If only this was the case.
The losses are down simply to high costs (wages) without high enough income/sales.
The only solution is to increase sales dramatically at the new stadium by a massive increase in the crowds.

Bizarre, I citicise a team I was in charge of for poor performance - go figure?!

I've said this on the Wigan board, and I'll say it here - sporting teams are almost without exception dreadful investments. The owners may hope to make profits, but realistically almost every team you look at will probably be continually subsidised by the owners. The issue isn't so much if/when Sts ever make a profit, as whether the levels of losses are sustainable - i.e. whether the owners are willing/able to continue to put more money into the club. I would be willing to bet money that not one owner of any SL side seriously expects to make consistent profits from owning a team.

Sometimes people ought to take that last point on board when criticising the owners of clubs - they are quite literally putting their money where their mouth is (although there can be tax benefits depending on the consolidation of profits and losses from all sources apart from the club itself).

The same is true in the NRL - IIRC the Broncos are one of only two sides to regularly make a profit. The difference financially is that most clubs (especially in NSW) are supported by their leagues clubs, which in turn are generally 'non-profit' organisations who make most of their money from pubs, and particularly poker machines (hence the outcry here over the aim to make it more difficult for problem gamblers to p*ss their lives away).

The thing that really es me off is the Sky contract. Although we would be lost without it, rugby league is a very important brand for Sky.

1) there are a hell of a lot of sky subs in the north that would think twice about paying for sky if super league was not on it.

2) It is a great filler for them when the footy season is not on

3) i am sure I also read somewhere that apart from Premiership football RL gets the highest viewing figures

We need them but they need us too. I think somebody needs to show a bit of guts and stand up for us more in these negotiations

Exactly the reason I was calling for Richard Lewis' head after the last Sky contract was signed. He hasn't brought any benefits to the sport at all and we roll over so quickly.

But to be fair to Sky there isn't a competitive market. There is no opportunity to market the product to different providers, in the UK there is only SKY who invest in sport.

What gets me is the wages?

Who are we paying these ever increasing wages too?

It's not the players, they are capped. We've paid pretty much the same on players for the last 10 years, the league does not allow for anything else.

Do we have too many highly paid hangers on? What real benefits do these paid people bring to the club?

Everyone is saying we need to increase revenue, but there is actually an alternate method, which is to cut costs. £1.6 million on players, our sky revenue and gate receipts even now cover that. So it's not the players weighing us down.

It's not a rebrand as such this time, all they've done is change the Saints RL in the badge to St. Helens RFC

I doubt that's the case given the corporate backgrounds of several members of the management team. I'm not saying there aren't areas that could be improved but I'm sure they look very closely at labour costs because I've yet to work in an organisation that doesn't.

Well, its good to see that the Directors do not take any salary or other benefits.
However, 93 players and coaching staff does seem OTT to me as does 62 "other staff" for a business with a turnover of less than £5M.

Looking at wages, we have 34 tier one and two players and assuming that the SC is used to its full £1.65M thats an average of £48,250 p.a. which gives the remaining staff an average £15K p.a.
so it doesn't look like the club is overpaying people or "hangers on" it just looks like we have too many of rthe buggers!

I'd assume the 62 'other staff' would include the likes of stewards and turnstyle staff.

I'm not sure whether they are on formal employee contracts or just classed as casual staff but shop staff would be included.

You have to be careful about speculating upon salaries and personnel ratios in businesses that are different to ones you've experienced. I've worked in ones where there's 300 employees for a £250m business and ones that have employed nearly 2,000 employees for a business that generated a fraction of that amount i.e. approx £14m. Without knowing the exact ins and outs we get into dangerous generalisations and speculation which serve no real purpose without genuine insight.

Much better news at Wigan.

Accounts for the last financial year (ending Nov 2010 - i.e. the 2010 season) has recently been filed by the club with Companies House.

Main highlights:

- Operating profit of £141k against an operating loss of £459k from 2009

- Turnover up 15% to £5.5m against £4.8m the previous year

- Stadium rental costs of £197k against £190k the previous year. Notes to the accounts confirm that "rates determined by match revenues" and we have a "25 year renewable lease"

- The £2m loan that was assumed to be owed to Whelan was paid on 3 December.

- Net debt position reduced from £1.63m to £1.29m

Overall some very encouraging results and will probably only get better this year.

Who cares.