Interesting, thanks. Wouldn't disagree with him on that, if we have got a deal where all the club is paying is 10% of gate receipts plus food and drink takings then that is pretty good for a stadium as good as the DW.

It still would be great to understand the breakdown of revenue, the accounts are abbreviated small company accounts so you can't see much detail.

It may be that the next set of accounts will have much better turnover figures and will show a healthy profit, I guess we should remember that IL won't have had much time to turn things around in the 09 financial year.

Freak talking sense!!!!

rlhttps://www.leaguefreak.com/news.phprl

Well am I being naive or can we work out our gate receipts.

The cost of renting the DW stadium - which is based on 10% of gate receipts according to Ian Lenagan - was £189,932 as of 2009. If that figure is based on 10% of our matchday receipts then our total money from gate receipts is £1,899,320 as of 2009. With our total turnover being £4,586,325, that would mean that £2,687,005 was made up of broadcast revenue, sponsorship and merchandise sales. Incidentally, it cost Wigan Athletic £496,230 in stadium costs in the same year it cost us £189,932 in renting costs.

I'm a complete novice when it comes to interpreting accounts so I could be wrong, but if all the above is correct I think we have an excellent deal.

I read that as well, first time I've ever agreed with him on anything I think. Usually he cant wait to slate SL and I thought he would have used this news as new ammunition to do just that!

Not necessarily if latics are getting all the corporate revenues as well, the running costs of these could explain the difference- In addition do latics pay for the running of the drinks and confectionary facilities? While this may seam like a burden initially, if this is an area that sources latics additional profit to us then it suddenly looks a lot more preferable. In addition, dont forget we only play 13/14 games per year whereas latics will play 20-25 games at home per season - thus their costs are bound to be more than ours.

Re. league freak - hes spot on the money - The RFL need to act and do something about this- My suggestion would be essentially go cap in hand to the NRL and explain that we need them to help us increase exposure over here for the good of the game particulary internationally- We're already miles behind them, but what use if we get even worse and everytime we play them they start smashing us like a developing RL nation like france / tonga etc. Thats going to kill the credibility of the game.

We need to be getting them over here for an expanded WCC for a start - get it played here every year initially to help us with the disparity in the TV deals, so we have another product. I would then sell this to ESPN rather than sky, keeping SL on Sky initially, but at least we'd then we'd build up some barganing power for both of the competitions when renewal came up.

We should also arrange a one State of Origin game to be played at wembley IMO (every year if possibe) and follow the example of the NFL- If they can fill wembley for a real minority sport in the UK surely we can for SOO. That would also give us some opportunity to increase our presence in London and also look to increase investment in the game and develop our London side (who as an aside need to desperately ditch harlequins and get their own identity).

Will the RFL do this though - No, they'll all play ostritches, pretend everything is ok and the game will be on its @r5e here in 5 years! I really hate the administrators of our great game!

I agree with your maths obviously but would be surprised if our gate receipts were quite that low, even taking into account child/family ticket prices and that we have 10,000 season ticket holders. £1.9m works out at £9.05 a ticket on average if you assume 14 games and 15,000 average attendance. Anyone have any inside info?

Remember its an average. For example my season ticket for 14 games is 120 because im a student and my brother's is 26 because hes under 16 so its probably right because of those reasons. we have alot of elderly fans too and their tickets will also be 120.

Getting back to the salary cap, how does raising the salary cap raise the profile of Rugby League. Lets be honest it means a larger share of clubs revenue goes into the players back pockets rather than be spent inproving facilities, bring on young talent etc. Surely salary cap rises devalue long term club interests.

IL made a lot of sense last night, and for the first time it really struck home with me that, like it or not, we can't just increase the salary cap willy nilly until such time as we've attracted more money into the game, possibly through a new, better TV deal.

Sadly, I'm not holding my breath on that.

However, it was quite encouraging to hear about the new modifications that have already been and are still being made to the cap - the Sean O'Loughlin 'club-trained player' development was excellent news.

I also like the sound of the new Rugby Union recruitment scheme. I still can't help wondering if some kind of cap leeway could be introduced on players setting up their own sponsorship deals, etc, as that wouldn't be money lost to the game, but it sounds as if more moves are under consideration, so there's plenty of scope for optimism.

I also noted that he said the proposed Aussie deal was still only a rumour. Looking on a few websites, it doesn't sound as if everyone down under is convinced the deal will be quite as generous as that very enthusiastic newspaper article suggested.

Good point, but without knowing how many discounted and concessionary tickets there are it's difficult to say. Bear in mind too that 5,000 tickets are bought on average by non-season ticket holders, which will push up the average price of a seat considerably.

It's very good but it does in effect increase the cap (because he's off it) by the amount of his wages. So if he was on £160K our salary spend could be £1.76m instead of £1.6m, an effective 10% increase in one go. Good news on the one hand but if IL thinks we can't afford an increase anyway, isn't it a bit of a moot point?



I don't understand the RU recruitment scheme. Aren't we always slagging them off for not producing their own players and looking at our young stars? Aren't we supposed to produce enough players anyway and the problem is perceived to be being able to keep what we produce in the face of high wages in RU (and now the NRL), not that we need recruit RU players? What's the point in dispensations for unknown young RU players if we can't keep a Mossop or a Farrell?

I agree about sponsorship and marketing deals for players. I have been saying this should happen for some time. The fact any such deal would currently count in the cap is mad. Not only does it preclude players from earning money this way it also means they are not gaining any publicity for the game by being the face of some product or other on TV or in the press. Can you imagine what kind of advertising could have been made when Andy Farrell was playing and he played on with his broken knose all badaged up? What an image for the marketeers that would have been. Sadly I don't think we have any players with a high enough profile these days to get anyone interesed.

The salary cap increase will mean a flood of players world wide will be interested in the NRL. Firstly it is likely that any talent that has left the NRL like the huge names of Sonny Bill Williams, Isreal Folau and a few top players who have come to super league like Hoffman and O'Donnell...... do you not think signing players like that will see ticket sales go up? The NRL will go huge in 2013 due to the higher quality of product due to better players playing...... they will also sign up the best English talent (they have to get players from somewhere).... finally rugby players in both codes will be interested in that kind of money, maybe a player like Dan Carter (who I believe would be a class league player) would consider a move, these kind of singings would create huge media interest and therefore more 'free' advertising. It's all about creating publicity and thats exactly what this will do.

This deal will leave RU and football way behind in aus and NZ and RL will go flying up to hopefully compete with AFL.

You talk about revenue etc. and where the money will go.... this deal will increase revenue, more people will want to play the game because of the quality of the product, more young players will be produced. It will mean every club can spend to the full cap. Wait to the end of this deal and I bet it will fly up again.

SOO is the biggest yearly sporting event in aus and they have built on this success and they now have megga stars playing the game, this as well will continue to grow.

Although there are negatives for super league, this is a huge deal for RL down under.

I for one would be very happy to see the NRL start cherry-picking from the ranks of the Wallabies and the All Blacks.

That would be at least one good thing to come from all this.

There is far too much rugby talent wasted on southern hemisphere RU.

It would be one of the best things for the sport down there IMO.

It would be the same over here. Imagine if super league clubs signed Ashton, Wilkinson, Flood, Henson, O'Driscoll and maybe some French players as well. It would have a huge impact.

I am sure there is a select few who play for the All-blacks and the wallabies who could do well in the NRL, like I said Dan Carter is one.

Most important signing for me though is SBW, he needs to return!

True true. Turns out we have recorded a profit last year and on for one this year too though so all is seemingly well now anyway