The recruitment and retention strategies of most Lancashire clubs are dependent on players not discovering the world outside their small town

This whole story is going to look very small if the NRL get their $1 billion TV deal...

Not really. It's a completely different marketplace.

$1bn (Ozzy dollars) is about £660m. The lastest deal for Super League was £90m.

And as has been said, totally different market place

I'd also question how the Aussie market can sustain that

Some shocking figures in that financial report. Sponsorship just over 3% of market turnover, I would have expected 10 times that. Also Sky and Government funding over 60% of market turnover a big fall if withdrawn. Net asset value of only just over 1 million some superleague are much better than that.

Why is sponsorship being one percentage figure any better than another percentage figure?

Generally its an indication on how good marketing is in the sport, this low percentage is abysmal. In global sponsoring terms we are living off scraps because the game has little stature and presence. If people watch league on Sky a lot then everything will appear fine and dandy.

No it isnt, it is an indication of how much sponsorship makes up the total revenue, thats all it is.
Premier league clubs sponsorship generally make up between 2% and 10% of total revenue.

The premier league's sponsorship agreement is £120m against TV rights of £3b, which totals a huge 4% (and as a true comparison with the RFL would be much lower as £120m is 4% of £3b tv rights, not the total turnover of the PL, which must be at the very very least £3.12b)

Is the premier league struggling with marketing?

Whilst that figure is a little disappointing I don't think it's as bad as it seems.
The FA's revenue from "sponsorship & licensing" is only 16% of its income, and their broadcasting and government income is 43% of revenue.

As for net asset value, the RFL doesn't own anything other than Red Hall, so it has few assets. Unless we build a national stadium, which is unnecessary and unlikely then it'll remain that the RFL has few assets.

They own a few places don't they?

Whitebank, Spotland, Cougar Park, Odsal...?

These will be 2011 figures so Odsal won't be on there yet, and IIRC Oldham Council bought Whitebank, Spotland is jointly owned by the clubs and Cougar Park is owned by the co-op. Though I'll happily admit I'm not 100% sure on them all and I haven't had my cake fix for today.

For some reason I can't view the link, but 3% sponsorship after a 4 Nations year is awful and shows why I and others have serious doubts regarding the abilities of the guys running the show to maximise our potential and achieve real value for our product.
They can suck up the freebies from the non producers but can't sell to the real world.

If it were 4% would it be awful?

3% is less than a million and compares poorly with the RFU's £16 million which represented 13% of income for them - don't you agree?