If a Championship club like Fax or Fev was swapped for London, would the debt go up or down?
Is it a good idea on a financial basis?
I want London in SL and would rather see some concessions made regarding Sky money to help them. But I dont want them in or anybody in SL at any cost. And its not a question of how much money SL in total has or hasn't it how that money is used by clubs.
Sadly virtually all clubs over the years have wasted it instead of using it wisely. The term "live for now for tomorrow we die" is one that could easily be the games motto. Very little has been invested in the future despite the hundreds of millions maybe billions that SL clubs have collectively received over the years
The core expense in Superleague is a £1.65M wage bill. True you don't have to pay that, but if you don't the chances are you'll lose matches, and crowds (that may already be insufficient to fund a competitive break even club) may drop.
Clubs whose crowd income doesn't meet expenditure include Cas, HKR, Widnes, Salford, London, Huddersfield.
Clubs may break even or make a profit in the Championship but that's with a primary cost of a £300K wage bill. What people often make the mistake of believing is that when you are promoted you get £1,000,000 from SKY and bigger crowds so that from that you can fund full salary cap.
As you know SL clubs have to fund a full time business support team, and need to find the money for that. I can't really estimate the cost of that too well (Can you Griff) as i have seen little in the way of figures, but when SL clubs turn over £4-£6M and CC clubs only around £1M then it's clear operating full time has massive extra costs beyond the £1.2M you get from SKY extra.
Mr. Hudgell is good enough to tell us he was losing £500K a year on 8,000 crowds and has set a player budget this year of £1,100,000. To balance the books and stem the losses.
So on those figures, even if Halifax or Fev came back to Superleague on their best top crowds (4.700 Fev, 5,600 Halifax) they would not be able to compete without the prospect of running up a debt to a director.
But as I have said many times over recent months Sheffield, Leigh, Halifax, Fev, Cas, Wakey, London, Salford, HKR, Fartown etc are all much if a muchness.
What qualifies ANY of that lot to play with the big boys is access to a rich mans "directors loans" necessary to be able to compete.
Without Ken Davey what would the score have been Friday at Saints?? Indeed would Fartown have even been in SL.
And so I think this is what the mighty Griff will confirm, that Halifax may make a modest profit year on year but they may owe directors a lot of money from the past. You may be making the assumption they will write it off (as Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Clauge did for Mr. Koukash) and you may be right.
But adding Fev and Fax to Superleague is only going to add at least half a million a year losses for each of their clubs.
That isn't to say they should not be in, of course they should, especially if Mr, Nahaboo and Mr. Abbot offer personal investment beyond what the likes of Cas and HKR can manage.
Finally and sadly I disagree with your statement "clubs over the years have wasted the hundreds of millions SL clubs have collectively received" and that they have not "used it wisely"
I'm sorry but I am adamant IMHO that when the SKY subsidy doesn't pay the player wage bill in full and you have significant marketing and junior development to set up and a large staff to run it, the SKY money is insufficient to leave anything over for "Investment".
Let's be fair. Mr. Hudgell is putting a lot of money into facilities to expand crowds and has put a lot into the wage bill to be competetive to attract fans and despite the SKY money he's still losing money such that he has to slash team spending.
SKY never gave us enough money to invest, they didn't give the game enough money to properly run professionally.
