[urlhttp://www.engagesuperleague.co.uk/article/caisley-prepared-to-come-to-bulls-aid/24774[/url

Whats the Bulls fans feeling on this?

Maybe that's why the guilt trip put on people for not pledging is something I find frankly an utter disgrace.

I was at Belle Vue back in 2001 when Wakefield somehow stayed up, when the Chairman and his cronies begged us for money or the club would cease to exist, when the coach at the time (John Harbin, great orator) begged us for funds to keep the great players coming through (before he left for Dewsbury weeks later) and even that club managed to keep going despite having a crap ground, low support and a bloody awful squad at that point.

I sat through page upon page on forums of people saying how they were better because they could afford to, or were so blinded by 'loyalty' that they chose to donate thousands of pounds to keep a failing business, and those who put it there in the first place, afloat.

Forgive me for thinking that Bradford will still be around, whether £500k is found or not.

It's third of my four possible outcomes, ever so slightly higher than oblivion.

I've said this elsewhere but I think it's all a scam

They can and will stay afloat, pledges or not. What they are trying to do is guilt trip everyone into paying off the huge historic debt, leaving them free and unencumbered and in an awesome position to retake the summit of Superleague...

from the BBC


Seriuosly...if RBS agree to this they will leave themselves open to every single bad debt they ever call in being overturned and more time given.....

Only 1,800 at the stoop tonight and we still don't have any debt.....

That's because you have wonderful backing from the Royal Bank of RFL.

Alas roofs, it is only Bradford who have an account there.

BTW......as I have mentioned, if London had 1,000 travelling fans, then 2007-2011 would have seen 50k in extra revenue for your club....how much did you pi55 away on Mason.


Your owner is bitching like whiny schoolgirl again, but in reality, expansion clubs deliver the SKY TV deal at the expense of about 20k a year......would you be happy to lose the million + so as to welcome 500 Halifax fans to the caravan park once a year to watch amateur players with a couple of semi-pro's thrown in and maybe a pair of 35yrs old aussie backpackers?

Bradford as a business got themselves into this mess and to BEG the RL community for help to stop them doing what others have had to do is sickening IMO. They shoud accept their medicine and rebuild...it's painful, but in the end it will build a stronger club. If the RL community get them a stay of execution, who will thay ask next time...or who will the next club turn to?

This situation is simply enforcing the belief in the majority of the country that RL is a northern hobby......constant reference to the RL Community........they may as well post pictures of flat cap wearing whippet fanciers

Maybe that's why they asked the day before a bank holiday which itself is the day before Hood has to make a decision.

Bradford MP and former Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe added: "Bradford has had a rugby league club in various guises since the formation of the Northern Union was formed. We cannot let it die with the stroke of a pen."


Yes but Bradford Northern (1964) Ltd has only been around since, at a guess, 1964 and if it goes tits up there's not a shadow of a doubt that a new club will replace it.

Oh this stupid thing about Sky handing over cash simply because of expansion clubs - how the hell does 2000 fans in a 15000 stadium look good on Sky TV? It actually makes both SL and Sky look terrible. SL because it makes it look to the rest of the country like SL is watched by one man and his dog, and it looks bad on Sky because people tuning in to Sky Sports for the first time will think they show Mickey Mouse sports / leagues which no-one is interested in attending. It's bad, bad, bad - out with the Fulcrubronquins Experiment I say.

That's exactly the way I see it.

So pervasive has the wave of vomit-inducing hyperbole about saving the Bulls become, that when Brian Carney voiced one dissenting opinion on TV the other night, Bradford fans respond by calling for a lynching; and this is despite the overwhelming majority of pundits, administrators and former players who have turned their plight into something akin to Children in Need.

Quite frankly, the whole situation has become an embarassment.

This is my frustration. Bradford Northern (1964) Ltd may disappear, but tell me a new company won't replace that and I won't believe you.

(Does that mean Bradford Bulls can take no claim on any honours won by the club pre-1964 as that is not the same thing, going by the current logic.)

