you think????


seriously though think in a couple of years youll be there in profit, fc was in a worse situation money wise and are beleived to be debt free and thats been acheived by uncle cath and rule. so as long as results are right on the pitch i can see dosh coming in at craven park

Good thread this (serious...not being sarcastic). This is very much my field, so my compliments to all those who contributed.

And capital expenditure and capital investment are the same thing. But all that really means is (usually substantial) expenditure that (usually) when you kick it it hurts your foot, the benefits of which can be spread over a number of years.

But as for the point I quoted above...wrong I'm afraid. Bradford have been posting profits since the present administration remedied (with much pain) the living-beyond-means of the Caisley years. And they have no debt either. Contrary in both cases to a lot of the waknerage posted by the ill-informed or maliciously-minded (think you guys suffer a bit from that sort of thing too?)

And yes, its a big ask, but Bradford have had no choice but to manage it - we have NO wealthy backers prepared to bankroll the club, and put in directors loans. And no significant bank borrowing facilities. If we don't generate a neutral or positive cash flow every year we'll soon go down with a bad case of dead. And, for accounting reasons I won't bore you with, to break even in cash terms we need to make modest trading profits.

It sounds like your owners are looking to do to you what had to happen with Bradford. You could do worse than look at Bradford's situation as an indicator of what happens if you have to stand entirely on your own feet as a business without a wealthy backer to bankroll.

Very good thread and no trolling.
Cannot really add anything to what has been said, but it seems that the only way Rovers are going to start breaking even or turning a profit is to cut down the wage bill.

Ala Leeds utd. The last thing you want is for people to get giddy over your sucess and mortage the club on it.
As has been said, crowds are pretty much as big as there going to get so more emphasis needs to be put on the corporate side. You could do a Wakefield and build a stand with mostly exec. boxes with standing for away fans underneath! It's time to start schmoozing bigger businesses to come on board in regards to sponsorship.
Also merchandise needs to be seriously looked at, while a lot of Hull fans don't particularly like James Rule he has a good record in developing markets and sales. I live smack bang in the middle of your heartland and there has been a dramatic rise in rovers shirts being worn. Problem is that while you've been in the wilderness new, young fans have chosen FC. It will take time but I think someone who is not paricularly a fan to come in and adress this would be a good idea, someone who can make business decisions and advise hudgell in how to take you forward.

i know people do knock them but the off the field business seems to be fairly sound!

Serious question, its been mentioned on here that Rovers may need to make some tought decisions to balance the books around players wages etc. Do Bradford spend upto the cap? Has that impacted the on-field performances?

As has been said our crowds are in the region of as high as they can get. I would say we could get to around the 10k mark if we developed the 'match day experience'. The away facilities being developed would benefit this, I know hudge has said he wants to concentrate on the home fans etc but I think this was a mistake. If we could get the PR up on the away facilities we could add a lot on the gates from the likes of Leeds, Wire, Wigan Saints etc and on lower away crowd game we could sell off the away standing area at a reduced price. I know we try at the moment but the south stand at a £5 is still not an attractive prospect.

Sponsorship and marketting are the key growth areas, again with better corporate facilities this would improve, as it stands at the moment if a business wants to wine / dine and take people to a match it is not the best of experiences, is Craven park as it stands the sort of place you'd want as a front for your business. Where the investment to do this comes from is another matter, maybe we need to form alliances with council / government agencies (ala Hull and the NHS) to develop the North stand into a multi purpose facility that includes modern corporate facilities. (think this was muted but not heard anymore).

The probelm with cutting back on the wage bill is that all that would do is lower performance which then lowers crowds and attractiveness to sponsors / partners. so it is a fine balance to maintain it.

Finally the Club Rovers thing, although rushed in a bit and also not communicated the best is IMO the way a lot of clubs will go, if used correctly it allows the clubs to target their core fan base and tailor the product and raise funds.

All fair points. Interesting to see how clubs like Hudds, Celtic and London will keep hold of their franchises should sponsorship or other revenue avenues dry up.

Some clubs will have to cut wage bills. Its the sensible decision vs going bankrupt. Sadly if that means some fans stay away because of average performances then so be it.

Thats what I wonder, when we went to quins this year the home support was tiny (3kish), and it does make you wonder how long this can be viable even with a reduced wage bill. I'm assuming Quins are propped up by their RU team but how long will the backers put up with this for.

Celtic may improve their attendances, but they would need to maybe sign a Gavin Henson type player to generate the headlines and pull the crowds in, think they would eb better placed if they played in Cardiff although the move to Newport may help.

Hudds must be running at a heavy loss, they practically gave their passes away this year and as was seen in the last PO game the core support still looks pretty small, next years pass sales there will be interesting to see if they have increased due to the exceptional year they have had. If not then it makes you think they are running out of places / ideas of how to increase as they have all the boxes ticked now. Are there passes staying reduced this year?

Very interesting post and to me quite reassuring that it can be done. People might look at the downturn in Bradford's on-field fortunes and say it is a bad example. On the other hand if they'd had Greg Bird, rather than Catalans their season could easily have been rather better - and that wasn't a cash issue. Rovers 80s glory years were followed by very hard times and while I'm sure fans wouldn't swap the former for anything, they definately wouldn't want to go through the latter again. The greatest legacy Morgan could leave would be a trophy - for Hudgell it'd be getting the club operating in the black.

