Fairness to Hull KR!!!?? This is Smoky TA you are talking about, he has a deep hatred of Hull KR.



Ian Kirk played in Rovers academy team

So it's actually £50k x 13 then which equals £650,000 benefit to SL by Hull KR being in over a team that does not bring so many away fans. That seems worth having, how many clubs would spend £650,000 per year on youth development?



50K would be 1% of turnover if a club's turnover was £5m, the % button on your calculator doesn't work right.



So what you are saying is that by including Hull KR in SL a club with a £5m turnover can get a free 1% increase in turnover simply by Hull KR being included. Wow, how many chief exec's would turn that offer down?



And, the only costs associated with that are variable, so almost all of it is profit! Even better!



You make a very good argument for Hull KR's inclusion to SL and subsequent contribution to SL finances Smokey. Well done!



Imagine how much worse off other clubs would have been if Hull KR had taken an alternative route and not gained entry to SL or had been relegated in their first year! It's a good job they weren't isn't it?

I love the way words like Junior Development are thrown around in the UK.



Super League clubs have never been able to develop talent. EVER! The players they buy from juniors clubs around the UK don't kick on and get any better.



Thats why England is a joke at Test level.

As a HKR fan I am very happy with decisions the club have taken to this point. As the point in any business is making the customer satisfied then they are being succesful. Fortunately altruism isn't a criteria for sports business so I hope we keep doing what we need to do to be the best club we can be for the customers that matter, the HKR fans.

if excessive financial constraints stop them doing enough at youth level then those same excessive financial constraints would see them failing at Sl level





for now





they arent, they are good, and massive massive improvement on what has gone before, but they arent perfect













no different to most clubs, very few will go from 10 - 5 in the next 2 years, because few have 10 now, and if going from 10 - 5 in the next 2 years isnt a problem, why lobby to change the rules because it was sooooo difficult to go from 10-8 this year?









rules they lobbied to change because they apparantly struggled so much to get the required number of british players in,



is there such thing as a proffessional fan?





we can in three years, and who is much weaker right now? the only criteria HKR are better than the clubs who around them is they have slightly higher attendances, not massively higher but a bit, the rest isnt particularly impressive











unfortunately the RFL have to work within the laws of the land, and this area requires some voluntary contribution to the game, some clubs wont ever do that



but i think if we made the changes i proposed clubs who didnt invest in youth would simply be left with a team







well the clear answer to that is to drop some clubs and cut down the size of the league. in your opinion it is clear some clubs arent big enough for SL, though i dont know which clubs you think this of, i think all in SL have put out a competitive team, i think there is a clear gap between top and bottom but the bottom is pretty close and the top 2 or 3 are pretty close too, i dont have a problem with the relative quality of the teams in this league











but we can ignore the idiots, because by definition they are idiots and what they are grumbling about is wrong,



we could have half the fans grumbling because we allow tall players to play, we would still ignore them because they were being idiots, however many idiots there are











so in other words, you were always just guessing about Leigh and Widnes' application being better, you were just guessing the process was bent, but it was still bent because you need it to be to fit your paranoid notions?



how do you know the RFL wont weight youth development very highly on the next round of franchises? when even if we take your paranoid premise, they will want to keep celtic in, and celtic are likely to be in and around the bottom, so they would likely weight the performance aspect pretty low, they arent going to get 10k in every week, so the attendance aspect wont be important,



what are celtic going to do? introduce a fair few young welshmen who havent played before, bang youth development would need to have a pretty high weighting to make a difference wont it?



the clubs that havent done, well they are going to lose a stack of brownie points arent they

and that is relevant because?

none, but then no club has Hull KR visit their stadium 13 times a year either so.............







plenty when they can get a free increase of £300k profit for having a better make up of the league, or the league can bring in an extra £4.2million a year, profit, guaranteed, and actually real instead of in the heads of HKR fans (considering they dont get close to bringing in 2k away fans to every game, never mind 2k more than clubs would otherwise get)







when did this happen, is this a credit crunch thing? do we no longer have to pay variable costs? do i no longer have to pay my water, electricity, gas, or fuel costs because they are variable? awesome, have you like an official link or something because this definately sounds too good to be true



clubs no longer having match day costs, that should make a huge difference to the profitiability of our clubs, we could put them anyway and almost guarantee profit,







if there is any club in SL who would have gone bust or suffered financial difficulties because they didnt get the 2 or 3 thousand pounds profit on matchday revenue Hull KR bring, they shouldnt be in SL, we want stable clubs

So what you are saying is that as an aggregated figure the benefit to SL by having Hull KR in is more than equivalent to the best funded junior set up. Wow, you do make me feel good about my clubs inclusion.







But we got the extra £300k with Hull KR in, so it's not a case of one or the other, it's a case of do you want £300K or £350K? Who would turn down an extra £50K for free?







No, the variable costs associated with your original premise are the costs of the paper which the tickets are printed on plus maybe the cost of a burger a tea bag and perhaps some golden gamle draw tickets. I would think that perhaps maybe £2 or £3 of the £25 spend is variable cost.



I am using your figures, just because they don't actually support your argument is not my fault.

















