Quote post="post"Spot on Matty, this is exactly what it boils down to. The complete lack of star quality, plus the only ones with a touch of it are desperate to get out of the door to go to the NRL.
What the club need to do is take a punt on is a genuine world class player, I wonder how Saints attendance went up when they signed Ben Barba?
Let’s say a genuine world class player is on 1 million (aus dollars) or £550,000, let’s say they’d be replacing someone on £100,000 so there’s a £450,000 shortfall. (Sam Burgess, Cooper Cronk, Shaun Johnson, Jason Taumilolo and Roger Tuavasa-Sheck in around this amount, this is what type of player I’m talking)
Over 15 games, if the club were £10 up from every ticket sold they’d need an extra 3,000 fans each home game to cover the cost of that player. If it’s £7.50 profit from each ticket, then it would be 4000 extra fans needed.
I’d say it was achievable.'"
If I remember correctly shirt sales with Barba's name on the back went through the roof last year, add to that other types of merchandise then it probably paid a good chunk of his wage.
