How long before Salford go under?? https://www.salfordreddevils.net/seasonupdate/

How long before Salford go under?? https://www.salfordreddevils.net/seasonupdate/

Hmmm doesn't sound good at all, let's see how many fans emerge with the half season tickets available.

Wonder if we'll see any clubs making offers for the likes of Junior Sa'u or Robert Lui.

This bit is interesting. Have I missed something? How is this season more important than others in terms of p&r?

The writing was on the wall the minute the Doctor pulled out.

It will be a sad day if they go under

Regards

King James

It wasn't that long ago Phil Clarke tipped them to be SL Champions.

That, i agree with.

Shackled with impossibly high rent and mickey poor crowds, without Koucash's funding, Salford look extremely vulnerable and the article just highlights the trouble that they are in.
Even with the debt write off, unless they can massively negotiate their their rent at the AJ Bell or, miraculously find another 4/5000 fans, I dont see how they can survive and while the RFL are determined to explore N.America the heartlands continue to disappear.

Their new home just hasn't delivered either on facilities, location or increasing interest in Salford.

IF Salford start to look really shaky, you can expect Toronto to be put forward to take their place next season, with or without MPG success.

That my friend is all to true but maybe they can manage in the championship or league 1

Presumably there is an element of "get inside before the door is shut" thinking in this statement. It's a sad state of affairs that we entered a season, and there was (and perhaps still is) this sort of confusion about what teams were actually playing for.

The stadium just hasn't delivered. It was under-developed and in the wrong location. Sale have made very public noises about their future there as well.

It is sad, but ultimately Salford are a semi-pro operation in a pro competition. They’ve never had the crowds or the finance to compete in the SL era, and their efforts to stay in the top division are , perversely, what is killing them.

A rational approach would be to accept the limitations of their current set up, volunteer to play in the championship from next year, and cut their cloth to preserve the club for the future. On this path, they are going to try to save everything, and as a result lose the lot.

That was always the problem. Moving the stadium out if the city to a place with poor transport links between the 2 And with nothing around the ground it's not one of the better away days.
Maybe they could look at a groundshare with Salford City? Which is apparently turning into a nice stadium.living in the shadows of Man Utd is also a massive problem.

Hopefully they'll get through it, and I merge a stronger club. But I fear for them as selling your best players, or dropping down a division is not going to attract new fans.

I'm conflicted. On one hand all those 'fans' that invaded our pitch swearing, flicking Vs etc in 2016 are getting their comupance and the club is so badly supported anyway.

Ultimately though, it is the real fans I feel sorry for. If you love your club then this is possibly devastating news that no one should ever have to worry about. After all, most clubs are only one financial backer quiting away from oblivion.

Be better for everyone if they went under, started afresh in League1 on more workable budget in a smaller but better located ground and effort put in to growing a Manchester team, who at that level could provide a local derby for Salford in the short term.

Sad to see any club go, but SL can't afford as many teams with poor crowds like it has, we have to gamble on Toronto or even Toulouse now.

How much do they pay in rent?
How does this compare to other clubs who rent their stadiums?
Sale Rugby Union use the ground and I believe they manage to get half decent crowds.

I don't think the rent itself is the issue so much, its the fact that all match day revenue from everything except match tickets goes to the stadium not the club, i think if they had the income from food /drink/ parking etr then the rent would be reasonable/ high but reasonable. plus off course poor crowds. but any club running on less that 8k average are struggling without sky money and a sugar daddy.
Seriously by now every club in super league should be on 10k +_ average, and the really big ones Wigan Leeds Hull saints etr should be pushing 20k only Leeds have been pulling in over 15k average pretty much for the last 20 years.

Neil Hudgell stated we needed 10k to be sustainable 5+ years ago. At best we platued at about 8k. Relegation and on field performance hasn't helped so the average at the moment feels about 7k. Getting an average of 10k for us is a bit of a push at the mo but we can do it on occasions. However that needs big away support from Hull, Leeds etc to bolster it. Wakey generally bring quite a number as well.

Those calling for Tolouse and Toronto in SL will actually REDUCE gates, not increase them, especially for generally middle teams like us.

But if done correctly it would mean bigger international TV deals, meaning more TV money for all. But of course the sports track record on that isnt great and I believe French TV only pay a peppercorn fee for the Catalans games so far.

One of the biggest failures of the old franchising system was that it measured crowds as an "average attendance" figure, when in reality it should have been a "ticket revenue" figure.

The old system encouraged the wrong behaviour - mass-discounting of tickets across the board that under-sold the sport. It meant that clubs were serving higher crowds (and incurring higher costs to service those crowds) but taking a huge hit on their profit margin in the process. When the hit the fan, like it did at Bradford, the club couldn't recoup that lost margin from other revenue sources and it became harder to increase the margin on tickets because they'd valued the product so low.

Instead of a 10k average, what really should have been in place was a "over £x million in ticket revenue" target.

For argument sake, a target of £1.8m in ticket sales (just throwing a figure out there) would work out at something like 6,600 season tickets at an average of £180, and 3,300 walk-ups every week at an average of £15. I think that would have been a much better measure.

I'm sure you felt the same when your team was in a worse state but again didn't go down? It's all well and good giving sage advise from afar but the hard-core Salford fans again seem to have pain coming their way? Some solid information in next year's structure is needed but the way it looks is that as soon as Salford are safely in the 8 then a few will be sold?

The big difference is HullFC have always had the fanbase, yes we were on hard times, yes we got bailed out...but the fanbase was always there, some had lapsed due to the poor rugby and the poor Boulevard facilities, but they were still keeping one eye on what the club was doing and could easily be tempted back.

Salford have never had big crowds, it doesn't matter if they inherit an NRL sides worth of top talent and go and win SL unbeaten, the public aren't interested.

10,000 tickets a game at £20 a pop x 11 games is £2,200,000...add the SKY money and you have a £4,000,000 turn over, which I believe Hudgel at HKR said was the break even figure. The £20 a ticket is an average of Season tickets and more expensive walk ups.......Leeds, Wigan, Saints, Hull FC and Wire are the successful clubs by this measure with these 5 occupying the top 6 spots on a regular basis.......HKR, Castleford and Catalans aren't far away, but the other 4 clubs are nowhere near where they need to be and as such they are propped up by a minimum investment of £1,000,000 from benefactors......we're about to see what happens when a benefactor walks away as I suspect Salford are destined for the Championship or worse.....without Beaumont, Hughes, Davy, O'Connor, Argyle, Carter, Marwan et al, these "smaller clubs" wouldn't exist as a viable professional entity.....that's the flawed model.......it's fine so long as they continue, but when Hughes wavered at the end of 2013 he essentially condemned London to relegation.....what will happen to Huddersfield if Davy stopped bankrolling them?

They will struggle to make it to the end of the season without entering administration IMO, will MK step back in and bankroll them once again at that point? Or has that shipped sailed once and for all?