Odsal - RFL Selling the lease

[gingerjon]

8 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

The way I read it, the £100k yearly loss is incurred by the annual repair costs of keeping it as a safe sporting venue, even after the rents. So, yes, past spend won't be recovered. But if Odsal is sold to developers I find it hard to see that they'd only get £700,000k for that site.

What they seem to be looking for is a buyer who will take on the stadium as a sporting venue for the existing tenants (or at least the Bulls) In that circumstance, yes, they'll make a loss.

Reading between the lines, I wonder if the RFL have leaked this either to put pressure on the Bulls to up their bid - or to soften up public opinion for when they sell the lease back to the Bulls at a loss. I can't decide which yet!

Odsal being essentially worthless for a whole host of reasons has been discussed on here multiple times. I have no idea about 700k but my understanding (from others) is that it is an environmental nightmare and just massively impractical.

[RigbyLuger]

All while using language like "iconic" as if were supposed to pretend what Odsal is now, and not what it was in 1954 (before the first(?) financial failure of Bradford Northern.) 

 

It's very much recency bias based on memories of what Bullmania was, and not actual reality.

 

I feel sorry for the fans.

[Nothus]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

Odsal being essentially worthless for a whole host of reasons has been discussed on here multiple times. I have no idea about 700k but my understanding (from others) is that it is an environmental nightmare and just massively impractical.

The Odsal site has a ton of value, just not as a sporting venue.

[Toby Chopra]

7 minutes ago, Worzel said:

It's not overly conspirational. Leaving aside the ginormous, screaming conflict of interest, the facts are this: The governing body has spent about 75% of its net worth propping up one, single failing club in West Yorkshire. It's the equivalent of the NRL sending Cronulla Sharks about $100m, maybe more. It's off the scale just on that basis alone.

Then add in what Big Nige did afterwards, and it becomes something else...

 

 

But this hasn't been in secret. And I don't believe Nigel pushed the deal through the RFL in 2012 as part of some grand plan to eventually own the Bulls. He's just been opportunistic with the circumstances after his RFL departure.

We've known the terms of the lease for a long time. That doesn't make it a good deal at all, and with hindsight the RFL shouldn't have entered it. But if the stakeholders had wanted to pull the plug on this in previous years they could have - albeit likely crystallising the loss. Maybe now the time has come. 

[Toby Chopra]

10 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Odsal being essentially worthless for a whole host of reasons has been discussed on here multiple times. I have no idea about 700k but my understanding (from others) is that it is an environmental nightmare and just massively impractical.

Worthless as a sporting venue - or at least worth less than the £1.2m the RFL paid for the lease.

But certainly not worthless if sold on the free market.

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

12 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

The way I read it, the £100k yearly loss is incurred by the annual repair costs of keeping it as a safe sporting venue, even after the rents. So, yes, past spend won't be recovered. But if Odsal is sold to developers I find it hard to see that they'd only get £700,000k for that site.

What they seem to be looking for is a buyer who will take on the stadium as a sporting venue for the existing tenants (or at least the Bulls) In that circumstance, yes, they'll make a loss.

Reading between the lines, I wonder if the RFL have leaked this either to put pressure on the Bulls to up their bid - or to soften up public opinion for when they sell the lease back to the Bulls at a loss. I can't decide which yet!

ie The RFL have been (and still are) subsidising Bradford Bulls to the tune of ca£100k pa.....around half the total amount of central funding received by L1 clubs in 2022 (and probably a bigger % as of today)

[gingerjon]

6 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Worthless as a sporting venue - or at least worth less than the £1.2m the RFL paid for the lease.

But certainly not worthless if sold on the free market.

I believe close to worthless - relative to size and what you might expect - in any sense. Although obviously more value as an open rather than restricted sale.

