If that is meant to be a dig at Bradford spending money on overseas players (and if it is not, what the hell are you blabbering on about?) then its a particularly dumb comment even by your standards.

1. If its a dig at clubs generally, clubs have a salary cap to spend on players. It is totally irrelevant to their bottom line whether they spend it on UK or overseas players.

2. If its one of your all-too-frequent digs at the Bulls, why did you not instead single out one of the various other clubs (including Leeds) with more overseas players?

3. Your "Marks and Spencer" analogy in any case does not tell the whole story - firstly because a top club gets less than a quarter of its income from the biggest external paymaster (Sky), unlike many of those M&S suppliers who ended up being far far more dependent on M&S - sometimes almost totally - and secondly because M&S exercised far more behind-the-scenes control over the suppliers' businesses.

The real issue has been done to death on other threads. Despite numerous people initially denying the facts, the financial performance of all but Wakefield and Crusaders (late-filing their accounts) has been anlaysed ad nauseum. Fact of the matter is that clubs with a wealthy backer can and are running up massive losses, which are only sustainable whilst that rich owner is willing or able to bankroll the club. Clubs without a rich backer (like Hull and Bradford, for example) have to on average break even at worst and make more profits than losses (as indeed they did - remember Hull make profits and Bulls made £257k profit in 2007 and £222k profit in 2006, nicely debunking your argument earlier).

And one real issue is that the game is getting distorted (as it always has been) by bankrolled clubs being able to bid up the cost of players for everyone. But, as I keep saying, what happens if and when a rich owner suddenly ain't there any more? Everyone is mortal, after all.

And as for your dig at Leeds, that is again disingenuous - they have the funds and the resources to be able to run a (modest) loss from time to time if they need to - as they did this year to sort out the South Stand. They also appear to be financially self-supporting these days. Leeds are a subsidiary of Caddick Group plc, owned by Paul Caddick. Much as I loathe the man, maybe you should instead be applauding him for seeing that the income his club is generating is being reinvested in the game rather than paid out to him as dividends?

That made me laugh. Although probably true to life in most parts i'm not sure about this bit:



The BARB figures would suggest otherwise. The viewing figures for SL and The Championship fair better than a lot of the other sports on offer. If it's a numbers game (ok, i know demographics and target marketing come into play) then Rugby League attracts good numbers for BskyB in comparison to other sports.

Yes, in fact I heard tell that had the Aussies not toured in 2001 (when they were scared of the Eiffel Tower getting bombed!) then it quite realistically could have been curtains for the RFL. Not sure how true that is but they certainly were not rolling in it then after the 2000 WC.

Do you know I love the english language.

You post something to make a statement and it is read a different way, which is understandable.

The replies are in the same vien.

Sometimes I wonder how we really do communicate effectively and actually understand what we are all talking about









This thread, IMO is a classic example but then again maybe not

I think the point is LF, that however bad it might seem, it is probably a hell of a lot better than it was.

Not really mate - a lot of your posts aren't written coherently. It's not everyone else's fault.

Are you sure?

After reading about how much some clubs are losing it is hard to see that by the enxt time licences come around they will all still be around.

Maybe the salary cap is too high and needs lowering? Would also mean less Aussies in SL. Maybe the ability to have an income of a min 2.5mill a year should be a license criteria?

Or reinstate the max 50% of income on Players.

yeh that is an option but does lead to a less even league. With salary cap at 1.6mill, you would think a club could be run on 1mill I would have a min income of 2.6mill to get a license. This way you keep the league even and intenisty high and don't lose clubs to financial difficulties which ends up massively damaging for the credibility of the game.

i know RL gets good viewing figures but the demographics are important. Simply put but to illustrate a point

If RU viewers have £60.000 salaries and that money to spend and RL viewers have £20K then RU is 3 x more attractive to advertisers.

Big companies advertise and sponsor things which brings the money in. the likes of Morrisons and Nettos are not going to be in a bidding war for advertising space during a SL match.

A bit simplistic and stereotypical but that is the reality. RL does not have a national enough profile to bring in the big bucks.

That's a definate but the question is, does the current profile warrant squeezing another £10m out of RM over 5 years? OK, we can't command the big bucks but can the RFL at least go into a round of negotiations armed with figures that show an increase in viewer numbers?

You'd have to contract the league to do that. Going down to 12 again might not be the worst thing in the world, but any less than that would be a problem in my opinion, though I guess you could do 10 if Scottish Premier used to do it

A ten team league along the following lines would be interesting...

Leeds
St Helens
Wigan
Bradford
Hull
Hull KR
Harlequins
Catalans
Toulouse
Crusaders

Just to fix the slight mistake you made.

and another......

If they have rich backers prepared to keep pumping money in, Ken Davy being perhaps the best example, then those clubs will still be here. If.

The 2009 numbers will be far more enlightening, given that it was a far more challenging year financially for the game. My guess is that we'd see some big loss reductions at some clubs, such as Hudds and Wire, and worsening situations at some others such as Wakey. It can't have been the best of years for Bradford either, as our [iannus horribilis [/ion the pitch cannot have helped the bottom line.