Would you prefer us to dress as Pearly Kings and chew jellied eels? There would be somewhat more than 500 Halifax fans but even that would be 10 times what London bring to games.

Why not move to the Earls Court area next? At least you should find enough ex-pat Aussies around there who are at least familiar with the game of RL (if you can extract them from the pubs that is).

Lets face it. You've had 32 years now and Londoners still aren't interested.

Its been a long time since i have been on here, but didnt you state you were never coming back on here again once upon a time

WHOOOOOOSH............
Sky give money to the RFL of which about 1.3 million goes to each SL club a year. 2 games against Catalans and London normally attract between 500 and 1000 less fans....., but let's give you 1,500. At a tenner each, that's 30,000 a year less in gate revenue in exchange for 1.3 million....even you can't be that stupid



BTW.....What was the seasons average attendance for Halifax when they were last in Superleague? I'll give you a clue....it was nothing to write home about.

so how much of that 1.3mill do yo consider attributable to having a London team in SL? Reality is the Broncos do not have a fanbase and therefore Sky do not sell subscriptions to fans who want to watch the Broncos play RL. Does someone in Kent decide to subscribe to Sky and watch SL because there is a team in it called London Broncos? I very much doubt it.

Anyone who believes that SKY put money into SL to seel dishes is off their rocker and f I am honest, I expected better from you JB.
Advertising revenue is where they get a ROI and advertisers aren't interested in spending hundreds of thousands on "slots" without the perception of reach in London. National advertising rates are 4 times those charged got "regional"....you do the maths.

When the NRL give perth a spot, it will have little to do with Fox selling subscription and a lot to do with the 2.4 million population in Western Australia being "opened up" for national advertisers.

Throughout all the years Fax were in SL? Around 5,500 to 6,000 IIRC, or did you just want to quote the last (2003) season to suit your agenda?

So, less than 2,000 go to the games but, because London have a team, countless thousands tune into Sky Sports to watch and absorb the advertising

That's not maths it's some kind of highly illogical conjecture.

We dont actually have much debt, yet. The problem is that there's hardly any cash coming in. Unless there's a decent away following, very little income is taken at the turnstiles because nearly all of our fans have a cheap season ticket. And the money from them has been spent. So not much debt but very little cash to pay the players for the rest of the season.

If we went into Administration the problem would be surviving until the end of the season unless a well off buyer came along. The Administrator would have the same problem of very little income, wouldnt gain much by not paying debt. The only option would be to sack the players. At some point we wouldnt be able to field a team. Without a buyer, Administration would be a short step from liquidation.

And that decision, in and of itself, should be enough to dissuade any right-thinking Bradford fan from bailing out the current BoD; my 12 year old manages his pocket money more sensibly than that.

National Advertising is more expensive than regional. Regardless of your rather simplistic view, without a team in the SE, the perception of advertisers would be that Superleague is a Local hobby and not deserving of a National ad rate.....

and the only way to measure the influence of your advertising is to look at the teams on the field and where they play their home games...
I can't imagine these companies doing any other research, say into the viewer demographics, before committing their budgets to advertising during Super league coverage or elsewhere.

You'd be stunned at how lazy some advertisers are, but you make a valid point.

I have no doubt Rupert Murdochs lot own the Storm and plough millions into the club because of the 11,000 fans they get or the 90,000 TV viewers........nothing to do with the perception of the entire state being available as viewers.......simply because they "like the idea" of a team in Victoria



The first season of ESL SKY wanted a London team.......since then, their stance may have changed, but when we went to the wall in 2005 we broke no rules and were admitted back into the league by a democratic vote......and the club have never finished in a relegation position.

I believe the lack of fans and investors will come to the fore in 2013 if not sooner, at which stage, the club will only have themselves to blame....kind of like Bradford now. The difference being that London won't try and blame everyone other than themselves.........unlike Bradford now.

I'm not sure RBS constitute "everyone other than themselves".