At a fans forum tonight Robbie Paul announced all the Bulls 1st team squad are free to find other clubs

We're they ever out of it?

So what size is SL next season?

I don't think I'd swap any of our squad for any of theirs. Good luck to them.

Rumour has it they were gonna prop Laandan up again.....for the sake of the Magic weekend!! Maybe if Northern are up the creek again, they might decide to go to 12 a season earlier than anticipated!!

London must be propped up, indeed London should be centrally assisted when the new owner comes in.

This latest event shows why we need some form of p&r, Bradford fans raised £500k recently which they got shafted on. Surely a fans owned Bradford newco building from a lower division would quickly be back in SL and with a momentum that contained no baggage.

Agreed.

However the rest of the SL 'family' seem (on the evidence of last time) to want to keep Bradford in SL - presumably on the basis of their away support. And, as we all know the RFL only has one vote, just the same as each of the SL clubs, in SL Europe.

This time round, it's going to become more interesting as there are two of the SL' family' in deep trouble. I wonder if the SL 'family' will treat both the same?

More than 2 Alan, 2 have come clean

We will see how much our town wants a successful club this coming season, because lets be clear any club in any division needs paying bums on seats to pay wages over the long term

Agreed again!

Bradford did get the 'bums on seats', although ironically, that was possibly one of their problems - as they were virtually giving 10k season tickets away. London have not managed to get 'bums on seats' for many a year, and need to come up with an answer to that.

Hopefully, all professional RL clubs, including ours, will be able to latch on to the feelgood created by the World Cup.

What the World Cup showed is how to market the game effectively. I think Leigh would do well to copy Wigan's 'big one' campaign. Pick one, maybe two games next year (Fev and Batley maybe) and really go to town with not just the marketing but the whole match day experience.

Think Maurice may be agreeing with you there, G.O.

At what point are they going to accept that the fully professional game cannot survive? Return to semi pro and the problem will be an awful lot cheaper.

As a sport, we need to stop reaching beyond our grasp. Look how many football teams are in financial trouble, and compare their crowds to ours.

To return to semi pro would effectively kill RL as a sport of any consequence, any promising juniors would end up in union, we would drop further behind the Aussies and Kiwi's

TV finance underpins all major sports, none of them could operate without it at anywhere near the level they do, untimatley SL needs to have a national presence and more competition within its teams

I'd suggest at Championship level it is the opposite, Television will never be the primary income stream and a more local focus must be the aim , that requires marketing

It's not being full time that's damaging these clubs it's the mismanagement and lack of strong financial governance in my opinion. Wasn't salary cap and franchise system supposed to stop exactly what's happened happening???

For some reason when it comes to RL and indeed sports clubs generally it seems Directors and CEOs lose all recollection of core principles that got them were they are in business and fall into the trap of going away from common sense and chasing the perceived quick route to the top, hence the need for a strong finance director like we now have at Leigh Centurions and long term planning.

Simple economics, is it really that difficult?

If you spend more money than you earn in your home life at home you lose your house.

If you spend more cash than you bring in running any business you fail and lose your buinsness.

It's pretty simple really set your budget realistically and as near to worst case scenario as possible and only spend what you can afford within that budget, don't spend it if you can't generate it and a strong FD will make sure anyone who wants to spend it does it with their own cash then and won't allow them to do it in the form of an I owe your or Directors Loan, it must be done as a donation or sponsorship so not to come back and bite the club.

Set it up like a business, run it like a business and a full time self sustainable club can be ran in SL without a white knight or additional Director funding if budgeted, managed and marketed correctly not a problem it's a fact.