Quote ="ChiswickWire"Interesting but also in some respects shocking that a complete basic of running a professional organisation - having Non-Exec Directors is seen as something radical.
I thought this was a key quote:
“At too many, it’s the owner and his mate and the advice is not what he needs to hear but what he wants to hear. It’s getting club boards to evaluate their own performance, then take a step back and see how their performance comes out.”
This is certainly the case at London Broncos and looking from the outside what happened at Salford with Wilkinson and Tarry.
I'm torn as to whether the game has real issues or that a few clubs have been appallingly run. I'm staggered that Salford moved to Barton without giving themselves any further revenue generating avenues such as hospitality. Surely this should have been negotiatied - why leave the Willows for a worse deal?
Likewise Bradford thought 10k season tickets at £60 made good business sense.
Given the Sky TV money covers the playing bill - most clubs should be solvent when you add in sponsorship and the rest.'"
On one hand you could argue that Rugby League clubs have been poorly run ie. they are being run at levels that aren’t sustainable, but then I do genuinely believe that they are being run much more sensibly than Rugby Union and Football clubs. The major difference is that we have far fewer major investors prepared to pump money in covering these losses.
I was reading an article yesterday which stated that Saracens lose up to £5m per year – that is gross mis-management, yet they have a bloke prepared to pump the money in so it isn’t an issue.
I’m really pleased that our club is prepared to invest and be at the forefront of things within the game, but to try and do this in a sustainable manner.
On your Salford point – I mainly agree, it appears they were pretty incompetent in their negotiations, and even now are playing the victim card, stating that they had no choice as they would have been kicked out of SL had they stayed at the Willows.
On the Bulls point – it is a tough one, they tried something radical and it didn’t work. It would appear that they were hoping that having more people in the ground would assist with ancillary sales, merchandise, sponsorship etc. but this came at a time when sponsorship was drying up even more, and finances were becoming even tighter, suggesting that the plan just didn’t work. Also, it wasn’t quite as cheap as £60 for everyone.
The main problem is that the margins in RL are so tight that all it takes is a few rainy days affecting attendances by a few thousand over the season and business plans can be out by £100k or so. Add in a sponsor going bust, lower than forecast ancillary sales and suddenly you have lost £200k. We have seen clubs in real trouble with debts of just a few hundred thousand, it can easily happen.
