Nobody is a lot of people FA, [or is it Lol. I'd guess at somewhere around 5k, maybe a tad fewer, as the 'base' figure for support, in a city the size of Bradford, of course, along with the equivalent level of sponsorship you'd expect in a large city with a 'middling', win sometimes, lose sometimes team. As I said, it depends on the level of team you [as an individual are happy to support. Don't forget, teams at all levels get supporters and the vast majority of them have no chance whatever of winning SL, or even getting in SL.

I think you're wildly underestimating the age of the average supporter if you seriously believe that "few" are able to remember the last appearance in the play-offs. To be honest, the age profile of the fan base seems to have become quite a bit higher higher over recent years, and I'm pretty sure the vast majority should easily remember back to 2008. That said, I'm not entirely sure what I was doing yesterday....



I was speaking generally. Sure, we haven't got the full money right now but that won't last forever. I think it's slightly disingenuous to refer to the 10k crowds drawn when we were paying half prices[equivalent to 5k at normal price?, and one reason we didn't get in the play-offs was because we got docked 6 points - so it did actually happen once, sort of. We've actually been pretty much 'mid table' every year since we were in the play-offs anyway, basically just a couple of points away. This with a club based on sponsorship and crowds and with no outside sugar daddy, so it can be done. Thing is as well, that the owners, new and Omar before he left, made it clear there was no 'pot of gold' to throw at the team and their intention was always that it should pay its way.


Dunno why you've highlighted the paragraph about Caisley, as your piece pretty much agrees with mine. His moan was about as crass and self-defeating as it gets.

I don't think Caisley's rant was aimed at increasing attendances.

We'd just had the most successful season in the history of the club, after our longest period of sustained success. And still couldn't break even.

I think his rant could be translated into "F*** it, I'm off"

It could indeed. But I'm fascinated just why it is, even in the 21st century, that anyone would think they could get folk to spend their hard-earned not for enjoyment, not for value, but out of some sense of OBLIGATION. If they ever did exist, those days are LONG gone. I can understand if he said "F*** it, I'm off, but cannot for the life of me think, specifically, at whom the remark was aimed, that might be remotely bothered.

That's probably somewhere near the truth, I'd guess.

It was probably more a cry of frustration, if anything. Leaving side all the other things about the money itself, of which I've said plenty in the past, the base fact is that he [and others had built a super side which [istill[/i didn't attract enough fans to make a profit - indeed, according to the accounts, we were averaging around £500k per annum losses between 2000 [when we returned to Odsal from VP and CC leaving, which was clearly unsustainable.

There is little doubt that the statement was never intended to bring fans in - whatever anyone thought of CC he was never anybodies fool and would have known full well what effect it would have had. In truth he'd made a calculated gamble [with his spending plansand come unstuck, and felt the fans - or maybe not the actual fans as such, but maybe those who chose [inot[/i to be fans, were to blame - but you can't press gang fans into the ground.

Yes I think CC was frustrated we could not get more fans even with a winning product. However CC wasn't just involved with the Bulls he was also keen to raise the profile of the game as a whole, so whatever he thought about the people who were not coming through the turnstiles at the Bulls I suspect he was even more frustrated by the lack of vision for game at the highest level in the UK.
Another point on the figures above - if we were needing £500k to fill the funding gap when on the top of the game - the even more frightening figure is that we seem to need twice that in 9th place?

both for players and back up staff back then but were getting, for round figures, double the gates so it's hard to say how it stacks up now, other than to say I doubt we're making a profit.

much of the odsal settlement cash went on the coral stand and the balance received iirc over a few years, we made a profit in a few of the good years, see my much earlier posts around the time we went pop, and essentially the cash went into the squad either wages or transfer fees. then CC left and Hood turned the squad into cash as the numbers fell. As there are no publicly available figures its difficult to say what the current costs are, but you can see from the way some players have left - Ainscough, Naughton - or not been renewed - Platt & Langley - that the player and coach wages bill is massively less.

the cash put in by OK tells the story. Sponsorship has been decent, but will not have balanced the loss of Sky money. So more sponsorship/investment needed for next year, and more fans. That depends on the team etc. certainly the squad for next year looks as if it will be more resilient to injury, and will play a bit more. So im cautiously optimistic we will see some good games, the thing we have to do is continue the trend of both offence and attack improving over the previous season.

Is our squad wage bill really going to be that reduced? I'm not so sure. We might have lost Langley, Lulia and Platt but Ferguson and Carvell will not have come cheap.
In roughly 12 months, Omar has had to put in close to £1 million just to keep the club going. That is a constant worry to me - how is next year going to be any different? I don't think Mark and Ryan are in the position to be putting in a similar figure.
But if funds were going to be an issue then why didn't they take this opportunity to 'do a wakefield' and reduce the wage bill somewhat. They haven't done that at all, instead choosing to bolster the squad and push for a playoff finish.

and what if it were the case that, in addition, Omar wanted £900k back in instalments over time out of the sky money?




