There is a lad at my work who explained what this Ian Kennedy has done and hes not a nice bloke by the sound of it - ruthless buinsessman-allegedly. That said the council own the ground and need to re coup the outlay so as long as the pitch doesnt suffer and they dont start selling pimms at the bar then its cool with me!

If Kennedy is ruthless,he could be just what we are looking for.

The real danger could be if Wilky sells up to Kennedy, we could end up like Stockport

With the catering deal announced today I'd suggest the Sale tenancy is a certainty , they'll need a lot of games at that stadium to pull back the amounts of money quoted

well it cant get any worse can it really.I bet kennedy has a better marketing stategy than the numpties we have in charge.JW and co have had decades to make salford a success and they have failed bigtime.We probably have around 2500 diehard supporters Sale probably have double that playing out of their area.So i think Kennedy hasnt done a bad job at all for Sale RU.

My point is that whilst Sale has flourished under his ownership, the football club has sank. why would he invest in us when Sale is his priority? Kennedy's marketing strategy may be better, but what use to Salford is it if his team is focused on Sale?

The Barton stadium will need 30 odd games a year with reasonable attendance to operate successfully , in that stadium , Sale need you , you need Sale

Without the union hang ups and hatred i genuinely don't see a problem.

The stadium doesn't belong to Salford and it WON'T belong to Sale, like all stadiums it's a concreate block with grass in the middle that facilitates the ease of watching a game with multiple bodies. The season is at a different time of year and your chairman and Sale's chairman will have a minimal role in the running of the stadium.

Stop moaning for the sake of it and just enjoy the facilities you get to watch your team in.

My point and worry is if Salford and Sale come under the same ownership in the future, that we might not have much of a team worth watching, irrelevant of who owns the stadium.

I don't understand why they would do though, i don't mean to sound derogatory but Sale are a bigger entity than Salford right now, they have a higher crowd average and why would Kennedy want to either buy or have a stake in SCR?
If i was the owner of Sale because i liked union why would i invest in a league side unless i thought i could make money out of it?

Even x amount of years down the line i can't see any sort of crossover between Sale and Salford, if and that's a massive IF either of Salford or Sale wanted to own the stadium i'm pretty sure a covenant would be drawn in to the contract to protect both parties interests.

If the stadium was actually Salfords then i'd understand your fears but seeing as it belongs to the council i see no problems.

VULTURES

With money to spend , that's the important bit

There was a very good article in MEN recently pointing out that RU can and will attract RL stars with the promises of far better salaries, more media presence, and more international status.

That's the major concern with a "joint" ownership: we (i.e. the club) become a feeder/of lower status : the work of such as Blackburn and Hunte would be part of a supply chain to Sale's teams. This would be the opposite of what happened at Wigan (anyone remember Orrell?) but similar in effect: the RL presence would always be at the behest of the RU club.
This may be the future now England RU have the financial/media clout to tempt RL players from even such as Wigan and Leeds. However why us?
I know I am seen as sometimes gloomy but I am very concerned if Kennedy could take over. It has been a strong possibility for some time.

I cannot see it assisting a continued SL status either.

Wether it would be joint ownership or not isn't the issue , the Barton Stadium will need over 30 matches a year to operate without losing money , either way you will end up with a partner tenant , but they will need you , just as much as you need them

The only way it wont work is if you cannot grow your fan base there , if that happens , then you have problems

That will entirely depend on what kind of revenues they can get on the other 300+ days a year they will be renting it out as a very conveniently located conferencing/function venue. Looking at the amount of bookings the Event City team seem to have generated from a standing start in an ex Argos warehouse the people behind this seem to know what they are doing.

:340v1gij

Looking at the Catering deal , have the SMC not given this up to that company for the 26 grand a week ? , that is how I read it ?

If anyone thinks Kennedy would be good for Salford then they really haven't paid attention to the way Stockport have been screwed over.

Again, you would have thought he'd have no interest in taking Stockport on unless he could make a success out of them... Instead he's bled them dry and left them for dead.

I just pray he's not allowed anywhere near control of Salford, nor the stadium and Peel/the council keep him at arm's length if Sale do move in.

where has this been announced? am i missing it in the thread somewhere?

What been announced ? , the stadium catering deal ? , try the stadium thread , two pages back

What has this guy at Sale actually done to Stockport?

Its an interesting prospect (to me as an insider). Logically it would make sense to double the amount of matches that are held at the stadium. It also doubles the amount of coverage the stadium gets, which must be a good thing for Salford. The stadium is council owned so there shouldn't be any worry of someone stepping in and taking the stadium from you.

My theory is that with this stadium being built, with MediaCity being opened and with the rumours of Magic weekend moving to Manchester there will be a big push to bring a lot of media attention to Salford and Manchester to capitalise on BBC Sport's move to MediaCity. My guess, considering that next season's Magic weekend hasn't been confirmed yet, is that it could potentially be held in Manchester and be the Quarter final fixtures of the Challenge Cup (if the RFL are trying to soften up the BBC why and where better to do it than on their doorstep in a flashy stadium when they have coverage rights). I would also guess that the championship finals and CC semis would go to your stadium for similar reasons.

If this is the case then Salford doesn't really need to worry about Sale. By not having Sale there, Salford can essentially start to drown out the noises of Sale. On the other hand having Sale there would potentially mean more financial stability and more visibility for the stadium. Sale could, however, also see the potential that having MediaCity on their doorstep can have and this could be part of the reason to move.

On the one hand it could just make good business sense. On the other, it could explode into a turf war between the two clubs to attract more supporters and MediaCity's attention.

In a nutshell and from limited knowledge. He bought Stockport County, including Edgeley Park, and moved Sale in. Then Stockport's fortune's plummeted (I don't know the reasons), the football club (minus the ground) was then sold to the Supporters Trust to try to run on a shoestring, and the football club became tenants at Edgeley Park. They've since had major financial issues and are now near the bottom of the conference.

My main concern about them moving on to "our patch" would be the possibility of them sending development officers (well funded by the RFU) out into Salford schools (and wider) and the like and using ample resources to grow the game of union outside it's traditional patch to the detriment of RL development.

Your ' patch ' includes Sale , but either way , they need you as much as you need them , simple as

let's change "they need you as much as you need them" to "they need you as much as you have built up links to amateur clubs and schools"

For what ? , fans or future players ?

Couldn't Sale do most of the things you accuse them of even if they are not playing out of salfords new ground?