nadera78

I agree with you 100% but, just to put things into context, a couple of days ago the WRL issued an update where they said their total external funding last year was circa £45,000 and only £7,000 of that was allowed to go on performance. Sending the women's team to the RLWC qualifiers cost £12,000. Everything below the senior men's and women's teams is self-funded by the players. https://wrl.wales/richard-hibbards-first-year-reflections It's a difficult environment for them - playing more games would help get more (perhaps bigger) sponsors, but would that be enough to fund the games? IDK. It's tough. Whatever money they get from the IRL under this scheme will obviously be a huge help.

Where does it say Australia will get to play a home series? Unless you mean the 2026 RLWC then I don't see it in that calendar.

Another international calendar?

You've got to admire and respect Ken Davy for his financial backing of the club, but the concern (from the outside admittedly) has always been that the club doesn't really seem to do much to grow it's attendances. Lots of cheap tickets, sure, but that always felt like the limit of their approach. They needed to do more than that and moving to Halifax will only exacerbate that.

I think I'm right in saying that, if an investor was to put up the £800K (or whatever the actual amount) needed to cover the shortfall this year then that would also go towards improving their IMG rating. Investment = points, right?

Don't forget the time the London Junior RL negotiated a sponsorship deal with Selco, only for the Broncos to get wind of it and undercut them. A particular high point of Hughes' time in charge.

Has that been written by AI? Feels like someone who has never used it before entered some nonsense about organising rugby events, generating income, and doing it in an upbeat tone, etc, and that website is the outcome. Bizarre!

This is 10 years too late. There too few people left around who care. Of course, Hughes wanted nothing to do with the LBSA and the club did everything it could to undermine it, probably the only success of his reign.

OK, let's run with this. What would you be investing in? The Broncos have no fans, no players, no academy, no staff, no sponsorship base and no assets. It's going to cost you a couple of million p/a just to put a team on the field. Every year. Can you build a fanbase? Maybe, but in a city where only one sport matters and everything else is so small as to be invisible outside of long-established major events, and playing a sport that very few people know exists (and even then often confuse with another, rival, sport), that's going to be very difficult. To make matters worse, the events of the past decade make that even harder because an existing group of fans have been driven away meaning you don't have anyone to call upon to help get things going. Can you find the players? Well, all the best local ones have moved to other clubs, leaving you with the leftovers. You're going to have to pay over the odds to attract players from the north or overseas. That's a constant drain on a limited salary cap. Can you rebuild the academy? Yes, but it'll take time. And the wider decline of the sport in London means the community game is also in a weaker position so your source of young players is smaller. That's a very long term project. Can you build the off-field staff? Of course, but it's more money you need to find. Can you build a sponsorship base? Sure, but it'll be difficult when you're playing Championship games in an empty stadium that creates no real atmosphere or buzz. And, again, it'll cost you in the short term. Can you build an asset base? No. There's just no land left in London that you could realistically buy and build a stadium or training ground on. 20 years ago, definitely, 10 years ago possibly. Now, no. That means you'll always be renting and at risk of relocation if/when relationships change or fail, just look at the Broncos history on that score. TLDR; you'd be taking over an empty shell of a club with a damaged brand. Professional rugby league in London is dead.

And, yet, some people still don't see this.

Wow. As a sport, we get what we deserve.

1. That reads like they're placing all the blame on IMG and not the decade spent driving people away. 2. There's an awful lot of hope in those answers and very little action.

Are these games being shown anywhere?

Yeah, it's good to see both Ireland and Scotland have taken to heart the lesson of their demotion by the IRL and removal from the RLWC qualifiers.

1. This isn't true. Take it from a born and bred Londoner who supported the Broncos for 25+ years. 2. Even if it was true - again, it isn't - it would absolutely the last thing on the list of problems the club faced.