www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/21211330 AND attendances at an all time high in 2012 ? I don't think that's correct.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/21211330 AND attendances at an all time high in 2012 ? I don't think that's correct.

"Rugby League's health compares favourably to every other major sport," RFL director of standards and licensing Blake Solly said.

Translation, we are deeply in the but not as far in as other sports.

Apart from the 1950's attendances have never been higher at the top level.
I have to agree with Gary hetherington the financial plight is down to bad money management at the clubs.

This is the same old stupid argument blaming licensing.

Somebody come on here and tell me how top flight rugby league would survive without sky money getting rid of licensing may slightly increase attendances in the championship.

Off course as a Leigh fan I would love to see automatic promotion/ relegation but it won't solve finances.

If the debt of each club in SL collectively is £3million how do they reach the figure of sixty odd million? Also how can a league that is in so much bebt be " stable due to liciencing" ?

Think he removed the two clubs with huge debts and then came to an average debt of about £3m each, for the remaining ones.

"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics"

I always worry when people use 'attendances' as a barometer of success.
Don't get me wrong us fans use it all the time to decide if its a good gate or not, however if Leigh got three 8,000 gates by letting people in for nothing that doesn't mean the clubs or games in good health as 'attendances are up', its only good if the club had a plan / sponsor to recoup that lost finance.
As Bradford proved even some of the worlds biggest RL clubs can't do basic maths.

Now I wouldn't expect the RFL to be truthful about all this in public (those days finished years ago, its a a very secretive organisation at the top level) but I would hope that behind close doors that they and the SL clubs in such dire straits are not stupid enough to think that last season adding a well supported club to the competiton and the moving of one of the most successful SL clubs into a new ground back in its home town didn't have a influence in that 'jump in crowd' figures that they champion.

As for Franchising , I'm not sure the RFL really believe this is worth the paper its written on nowadays, a succession of clubs going bust / hitting major financial embaressment in all divisions shows that franchising is exceptionally inept / weak and clearly the team involved in this process didn't 'ask' the right questions or had no remit to ask the right questions - eitherway its powderpuff in weight although in all probability it helped the RFL put clubs in SL that it wanted in, in effect it was a 'answerless' process - and still is.

RL is a brilliant game - SKY are no mugs and will have seen the massive potential in it, however we have suffered for too long as we continue to undersell, understate and to a certain degree over protect our game.
Some of the comments on other forums about tonights programme pre-airing shows why the RFL have it easy, its like a siege mentality of 'how dare they attack our sport', yet in other sports when such things happen most people take the positives and learn from the mistakes highlighted - they want the things done wrong correcting.

Will that happen in RL ?
Lets hope so, far too many club owners and game administrators are doing us all a huge diservice, Far too many sat in the corner marked 'I'm alright Jack' rather than in the 'lets take this game forward'.

Again.... Return to semi pro RL. Anything else and the game is screwed. Mind you, that debt is a damn sight better than football is doing, isn't it? This is almost a year old, but does anyone really thing the situation has got better? www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012 ... rofit-debt If soccer can't make a profit, no one can.

Again.... Return to semi pro RL. Anything else and the game is screwed. Mind you, that debt is a damn sight better than football is doing, isn't it? This is almost a year old, but does anyone really thing the situation has got better? www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012 ... rofit-debt If soccer can't make a profit, no one can.

So two clubs in SL are nearly £9million each in debt.

End of the day it sounds like 3 clubs can call themselves super and 11 can't

Depends how you define 'Super'. If debt is the measure, then most of them qualify for that title!

I can't get my head round whats going on in that league.
If those clubs which have built up all this debt had done so,setting foundations for the future, i wouldn't have a problem,but thats not the case.Not one of these clubs could survive if these debts are ever called in.
The last 4 or 5 seasons have (financially) been disasterous for this sport.
I wouldn't trust anyone who runs a RL club with my piggy bank.

On the BBC sport news site, it said the three clubs not included are Catalans who were registered in France and 2 charitable trusts? No mention of these on the program, I thought the program was poor, big build up and then basically 1 statement 11 clubs in rugby league millions in debt. Would like to know who the charitable trusts are.

I would suggest that the program was seriously edited and filled in with another item. Which says that there was something in the original that some people objected to. Was a let down of well built up program for me.