Exactly. AGAIN.

Well, I don't think we need to worry too much about Omar being repaid. I can't see him demanding full repayment over the next 12 months or something ridiculous like that. I'm sure they have agreed to repay the amount in manageable chunks over 5-10 years for example.
If we can make it through this year and get back to full funding then we should - within reason - be ok.
This is why I'm a little surprised at them wanting to be spending the full cap etc.
This paints two possible scenarios imo, we either have the funds in place to be able to do this, or Ryan and Mark are taking a bit of a gamble on their projections.

TBH I have doubts about whether Omar ever actually put the 900k in to the club. It was always carefully worded that 900k was AVAILABLE to club. If it was actually put in then yesterday's t&a story about Omar getting his million back would have been more like 1.8 million.

It was put in defiantly.

Given the club have said they're going to pay Omar back £1 million, it's pretty safe to say he put in £900k

In comparison to the Caisley and the Hood era yes it is that reduced. and Carvell and Ferguson are better value for money as a specialist prop and an experienced 2nd row, just what the team needs. If we end up with a more balanced slightly larger squad thats not much more expensive, thats a step in the right direction.

Don't forget they were talking about Omar spending 840k on club before the 900k extra investment was mentioned. Surely if the full 900k was put in he'd be wanting 1.74m back?. If there only talking 1milion I'm wondering if just enough to cover wages shortfall was put in each month. It could be that the remainder of 900k is still available to club and as it is used the amount to be paid back to OK will rise accordingly.

It might help if the club clarified the state of the club's finances, particularly the £900k.

Does it just cover the operating loss for 2013? If so, will there be similar loss in 2014 and how will that be financed?

Or is it meant to cover expected losses for 2013 & 2014? Essentially plugging most of the gap caused loss of the telly money? If that is the case, does that mean that the club has money in the bank in advance of the 2014 season? Or just a promise to pay more into the club if necessary?

A few people I know have said they're nervous about renewing their season tickets just yet. Not sure if the club's finances are hanging by a thread or not.

Pay for season ticket on credit card and then they are covered if they are worried from a worst case scenario

I'm not sure I agree. We have the odd few that claim to follow both but they are a tiny minority, and in reality we don't have much of a crossover at all.

In Leeds, a city where everyone wants a team with "leeds" to do well (hardly the case in Bradford with your petty egg chasing wendyball bile) even with United spiralling downward, Rhinos only got the odd moron infiltrating the south stand wearing united tops and being cretins. I'd guess statistically of the decrease in United's attendances, virtually 0% went across the city to watch Rhinos win Superleague.

waving ta-ta to super league. It's generally accepted that you have to improve to stand still, so to retain our mid-table spot from last season we need to put more in as, results wise, it's the most important season for years.

Of course, we don't know what is happening elsewhere but it would be very foolish to just assume that some other club(s) are going to drop out. In any case making the eight means we're fireproof for being in the top division, however it's configured...if they ever get round to telling us how it's going to be configured that is - maybe they're leaving that for a little surprise after the season has started.

Given the gusto with which they sing united's songs it rather sounds like the takeover was done and dusted a while back..

You would hope in the season ticket selling time in the run up to Christmas that the club had accumulated cash in the bank and that this would be one of the facts verified by the RFL before giving the new owners the greenlight?

That's part of the excitment of being a Bulls fan at the moment - your are never quite sure what is going to happen

Obviously the latest shenanigans aren’t going to do season ticket sales much good. Uncertainty never does. Moore and Whitcut could be the best thing to happen to the Bulls but until the business plan is written (it isn’t yet), and it is approved by the RFL and the club starts to get some months to go by without another financial worry surfacing it’s going to be an uncertain and unsettling period.

The new owners need to get that business plan done asap and then we need nice long period where people get paid on time. This uncertainty couldn’t come at a worse time for fans as with no on field Bulls action we just have the off field stuff to concentrate on.

I recommend getting to the world cup if you need a distraction.

I must have been asleep - are you saying our new owners have bought the club without a business plan?

S**t!

Surely it would just be a continuation of business plan OK put in just with new owners?. Don't see why it would be substantially different.

OK's business plan would have made assumptions about how much income he could generate from off the field activities. Catering and pop concerts etc. The new owners will have to review those assumptions taking into account actual experience over the past year and also that they don't have OK's catering focus. OK's business plan will also have got some things wrong, since he had no experience of running a RL club. Season ticket sales for example.