There is. The reason is, nobody will be interested in it, cos it will be crap. If you really mean that they actually break even each year, and live 100% off income.




Dunno why you've highlighted the paragraph about Caisley, as your piece pretty much agrees with mine. His moan was about as crass and self-defeating as it gets.

I don't think Caisley's rant was aimed at increasing attendances.

We'd just had the most successful season in the history of the club, after our longest period of sustained success. And still couldn't break even.

I think his rant could be translated into "F*** it, I'm off"

It could indeed. But I'm fascinated just why it is, even in the 21st century, that anyone would think they could get folk to spend their hard-earned not for enjoyment, not for value, but out of some sense of OBLIGATION. If they ever did exist, those days are LONG gone. I can understand if he said "F*** it, I'm off, but cannot for the life of me think, specifically, at whom the remark was aimed, that might be remotely bothered.

That's probably somewhere near the truth, I'd guess.

It was probably more a cry of frustration, if anything. Leaving side all the other things about the money itself, of which I've said plenty in the past, the base fact is that he [and others] had built a super side which [istill[/i didn't attract enough fans to make a profit - indeed, according to the accounts, we were averaging around £500k per annum losses between 2000 [when we returned to Odsal from VP] and CC leaving, which was clearly unsustainable.

There is little doubt that the statement was never intended to bring fans in - whatever anyone thought of CC he was never anybodies fool and would have known full well what effect it would have had. In truth he'd made a calculated gamble [with his spending plans]and come unstuck, and felt the fans - or maybe not the actual fans as such, but maybe those who chose [inot[/i to be fans, were to blame - but you can't press gang fans into the ground.

Yes I think CC was frustrated we could not get more fans even with a winning product. However CC wasn't just involved with the Bulls he was also keen to raise the profile of the game as a whole, so whatever he thought about the people who were not coming through the turnstiles at the Bulls I suspect he was even more frustrated by the lack of vision for game at the highest level in the UK.
Another point on the figures above - if we were needing £500k to fill the funding gap when on the top of the game - the even more frightening figure is that we seem to need twice that in 9th place?

The £500k loss was on the balance sheet and I certainly wouldn't pretend to know how that stacked up with the actual operating costs, then or now. We did have capital in the bank back then, of course, from the Odsal settlement [originally intended to compensate for taking on responsibility for ground maintenance from the council], which was used to finance the playing side. CC clearly expected the success of the side to attract more support through the gate, and maybe more sponsorship as well, but as with the best laid plans of mice and men, it never actually worked out that way.

We were paying out much bigger wages [and more of them]both for players and back up staff back then but were getting, for round figures, double the gates so it's hard to say how it stacks up now, other than to say I doubt we're making a profit.

much of the odsal settlement cash went on the coral stand and the balance received iirc over a few years, we made a profit in a few of the good years, see my much earlier posts around the time we went pop, and essentially the cash went into the squad either wages or transfer fees. then CC left and Hood turned the squad into cash as the numbers fell. As there are no publicly available figures its difficult to say what the current costs are, but you can see from the way some players have left - Ainscough, Naughton - or not been renewed - Platt & Langley - that the player and coach wages bill is massively less.

the cash put in by OK tells the story. Sponsorship has been decent, but will not have balanced the loss of Sky money. So more sponsorship/investment needed for next year, and more fans. That depends on the team etc. certainly the squad for next year looks as if it will be more resilient to injury, and will play a bit more. So im cautiously optimistic we will see some good games, the thing we have to do is continue the trend of both offence and attack improving over the previous season.

Is our squad wage bill really going to be that reduced? I'm not so sure. We might have lost Langley, Lulia and Platt but Ferguson and Carvell will not have come cheap.
In roughly 12 months, Omar has had to put in close to £1 million just to keep the club going. That is a constant worry to me - how is next year going to be any different? I don't think Mark and Ryan are in the position to be putting in a similar figure.
But if funds were going to be an issue then why didn't they take this opportunity to 'do a wakefield' and reduce the wage bill somewhat. They haven't done that at all, instead choosing to bolster the squad and push for a playoff finish.

and what if it were the case that, in addition, Omar wanted £900k back in instalments over time out of the sky money?




Exactly. AGAIN.

Well, I don't think we need to worry too much about Omar being repaid. I can't see him demanding full repayment over the next 12 months or something ridiculous like that. I'm sure they have agreed to repay the amount in manageable chunks over 5-10 years for example.
If we can make it through this year and get back to full funding then we should - within reason - be ok.
This is why I'm a little surprised at them wanting to be spending the full cap etc.
This paints two possible scenarios imo, we either have the funds in place to be able to do this, or Ryan and Mark are taking a bit of a gamble on their projections.

TBH I have doubts about whether Omar ever actually put the 900k in to the club. It was always carefully worded that 900k was AVAILABLE to club. If it was actually put in then yesterday's t&a story about Omar getting his million back would have been more like 1.8 million.

It was put in defiantly.

Given the club have said they're going to pay Omar back £1 million, it's pretty safe to say he put in £900k

In comparison to the Caisley and the Hood era yes it is that reduced. and Carvell and Ferguson are better value for money as a specialist prop and an experienced 2nd row, just what the team needs. If we end up with a more balanced slightly larger squad thats not much more expensive, thats a step in the right direction.