Quote: Trainman "I’m no expert on business and the structure of organisations and companies but it seems to me that the businessmen want to get greater control to maximise the revenue streams for SL which in turn would increase the revenue streams for the rest of the sport.
I struggle to see how this is a bad thing.'"
There are very few businessmen whose competencies can be spread across massively different industries. An oil trader (taking a non-random example) owning a rugby league club might meet the definition of "successful businessman" but does he know about the business of getting fans through the gates? No.
This is demonstrated in the performance of clubs whose "businessmen" owners have injected themselves into the running of the clubs - Wigan most notably.
The best people to run RL clubs are professional RL or sports administrators, and they don't grow on trees. The most succesful model is the investor sitting behind and letting the administrator come in and run the business (e.g. Leeds) or the investor actually being a sports administrator (e.g. Hull). But some investors just can't help but think they know best and I'm struggling to think of an SL example where it has worked out particularly well in terms of revenue or attendance growth. And then they displace the blame onto the RFL because...