As for the salary cap being too high, when you get a club like (for example only) Hudds losing over £1.3m (the group position is a bit better) then you'd have to reduce the salary cap to a fraction of what it is now to sort that out.

Think you will find all SL clubs have incomes well over £2.5m anyway. The licence criterion is actually, and sensibly, solvency not income or profit, and many SL clubs (if not necessarily their parent groups) are technically insolvent and rely on the continuing financial support of their owners. Maybe if the criterion for those clubs was that the owners had to lodge a bond with the RFL equal to three year's losses we'd see some changes, dunno. (And in case anyone thinks I was picking on Hudds - I wasn't - I would expect Ken Davy would be first in the queue with his bond).

Once you cut through the babble in the OP's initiating post, the underlying point - not enough money in the game, by a long way - is a fair one and one that should worry a lot of people.

Goodbye game



If we only had 10 spots I'd probably go:

Leeds
Hull
Warrington
Wigan
Bradford
St Helens
Hull KR
Huddersfield
Catalans
Harlequins

Hope it never gets that low though, and if it does I suspect Harlequins would be less likely to be there than say Castleford

As long as Mr Hughes is at the helm in London I will sleep well at night.

I suspect so, though if the sport ever gets that low that they have to cut 4 clubs I suspect the ones that do the worst anyway (backers excluded) will be in most trouble. As it is the game won't get that low

If we are ignoring the one-off income of the sale of assets, then we should also ignore the one off investment in the southstand, which mean Leeds would again be making a Profit, GH and Co also grew the business by nigh on a million pounds last year

Hull FC and Bradford had fine financial results, Wigan isnt too bad but has needed restructuring a fair bit which will cost,

Wire and Hudds have clearly got the backing and now, infrastructure, if they stay patient, growth will follow

what we are seeing isnt 'the game' in bad shape, its the traditionally smaller clubs left behind as the game grows as we always knew they would,

Saints have the potential to catch up, but it is entirely dependant on a new stadium, Salford also clearly need a new stadium which should give them the impetus and opportunity for rapid growth,

Hull KR are in a strange position as they have racked up pretty big debts to promote very rapid growth, however the place they need to be to sustainable and make some dent in those debts is further on to where they are now in terms of support and facilities, they also would be hoping the support follows after better facilities but have already admitted they cant really get from where they are to where they need to be without help,

Wakefield and Castlefords two biggest problems are their stadia and each other. Castleford have never made that break through into that top tier were they regularly look like challenging, they have a hardcore of support which is fairly good, but dont have the a huge amount of growth potential and have never looked like a club which will grow massively from where it is now. Wakefield have lurched from crisis to crisis throughout their SL life. IMO they have more potential than Cas and have the potential to unite the district and finally give it the team it can be proud of and the team the young players in the district deserve. However they have yet to execute anything of note in SL, the squad is packed with Aussies, and they seem pretty insecure financially, both are also desperate for their new stadia

( i have left out the expansion clubs in an attempt to keep the topic at least a little on track)

what i am trying to say is the game doesnt look that unhealthy, out of those clubs, more than half (6) look to be in a fine position, one would almost certainly be if they can sort out their stadium, another has huge potential if it can get its stadia sorted and tap into the huge market on its doorstep

one club on anothers doorstep who have grown massively, have decent crowds but are struggling for investment to take them to the next level in the biggest economic meltdown for many a year

then we have Wakefield and Castleford who both seem to be at a crossroads where big questions need to be asked, and they need to be brave enough to ask them

all in all, it doesnt strike me as a game in trouble but a few clubs

Just out of interest , will the total rebuilding of the South stand bring in any more revenue than at present , it is a large terrace , are the plans to build a newer large terrace , or are they to make it a seating stand ?

Not having a pop , just interested how they are going to do it

Spot on , we just dont have the money to do anything , grow from the bottom up or from top down , maybe we should just try to build up what we already have

Am I the only one who would like us to walk away from Sky even without a deal.
We would soon see who was viable and which 'expansion' clubs wanted it.

I think you will find that turnover wise, Saints have been 2nd behind Leeds in recent years, and thats while playing in a decrepit stadium.

The way i see it, is that if Warington can increase their turnover from around £2.5 million to around about 5 million merely by moving to a new stadium.
Then Saints should be able to grow their business from around £5 million to £7 or £8 million in a new ground.

Going back to the original point about the RFL being wholly dependant on Sky, then i will point out that the RFL are no more dependant than any other major UK sport.

It appears that its in the nature of RL fans to continually downplay their sport, then complain when others dont take us serously.

I remember when the initial SL deal was announced, did we have fans rejoicing at the money coming into the game, No! all the talk was that this money would last 3-5 years then sky would pull the plug.
Amazingly enough 15 years later Sky are still broadcasting SL and are giving large sums of money to the RFL.