I'd be amazed if Leeds didn't veto a private equity deal. We have no reason to sell our future revenues for a short term cash bump.

I read that the new sky deal is 50% lower than the current deal. the cash will stay in SL and nothing going to the lower leagues. Unfortunately what else do we expect. The only bidder are SKY they have no competition and they can say take it or leave it. As a sport we are so little minded. Instead of leveling up we always level down to the lowest point. In the last 10 years we have gone backwards. Over 10 years ago we had a plan, a plan to have better stadiums, academies, modern facilities etc. Unfortunately we still have grounds like Wakefield, Castleford, poor supported teams like Salford, Huddersfield and HKR. We cannot change the sport because the majority of the chairmen do not want change, they want the money, they use the money to pay all the wages and subsidise the running of the clubs.
We try and expand the game, so Toronto are brought in, the run out of money, off they go, then Leigh are in, they were probably the best bet, but where is the expansion away from the M62 corridor.
We need to remember why SKY pay their sponsorship, it because they want to sell more SKY sports in their TV package. they do give us the money for fun, its to buy their packages and they feel that they have enough coverage in the M62 corridor.
We have to get real and make changes, we need to employ someone on £300k + pa and let them put a plan together. If it upsets people and clubs then fine, but we need a 5 year plan, licencing, no relegation, all clubs must have an academy, better stadiums, better facilities minimum seater and standing stadiums. If you dont deliver you are out. Some clubs do need to merge together.
Candidly looking at SKY sports, we dont get any better coverage than the like of Darts, netball, basketball etc. Let us stop kidding ourselves, however good we think the game is others do not think like us, so it is time for a new direction, change, and new faces at the very top, We are driven forward by people that even i would not employ. If we dont make the changes, start looking forward to the players going back to part time professionals.

Nothing there to disagree with but how do you expect clubs to fund better facilities, stadiums and acadamies with basically half the budget? These things cost substantial funds and clubs and the sport does not have it.

Like i always say in this situation its easy for fans of our club to talk about sponsors and crowds. We are a big city. If Leeds got the % of fans to population that Cas get for example get we would need a 60k stadium.

I agree with all your points but there is no money to fund big projects in the sport and no real interest from outside the sport.

Well, no chance of lenagan signing up to the new deal. Remember how much fuss he made about having been rushed into signing the last one? Given that this one's half the size he'd look a total bell end were he to put pen to paper

Plenty of good points there. I would point out That man and salary plus is Elstone. He is meant to be the more professional, accountant based strategist to take SL forward.

As Marty said though it’s a tough gig and nobody has fixed it in last 50 years I’ve been watching.
As for lenaghan he is still putting in about a million a year of his own coin into Wigan, he might want a private equity injection to get his pie encrusted coin back.

Candidly

They could stop spending the full salary cap on first team players.
Clubs like Leeds that actually contribute to the sport in some meaningful way are massively held back by the smaller clubs who have, for decades, spent every penny on players.
Bradford is a perfect example. Spent far more money than they could afford on players for years, cost Leeds some trophies, then go bust.
If they’d been building over time by occasionally improving their crumbling stadium instead of looking for silver bullets then the whole game would be better off.

Until the game forces clubs to invest in their infrastructure and forces them to even attempt to grow their revenues then the sport will be stuck where it is.
Add in the Toronto/Leigh debacle and we’re just a mid-sized fish in a rapidly shrinking puddle of sick outside a sh|t northern nightclub.

Why question the word Candidly, read what it means in the dictionary, you will find that the word was correct in the way it was used.
If you are going to question the words I use, I will question your education, if of course you had any

Instead of the governing bodies "forcing" clubs to improve stadia and facilities how about the governing bodies helping them to do it?

If SL decide to return to liscensing/Franchise as is likely imo
and that the criteria for grounds is upheald
Would clubs like Castleford and Wakefield get in?

Both of these clubs have been promising for years that they would meet the criteria but never have.
In defense of Wakey they have been right royally shafted by the developers Newcourt, that were supposed to have funded Wakeys new ground

Castleford meanwhile have done absolutely jack 5hit in building a new stadium in that area apart from moving rubble from one side of the field to the other before then changing the desied location of the new stadium to another location .

York have now got a fantastic new stadium so alarm bell should be ringing for all clubs to meet the standards this time around or else

Cas yes, easy - they deliver to the competition in lots of other areas than stadia which I don't think will be the same obsession going forward.
Wakefield, nope - they frankly offer little more to the competition than Leigh and, much as I still enjoy our local rivalry, as things stand they would not be massively missed if they were replaced.

I am not sure what Cas actually contribute - they don't develop young players tend to pinch off other clubs e.g. Trueman

Where did Watts, Eden, Massey, Holmes, Shenton, Milner, Clare, O'Neill, Peachey etc come from?

The area of Cas contributes so much to RL in this country in terms of talented players. The club's academy though is poor considering the amount of young players in the area.

Unfortunately we haven’t got many rich benefactors in our game, I mentioned only last week that SKY look at RL on the same footing as Darts, the NFL, basketball and netball. The only way to make the game better in the long run is money. Local authorities could help teams build new stadiums for the SL clubs, possibly ground share between Wakefield and Castleford, trying to get money from the council for one stadium is hard enough , but asking for two stadiums is out of the question.
What would be the issue with having currently two terrible grounds or the possibility of one excellent stadium.

I can understand their supporters wanting their own grounds, but is it going to happen.

Let’s start with franchise again, no relegation for a period of 5 years, thereafter we need minimum standards including ground improvements, I am sure with the threat of losing their SL status the clubs will quickly come around to ground share.
The issue here is previously we had a blueprint of what was expected and the threat of not working to the blueprint yet the RFL and SL was too frightened to see it through. This time no idle threats either deliver or your out. I enjoy the games between Leeds and Wakefield, and Cas, but we simply cannot carry on without change and enforcing change.