and another......

If they have rich backers prepared to keep pumping money in, Ken Davy being perhaps the best example, then those clubs will still be here. If.

The 2009 numbers will be far more enlightening, given that it was a far more challenging year financially for the game. My guess is that we'd see some big loss reductions at some clubs, such as Hudds and Wire, and worsening situations at some others such as Wakey. It can't have been the best of years for Bradford either, as our [iannus horribilis [/ion the pitch cannot have helped the bottom line.

As for the salary cap being too high, when you get a club like (for example only) Hudds losing over £1.3m (the group position is a bit better) then you'd have to reduce the salary cap to a fraction of what it is now to sort that out.

Think you will find all SL clubs have incomes well over £2.5m anyway. The licence criterion is actually, and sensibly, solvency not income or profit, and many SL clubs (if not necessarily their parent groups) are technically insolvent and rely on the continuing financial support of their owners. Maybe if the criterion for those clubs was that the owners had to lodge a bond with the RFL equal to three year's losses we'd see some changes, dunno. (And in case anyone thinks I was picking on Hudds - I wasn't - I would expect Ken Davy would be first in the queue with his bond).

Once you cut through the babble in the OP's initiating post, the underlying point - not enough money in the game, by a long way - is a fair one and one that should worry a lot of people.

Goodbye game

If we only had 10 spots I'd probably go:

Leeds
Hull
Warrington
Wigan
Bradford
St Helens
Hull KR
Huddersfield
Catalans
Harlequins

Hope it never gets that low though, and if it does I suspect Harlequins would be less likely to be there than say Castleford

If we are ignoring the one-off income of the sale of assets, then we should also ignore the one off investment in the southstand, which mean Leeds would again be making a Profit, GH and Co also grew the business by nigh on a million pounds last year

Hull FC and Bradford had fine financial results, Wigan isnt too bad but has needed restructuring a fair bit which will cost,

Wire and Hudds have clearly got the backing and now, infrastructure, if they stay patient, growth will follow

what we are seeing isnt 'the game' in bad shape, its the traditionally smaller clubs left behind as the game grows as we always knew they would,

Saints have the potential to catch up, but it is entirely dependant on a new stadium, Salford also clearly need a new stadium which should give them the impetus and opportunity for rapid growth,

Hull KR are in a strange position as they have racked up pretty big debts to promote very rapid growth, however the place they need to be to sustainable and make some dent in those debts is further on to where they are now in terms of support and facilities, they also would be hoping the support follows after better facilities but have already admitted they cant really get from where they are to where they need to be without help,

Wakefield and Castlefords two biggest problems are their stadia and each other. Castleford have never made that break through into that top tier were they regularly look like challenging, they have a hardcore of support which is fairly good, but dont have the a huge amount of growth potential and have never looked like a club which will grow massively from where it is now. Wakefield have lurched from crisis to crisis throughout their SL life. IMO they have more potential than Cas and have the potential to unite the district and finally give it the team it can be proud of and the team the young players in the district deserve. However they have yet to execute anything of note in SL, the squad is packed with Aussies, and they seem pretty insecure financially, both are also desperate for their new stadia

( i have left out the expansion clubs in an attempt to keep the topic at least a little on track)

what i am trying to say is the game doesnt look that unhealthy, out of those clubs, more than half (6) look to be in a fine position, one would almost certainly be if they can sort out their stadium, another has huge potential if it can get its stadia sorted and tap into the huge market on its doorstep

one club on anothers doorstep who have grown massively, have decent crowds but are struggling for investment to take them to the next level in the biggest economic meltdown for many a year

then we have Wakefield and Castleford who both seem to be at a crossroads where big questions need to be asked, and they need to be brave enough to ask them

all in all, it doesnt strike me as a game in trouble but a few clubs

Just out of interest , will the total rebuilding of the South stand bring in any more revenue than at present , it is a large terrace , are the plans to build a newer large terrace , or are they to make it a seating stand ?

Not having a pop , just interested how they are going to do it

Expect Smokey to be all over you like a rash to explain how stupid this idea is [ as he did when I suggested something similar if Paris were to be given a ' golden ticket ' to SL ]

Spot on , we just dont have the money to do anything , grow from the bottom up or from top down , maybe we should just try to build up what we already have

Am I the only one who would like us to walk away from Sky even without a deal.
We would soon see who was viable and which 'expansion' clubs wanted it.

I think you will find that turnover wise, Saints have been 2nd behind Leeds in recent years, and thats while playing in a decrepit stadium.

The way i see it, is that if Warington can increase their turnover from around £2.5 million to around about 5 million merely by moving to a new stadium.
Then Saints should be able to grow their business from around £5 million to £7 or £8 million in a new ground.

Going back to the original point about the RFL being wholly dependant on Sky, then i will point out that the RFL are no more dependant than any other major UK sport.

It appears that its in the nature of RL fans to continually downplay their sport, then complain when others dont take us serously.

I remember when the initial SL deal was announced, did we have fans rejoicing at the money coming into the game, No! all the talk was that this money would last 3-5 years then sky would pull the plug.
Amazingly enough 15 years later Sky are still broadcasting SL and are giving large sums of money to the RFL.

Can anyone see a time when Sky will want to show more games? I am surprised with all the new digital channels that a FTA provider hasn't made a bid for some games, or at the least bought the rights off Sky to show them later in the week.

Anyone who thinks that Sky care very much about RL is seriously deluded. Sky care about football, that is it, the rest is just filler. Which is why, in the absence of any serious broadcast competitor, they will always only pay the bare minimum that it takes to keep the game at a certain level of professionalism and provide them with relatively cheap prime time sport in the football off-season. You can have as many new teams as you like but Sky will only pay what they have to. There is no logical reason for them to do anything other than that.

Yes, I suspect you are.

Add £1.2m extra loss onto the reported results of each club, and some (sponsorship etc), and then tell me which clubs - or their backers - could stand that?

Correct, however, it would appear that we are the only sport that went fully proffessional on the back of the tv money. I could be wrong on this.

RU.