posted by Leeds is way more distorting on the average results than Quins loss. Excluding only Leeds the Mean average then becomes -369,000.

Regards.

Poindexter.

Anyone who isn't profitable shouldn't get a license when they do the next round of farcical promotions.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

I don't understand how Harlequins lose so much money. Their playing budget must be close to if not the lowest in the league, and their attendances aren't massively worse than Salford's, yet they lost almost 2 million?

I don't understand why the owner says that the club has no debts, not even directors loans, but they still report huge losses. The money he puts in has to be classed as income of some sort (sufficient to cover the trading deficit) but they still post losses. How can this be?

They must either break even (after the owner has put in the income required to cover losses) or

They report a loss with a corresponding creditor (to cover the losses) somewhere on the balance sheet.

is there tax reasons for posting losses rather than profits? One thing I've learned about stats and financial reports is that they can both be made to show what ever you want them to!

All very poor results when you look at Widnes's one million profit in the same period

Try a standard deviation diagram and tell me that Harlequins are representative of SL clubs' financial performance.

There are, but not in the case of rugby league clubs (apart from Leeds possibly) as most don't pay tax due to cumulative loses and several have "going concern" statements of support by directors in the notes.

It all depends on what else is going on with the owners finances.

They are a nice easy way to offset CGT elsewhere...and In Huddersfields case it could be that the losses posted are in some part related to the loss of assets when part of the ownership of the stadium was returned to the soccer club.

So in 2009, Cas were one of only 4 clubs to make a profit. They made the play offs and CC quarter final but are favourites for the chop from superleague according to william hill.

Impressed with Cas there, well done.
Huddersfield have chalked some losses down, needs to improve though.

only hearsay evidence of course but I heard a figure of £1m mentioned as Celtic Crusaders' loss for 2009.

They've got debt problems the Crusaders though haven't they, they've been open about there being more debt than they expected when they took the club on. It'll be a couple of years before they're clear

Not looked at the Hudds accounts yet, but I suspect Mrs B has quoted the RL club numbers only, and not a pro-forma consolidation with the stadium operating company and/or with the parent holding company of the RL company?

If its the RL club accounts only, then stadium issues will not materially influence the results. Even if not, from memory I don't think anything like you suggest will have a bearing.

The basic problem, as far as you can determine from the club accounts, has historically been external income substantially less than club operating expenditure. Same as Quins and Saints. And, as with those other examples, the wealthy owners provide the cash - as subordinated loans (although mcManus capitalised a load of loans as shares not that long ago) - to enable the club to continue operating. That is how the clubs can sustain heavy annual losses, and show technically-insolvent balance sheets with massive net liabilities, and yet continue in business.

Presumably Davy has allowed the club to spend the full cap (I gather he specifically agreed to the extra expenditure when they signed Hodgson, for example) and I believe he is happy to fund the level of expenditure on infractructure, coaching staff, marketing, whatever necessary to enable the club to achieve the sort of admirable on-field results that it now has. If they could get the sort of crowds Wigan (probably nearest-comparable club) now get, and probably improve on ancillary income streams as a result, I'm sure you'd be looking at a far better P&L.