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New TV deal negotiations / Perilous finances (Merged threads)


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https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2020/10/29/open-letter-to-the-sports-minister-nigel-huddleston-mp/

An eye opening letter from Saints here. £1M in non matchday losses (and that's before busy Christmas and New Year period), redundancies and not including a loss of matchday income and zero season ticket sales for 2021 either now or in the foreseeable.

This will be a far from unique situation amongst rugby league clubs.

Unless fans unexpectedly return to stadiums in 2021, I'm reaching the point that I can't see how the see how the sport can survive in it's current form without a huge bailout.

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8 minutes ago, Chris22 said:

https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2020/10/29/open-letter-to-the-sports-minister-nigel-huddleston-mp/

An eye opening letter from Saints here. £1M in non matchday losses (and that's before busy Christmas and New Year period), redundancies and not including a loss of matchday income and zero season ticket sales for 2021 either now or in the foreseeable.

This will be a far from unique situation amongst rugby league clubs.

Unless fans unexpectedly return to stadiums in 2021, I'm reaching the point that I can't see how the see how the sport can survive in it's current form without a huge bailout.

Where the club owns its own ground there will obviously be a larger hole due to a different business model + clubs with poor facilities will also suffer more.

 

My prediction 

CLUBS WITH PROBLEMS

HULL KR

CASTLEFORD TIGERS 

WAKEFIELD 

 

Middle ground 

HUDDERSFIELD

SALFORD

HULL FC 

ST HELENS 

CLUBS NOT IN POOH

WIGAN 

CATALAN DRAGONS 

LEEDS RHINOS (Big hole but plenty of backing)

WARRINGTON (Same as Leeds)

 

Clubs waiting in the wings 

TOULOUSE

LONDON

LEIGH

FEV 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

Where the club owns its own ground there will obviously be a larger hole due to a different business model + clubs with poor facilities will also suffer more.

 

My prediction 

CLUBS WITH PROBLEMS

HULL KR

CASTLEFORD TIGERS 

WAKEFIELD 

 

Middle ground 

HUDDERSFIELD

SALFORD

HULL FC 

ST HELENS 

CLUBS NOT IN POOH

WIGAN 

CATALAN DRAGONS 

LEEDS RHINOS (Big hole but plenty of backing)

WARRINGTON (Same as Leeds)

 

Clubs waiting in the wings 

TOULOUSE

LONDON

LEIGH

FEV 

 

 

 

You have a probvlem without a backer, HKR, Wakefield and Salford must be in a right mess - Salford may get support from the council to bail them out again - not sure what Cas's situation is

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7 minutes ago, sweaty craiq said:

You have a probvlem without a backer, HKR, Wakefield and Salford must be in a right mess - Salford may get support from the council to bail them out again - not sure what Cas's situation is

I actually think Salford are OK as the debts are pretty much frozen both to the council and MK.

I was scratching my head earlier trying to work out how much extra revenue clubs will have to make up with a reduced SKY contract.

One thing is for certain SLE will have to be incorporated back into the RFL.

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18 minutes ago, sweaty craiq said:

You have a probvlem without a backer, HKR, Wakefield and Salford must be in a right mess - Salford may get support from the council to bail them out again - not sure what Cas's situation is

Cas don't really have a monetary backer (current owner inherited from his dad who was the big fan). They did announce that they were applying for a share of the £16m loan some time ago.

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54 minutes ago, Chris22 said:

https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2020/10/29/open-letter-to-the-sports-minister-nigel-huddleston-mp/

An eye opening letter from Saints here. £1M in non matchday losses (and that's before busy Christmas and New Year period), redundancies and not including a loss of matchday income and zero season ticket sales for 2021 either now or in the foreseeable.

This will be a far from unique situation amongst rugby league clubs.

Unless fans unexpectedly return to stadiums in 2021, I'm reaching the point that I can't see how the see how the sport can survive in it's current form without a huge bailout.

Haven’t they just announced a big NRL signing ?

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6 minutes ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

Cas don't really have a monetary backer (current owner inherited from his dad who was the big fan). They did announce that they were applying for a share of the £16m loan some time ago.

I dont live near Wigan any more, and I'm not thinking about the number of games.  But I hope I will be able to buy a season ticket even if i probably won't see any games.

Some way or another I hope many people will try to do something similar.  

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31 minutes ago, Davo5 said:

Haven’t they just announced a big NRL signing ?

Yes but the letter is primarily about the inequity between who can access funding and who can’t - i.e. they can’t for example for catering staff because it’s in house, but they could if it was outsourced (according to the letter). 
 