I didn't say a club would not have gone bust if it hadn't received the extra £50k you suggest by including Hull KR. But what it does do is give every other club in SL effectively £50K free, which it can then spend on things like, oh, I don't know...maybe academy sides? or youth set ups? what about talent scouting or even youth facilities?

:1dn97hjh



no its not, but if we are just making things up Hull KRs inclusion in the league costs the league £1.4million



:1dn97hjh



but that again isnt what i said, as desperate as you for it to be, read back to the original post you quoted, and read what you quoted



:1dn97hjh



and also the stewards, the turnstyle operators, the police, the people who sell the programmes, the beer, the coffees, the hot dogs, in fact anything extra in monetary terms HKR bring, there will be a another directly attributed cost, to having those fans in,



and you seem strangely happy to ignore the difference between turnover and profit, and the fact the £50 turnover HKR (dont but we are pretending they do) bring in probably equates to about £2-3k profit at most,





:1dn97hjh



really? i dont remember attributing a cost to a cup of tea? i think you did that!

If a club only makes £2/3000 from having an extra 2000 fans and £50K revenue, your figures) when there are only minimal variable costs associated, when you take into account the fixed costst attributable to the other supporters it's not worth opening the gates!



Using your assumptions every game will result in a massive loss. You haven't really thought this through have you?

It wasn't a fact at the outset of Superleague. It wasn't a fact when the majority of this crop of juniors were signed up and introduced to the 1st team.



The fact is we chose to do this from the outset of Sl whilst others didn't. We chose to do it at a time when we were in dire financial straights. Others didn't.



That we went down this route has led to us being in the healthy position we're in now.



Its' very disingenuous of clubs who have paid scant regard to their junior development to excuse themselves because they're not as big or rich as us. We weren't at the relevant time.



All of this, btw, ignores the great work of that other recently successful club in relation to Junior development, St Helens. They're not Leeds, don't have our financial clout and aren't a massive city.



How were they able to do such sterling work in this area and reap the rewards then?

Fuggin' heck, stuff moved on in this thread since I took a breather.



Here's a question for Gareth - where did the 350k for Iestyn come from in 1997? GH and Caddick can't have turned things around that quickly, can they? Could that signing have been made without Caddick's financial backing?



The Leeds model is a good one and deserves praise. But I still think it's unrealistic to expect a Super League of Leedses (sp?) right here and now. You junk HKR for poor player development, who do you bring in instead? What guarantees do you have that they will perform any better.



Incidentally, no one's mentioned the one club that really did decide to economise and give the youngsters a chance to shine - [url=http://www.slstats.org/t3/Halifax%20R.L.F.C./2003/Summary.htmlHalifax c. 2003, P28, W1 D0 L27[/url

Good question. Not sure tbh. I do recall Caddick saying in press cuttings about poor crowds that he was getting tired of propping up the Tykes and that he'd not had to do so with the Rhinos.



I also recall MJM used to download the Leeds accounts annually and there was nothing in those about loans from Caddick.



Anyway, what about St Helens? Explain away Leeds if you will but they're not from a big city, not that vibrant financially and don't have a rich backer.

Aah, the good old days, that gave us a strong foothold in the national leagues. Quite like it that we win a lot now rather than getting battered all the time.

Eamonn McManus is a wealthy man.

I'm not looking to explain away things, I'm not denying clubs' agency in the matter, I'm just trying to provide a bit of context.



If Leeds had put in Hull KR's effort, I don't think they would have achieved as they have in reality. But at the same time if Hull KR had put in Leeds' effort, I doubt they would have achieved to the extent Leeds have.

fixed costs are still attributed to fans

however many fans come through the gates,



thats where economies of scale come in,



your point probably works if we for some reason decide only variable costs are applied to match day revenue, which is frankly pretty pointless



your logic seems to suggest that fixed costs arent applied to the 2k extra fans hull kr (dont) bring, but thats as true for the 1st fan as it is the last coming through the gates unsurprisingly, you're being silly

if they had put the effort leeds have, then their acheivements, regardless of whether or not matched leeds, would be very very good

Champions of junior development? Champions of dummy spitting more like! I hope the next generation of Saints 'stars' don't develop the 'Wellens dummy spit'. If the refs don't stamp it out now we'll end up like football, aren't you supposed to be sent to the bin for throwing a tantrum at the ref?

Would you like that applied to Warrington too, who received a warning from the ref last night for whinging about loads of decisions?





And back on topic, Armstrong doesn't look bad.

Perfectly reasonable summation.

Ah so the concept of marginal costs is foreign to you. That explains a lot. Thank you.

Can I just say, anyone that thinks Hull KR won't be chucked out of SL because they bring a lot of away fans is an idiot.



Hull KR aren't exactly a big draw. They don't get fans thinking "ooh, Hull KR, this is a must watch game". They may bring a lot over, but I reckon a fair few of the floating home fans won't give a cr*p about a game against Hull KR and will probably stay home.



I aren't saying it isn't good that Hull KR bring a lot of fans away with them, by the way. I'm just saying it is not really significant at all, especially in the franchise decisions. And especially when you look at things like sponsorship, media coverage, etc. of the league. Away fans at one game is pocket-change to clubs that can turn-over millions.

But will they be chucked out of SL because they are not the best development club in the world either ?



That is the question in point here