https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... s-25742028 Some buttock clenchingly grim numbers in here. Huddersfield Giants are now a box of bibs and cones away from owing £20 million. Good news is vast majority is to Ken Davy and he’s not bothered. All SL teams made a loss bar one and the one is a surprise to me. How does the sport generate more income? The age old issue.

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... s-25742028 Some buttock clenchingly grim numbers in here. Huddersfield Giants are now a box of bibs and cones away from owing £20 million. Good news is vast majority is to Ken Davy and he’s not bothered. All SL teams made a loss bar one and the one is a surprise to me. How does the sport generate more income? The age old issue.

Not a great picture though there'll be some clubs to whom the figures will be of greater concern than others. As for raising revenue, you have to hope that IMG are given sufficient freedom by the clubs to use their expertise. Wouldn't bet on it though.

The framing here is wrong. 2021 was a Covid affected year in which the furlough scheme had largely gone away. It's amazing in most ways that the figures aren't a lot worse.

As for Wakey, we know they run a tight ship; they don't have a wealthy backer so simply can't afford to lose significant sums.

I'd be surprised if many clubs turned a profit at the best of times. Pro sport is a money pit for owners.

every professional team in every sport lost money during covid.
odd ones have mega wealthy owners, the rest have to cope

Covid has clearly had a significant impact on these accounts, however Hudds owing £19m has been down to year in, year out issues and even clubs with a bigger fan base like Wigan seem to report operating losses pretty much every year.

Let’s hope IMG can bring more sponsorship and get more revenue flowing through the sport. I’m not convinced window dressing like changing names will make much difference.

Huddersfield, despite large % growth in support since being in SL, we all know don't get huge crowds and are totally reliant on Davy's money.

Wigan just seem to be very badly run and have seen declining attendances and apparently interest for a long time now. Their corporate support seems tepid too; it's a minor thing maybe but the revolving door of shirt sponsors, a new one seemingly every other year, suggests to me that they simply don't offer the sort of quality partnership that businesses are looking for. The problem there lies inside the club. Obviously being tenants at someone else's ground doesn't help but that's not the whole story. It is a major disadvantage though and, unlike Leeds, St Helens and Warrington, they have few alternative income streams or assets to fall back on.

I think this is a slightly unbalanced view. Wigan face challenges like the majority of clubs and have certainly made mistakes over the last few years which the leadership have acknowledged. However the 2022 average attendance was up 7% on the 2019 figure. There is a much greater emphasis on forging community links under Matty Peet. The club have brought in Mike Danson as a minority shareholder who has a net worth of between £1.2-£1.4 billion. Merchandise sales are well up due to the new partnership with Hummell. Robin Park has been a big success with regular fan events and a permanent base for the club shop. There are advantages to renting the stadium, particularly given the cost of energy and upkeep. Still work to do but not all doom and gloom.

The game has many challenges - the biggest being one major source of income - Sky - that is a real problem. The game needs a greater diversity of significant sponsors. If the Sky deal is lower than current the game will be back to part time for some SL clubs.

Which is in no-one's interest. Up to IMG to highlight ways in which we can improve the product and strike a better deal on the back of it. The fact that the clubs have involved IMG at all demonstrates the scale of the problem. On the back of that there'll likely be some fairly big changes to the way certain clubs choose to operate. Either that or, as ZZB says, part time-ism.