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1 hour ago, Chris22 said:

https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2020/10/29/open-letter-to-the-sports-minister-nigel-huddleston-mp/

An eye opening letter from Saints here. £1M in non matchday losses (and that's before busy Christmas and New Year period), redundancies and not including a loss of matchday income and zero season ticket sales for 2021 either now or in the foreseeable.

This will be a far from unique situation amongst rugby league clubs.

Unless fans unexpectedly return to stadiums in 2021, I'm reaching the point that I can't see how the see how the sport can survive in it's current form without a huge bailout.

There are some good points in there - which let's be honest can't always be said when the Saints hierarchy put pen to paper.

One of the most unfortunate practical aspects of this is that the clubs that have done things right - invested in stadia, developed non-matchday revenues to support the core business, directly employing people - are the ones hurt most by this. I was always wary of Leeds outsourcing things like the provision of catering and the retail but as Rush says some of the risk has at least been displaced by doing that and no doubt it has been of some benefit in mitigating the lost profits.

All clubs will be slashing jobs and costs and even with that will be looking to their  backers to get them through this - Wigan have brought extra money on board, Leeds have sourced funding from Caddick Group (secured over the East Stand), Saints backers have been willing historically to plough in almost unlimited amounts. So it is the clubs without that who will be struggling most - they are mostly those with lower fixed cashflows so it may not be quite as painful as we'd imagine but it could still be sadly too much for some of them.

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4 minutes ago, Angelic Cynic said:

Strange that a thread which I began about this a couple of days ago was pulled without explanation. I was also told that I didn't know what I was talking about - clearly somebody was panicking!

Sport, amongst other things, is a dream-world offering escape from harsh reality and the disturbing prospect of change.

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1 minute ago, M j M said:

Again and again the foolishness of those who criticised the last TV deal is exposed.

Yet Elstone was appointed, after SLE broke away, to increase commercial income, wasn't he?

Sport, amongst other things, is a dream-world offering escape from harsh reality and the disturbing prospect of change.

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Just now, Blind side johnny said:

Yet Elstone was appointed, after SLE broke away, to increase commercial income, wasn't he?

I'm sure he was. I fundamentally disagreed with the breakaway and the quite transparent reasons for it. However it remains impossible to judge his performance given what is happening and what happened before he came.

What isn't hard to be certain of now is that the 2017-21 deal gave the game a period of unprecedented revenues, stability and certainty. We knew this at the time and we also knew that Sky were paying somewhat over the odds for their own reasons - but again the critics ignored this in their efforts to pursue an agenda against Nigel Wood.

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Just now, M j M said:

I'm sure he was. I fundamentally disagreed with the breakaway and the quite transparent reasons for it. However it remains impossible to judge his performance given what is happening and what happened before he came.

What isn't hard to be certain of now is that the 2017-21 deal gave the game a period of unprecedented revenues, stability and certainty. We knew this at the time and we also knew that Sky were paying somewhat over the odds for their own reasons - but again the critics ignored this in their efforts to pursue an agenda against Nigel Wood.

How convenient for Robert that he can take £0.5M out of the Super League pot, more than any player in Super League, but it’s impossible to judge his performance. What rubbish, get rid of Elstone and give the £50k each saved to the clubs.

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2 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

How convenient for Robert that he can take £0.5M out of the Super League pot, more than any player in Super League, but it’s impossible to judge his performance. What rubbish, get rid of Elstone and give the £50k each saved to the clubs.

And continue the cycle we’re on now of clubs making the decisions and we keep the poor standards we have now? No thanks. A proper leader with the overall authority, and not one whose strings are pulled by a handful of chairmen, is desperately needed. 

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1 minute ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

How convenient for Robert that he can take £0.5M out of the Super League pot, more than any player in Super League, but it’s impossible to judge his performance. What rubbish, get rid of Elstone and give the £50k each saved to the clubs.

I'll break a golden rule and reply to you.

Elstone should be judged against what we think would have happened had he not been in place rather than against a starting point that was probably impossible to maintain given all the things which are happening in the world and directly affecting all businesses, sponsorship and media right now.

It's typically simplistic of you to propose that you could just cut Elstone's salary and save the money. You'd still need someone to run the top flight, it just shouldn't sit outside the RFL hierarchy.

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6 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Seems to me a TV deal cut was always on the table regardless of Covid.

We all remember that graphic showing how much the lower leagues get if it’s reduced to £30m a year.

It was always going to be the case. Always. A look at other sports who had negotiated new TV deals with Sky over the past couple of years told you that. To expect differently for Rugby League was naive. 

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