[Toby Chopra]

9 minutes ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

ie The RFL have been (and still are) subsidising Bradford Bulls to the tune of ca£100k pa.....around half the total amount of central funding received by L1 clubs in 2022 (and probably a bigger % as of today)

Well, yes, but also to protect the value of an asset (Odsal) that's in theory owned by everyone, in the hope they can exit without a loss while not leaving the Bulls homeless and Odsal a landfill site. But all that's probably too much to hope for now.

It all goes back to the original deal, which looks a lot worse in hindsight now we know that the Bulls aren't a SL club and there's no money coming to redevelop Odsal.

[The Phantom Horseman]

Slightly different point, but Bradford announced that they would show a small operating profit for 2023. That, if replicated over 3 years, would gain them 0.5 IMG points, which presumably they wouldn't be achieving without the reported annual six-figure RFL subsidy, or  without the "peppercorn rent".

[Worzel]

20 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

But this hasn't been in secret. And I don't believe Nigel pushed the deal through the RFL in 2012 as part of some grand plan to eventually own the Bulls. He's just been opportunistic with the circumstances after his RFL departure.

We've known the terms of the lease for a long time. That doesn't make it a good deal at all, and with hindsight the RFL shouldn't have entered it. But if the stakeholders had wanted to pull the plug on this in previous years they could have - albeit likely crystallising the loss. Maybe now the time has come. 

No, neither do I. But I do think it shows us four very clear things:

1. Too much decision-making power has been concentrated in the hands of a small, inter-connected cabal of West Yorkshire administrators, with no proper governance above.

2. Those administrators have made demonstrably bad decisions, to the disastrous detriment of the sport. Not through the lens of hindsight, these things were obvious and the consequences predictable at the time.

3. No meaningful critical oversight has been applied to those people, or their decisions, by rugby league journalists who have rose-tinted spectacles and coincidentally all come from the same, small geographic area.

4. There has been no accountability for these appalling decisions, and the associated conflict of interest. Frankly it was ethically improper for Wood to later take over the Bulls, having previously provided them that advantage. It doesn't have to have been a designed plan for it to be inappropriate.

This would be a national, or international, scandal in many other sports. The fact that many fans would minimise this, and just shrug their shoulders about it, amazes me!

 

[RigbyLuger]

18 minutes ago, Worzel said:

 

3. No meaningful critical oversight has been applied to those people, or their decisions, by rugby league journalists who have rose-tinted spectacles and coincidentally all come from the same, small geographic area.

There was a great, really long piece, by George Clark in Forty20 a few years ago which went into detail about the many issues with Odsal/Bradford. Easier to write "Bulls Are Back" stories when they win a game.

[Sports Prophet]

1 hour ago, Worzel said:

 

This would be a national, or international, scandal in many other sports. The fact that many fans would minimise this, and just shrug their shoulders about it, amazes me!

 

Fortunately RL has a very small media footprint.

[Sports Prophet]

The best idea for Odsal and for its longevity as a sports precinct is for Yorkshire to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games and then ideally have the stadium convert into a high spec 30-35k rectangular stadium with an eye to make it a Rugby League centre of excellence for the RFL and potential host both Bradford Bulls and Bradford City.

[Ovenden Grunt]

3 hours ago, Worzel said:

No, neither do I. But I do think it shows us four very clear things:

1. Too much decision-making power has been concentrated in the hands of a small, inter-connected cabal of West Yorkshire administrators, with no proper governance above.

2. Those administrators have made demonstrably bad decisions, to the disastrous detriment of the sport. Not through the lens of hindsight, these things were obvious and the consequences predictable at the time.

3. No meaningful critical oversight has been applied to those people, or their decisions, by rugby league journalists who have rose-tinted spectacles and coincidentally all come from the same, small geographic area.

4. There has been no accountability for these appalling decisions, and the associated conflict of interest. Frankly it was ethically improper for Wood to later take over the Bulls, having previously provided them that advantage. It doesn't have to have been a designed plan for it to be inappropriate.

This would be a national, or international, scandal in many other sports. The fact that many fans would minimise this, and just shrug their shoulders about it, amazes me!

 

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