When you compare Bradford's squad to that of their team of a few years ago, it is clear that costs have been cut and that they aren't as successful. They haven't suffered 'a bad case of dead' though, to quote Adeybull. We've got a 'what happened to all the big signings thread?', but if signing younger, cheaper players with potential is to be our new approach that will help balance the books. Given the state of the country, prudence is going to be en vogue in the next few years.








We do need a prop, but I think we can get too hung up on Hull's big new pack doing what Hudds did to us this year. We only play them twice after all and our ball playing backrowers, mean we are a different type of team. We still need a prop, to give a better platform in the first place.

Wise words.


Very refreshing to see an open, honest debate on this subject. Fair play to all who have contributed, its a good read.

Indeed, and it's fair to say that Hudgells legacy is the most important, even if it sacrifices Morgans!

Excellent point.
I had an issue with getting tickets for the Wigan playoff as a season ticket holder living 25 miles away.
A couple of emails bounced back and forth between myself and Mike Smith regarding the systems for purchasing on line. ( no facility for West stand online).
As nice as the ticket office and retail staff are Rovers seriously need to get their act together when it comes to ticket selling in the thousands.

It was a farce which could in the future come back to bite.

Obviously I would rather beat them, but if we lost to FC twice but still got a top 4 finish I would prefer that to tonking them and finishing 9th

Facilities at the KC are superb and we don't really get many away fans. Maybe a few more than you but not enough to make much difference to the financial position

Great post mate, and already FC are after copying our club idea after many of their fans mocked Rovers for doing it, just as they tried to copy us with the Junior Robins with the Junior Airlie Birds which hasn't really taken off.

The ticketing/merchandising side of the club has to be a priority IMO. The amount of times I've gone into the shop and there's no stock, or I've tried to buy tickets online and it hasn't worked etc is silly which has resulted in lost revenue for the club.

If I was Rovers I would focus on maximising spend per-head on the existing base and getting the foundations right which has to be cheaper then building facilities to accomadate more fans.

For example if Rovers focus on getting another £20 out of each of their 8000 fans per-season (through buying an additional piece of merchandise, a programme or an extra beer each game etc) in revenue per-season this is equal to adding an average of 1000 fans per game to the attendance.

I think the issue here is that Leeds, FC and the Bulls have implemented rigid pay structures. Leeds let Calderwood go as they wouldn't break the structure. FC are pretty much the same.

The question for me is whether Rovers have implemented a similar system, otherwise it may prove difficult to retain players in the longer term as they will naturally compare their salaries to those of others. The example to illustrate this is Michael Dobson - hull offered a value within structure, but can you be certain that Rovers offered a structured payment, or paid what they wanted to ensure they got him.

Decisions like that can be the difference between turning a profit or not.

Clubs can only spend to the limit set by the RFL, so in effect we all have a pay 'structure' in place, its just implemented differently. TBH, I think all clubs do the same thing, we will have paid Dobson more than most of our squad because he is a young and very good scrum half, which we needed. Its the same with FC, you will be paying O'Meley, Fitzgibbon and Long a lot of money compared to the rest of the squad (with good reason to), if you think Long is at the KC for the same or similar pay to Briscoe or Hall you are mistaken. Giving a cap of 1.8 million and a squad of 25, its highly unlikely that they are all on 72k, there will be some on 150k in FC's squad and some on 30k, the structure will only state a limit to what can be paid and I think your limit for individuals will be higher than ours, otherwise you are unlikely to get the likes of O'Meley (and Crocker had he turned up).

By making it too inflexible you can create problems and cause players to leave as well - like Calderwood in your example. Not a problem for Leeds, who have an excellent pipeline and need to let players go to keep under the cap. There has to be a strategy in place, of course, and no club can be held to ransom. Despite a limited pedigree the Dobson signing has worked out well and I'm sure his team mates recognise his value to the team. It is more important the structure is sensible, rather than rigid. In wage cap discussions on your board I've seen [iformer[/i internationals described as high earners because of caps they won during an earlier contract, which seems silly. I suspect the quality you have brought in this year represents a less rigid adherance to policy that I think may have contributed, just slightly, to your 'too many average players' squads of the last couple of years.

You've missed the point. It's not a matter of paying everyone equally, its about coming up with a valuation of a player and not paying more than that valuation. It's easy to get sucked into a bidding war and end up paying more than you should have done.

It's easy and also sometimes necessary. A whole range of external factors can influence a player's worth. Say a club really needs, for example, a centre and a hooker. There are a few good centres about, so you can afford to play the field, bide your time and try to grab a bargain (I'm paid by the cliche). There is only one adequate hooker available though, he isn't brilliant but it is him or nobody. So you pay slightly over the odds - well I would at least.

If I were designing a wage structure, I'd borrow from championship manager and have a wage range for: Key players, regular 1st team players, squad players and development players (the last two overlapping). And that'd be it.
From a Rovers business point of view I think the pertinent question is what total spend is affordable?, rather than the details of how the pie is divided (kerching).

makes you wonder how much fc have invested in long,o'meley and fitzgibbon....we have released a fair chunk of last years squad and only brought in 4 players, one of which cant be on alot(turner)....agar stated we have room on the cap IF another player is needed mid-season, so it will be interesting to see what pans out at the kc....

also player up grades to both briscoes, moa, kent, lyne, tuffour, burnett, whiting i think.