I have noticed that there is a lot of 'buy this' and buy that' going on from Bradford at the moment on my news feed along with a new enticement that half of the spend goes towards something called Buy Bulls or something. eg if you spend £45.99 on a Bulls hoodie (£45.99 for a hoodie!!!!) £23 goes towards funding the team up to the new SC or something.

I read somewhere that the RFL set your maximum SC spend at £1.34M. Now this must be based on a budget for the year put forward by the club. This would suggest there are no problems wouldn't it.

The Financial penny is starting to drop, MG isn't going to spend what the Club hasn't got so apart from more or larger moneyed Sponsors it will be up to the Fans to commit to buying Season Tickets, there are too many using excuses not to, but not realising that is exacerbating the situation with regards to buying so called quality Players, as for "Peter" False Hood purporting to know the Clubs present finances, he has not said anything that is verifiable and second guessing the rest!

Don't know where you read 1.34M but it's not a figure I've seen reported by anyone.

I thought that was what yours was set at, or is that just a very similar amount?

That seems to have been the case since MG took over to be honest. Or at least certainly for the best part of a year. The website is full of news stories on how you can give more money to the club. The Twitter feed is too. And let's not forget "BullsApp" which I had to delete after a month or two as I was sick of it telling me all the ways I could spend more money rather than any actual news.

To be fair to the club, there isn't much in the way of news they can offer at the moment. We're at a traditionally low point when it comes to stories, so it's not surprising there isn't much else being trotted out. And if constantly telling people what they can spend their money on actually works and helps the club make money, who can blame them for doing it?

Personally, it puts me off even looking at the website or the Twitter feed, but I'm sure it must work to an extent or they wouldn't do it. As long as I'm in the minority, I'm not that fussed.

It was either in a LoveRugby League website article or in one of the RL papers this week. I noticed it because the figure was slightly higher than the one quoted for Leigh which was £1.31M. It was definitely in print somewhere this week as it also mentioned the BUY BULLS initiative.

So to all you affluent Bulls fans there is a Xmas Sale on and the new Premium Bulls range where it is stating half your spend goes towards the new initiative to fund the team. That is some markup on those goods if you are making a profit in excess of 50% on these goods which is what it actually suggests to me. If the markup isn't 50% then where are you finding the money for your supplier. Someone needs to start asking questions before it is too late.

edit: I have just re read the sales blurb and it seems a proverbial 50% goes towards the team based on the RFLs SC rule of '50% of relevant income'.

This is basically what we've been told. Under the new 'interpretation' of the cap rules, the cap for SL and Championship - and I assume Championship 1, is exactly the same and it's all based entirely on income. PG's statement, that 50% of shop sales [iqualifies[/i go to the team is simplistic but is just setting out what we can spend under the cap. Personally, I'm pretty sure there may well be other calls on our 'spending money', so whether we can actually spend that amount on the team, and still remain in business, might be another matter.

Incidentally, I'm surprised that some have only just noticed the higher end prices on club clothing. This is not new and has been the case for as long as I can remember, and certainly long before Marc Green became chairman. I think it's fair to say it applies to all other clubs too and most likely other sports - it certainly does in soccer. We know it's expensive, but we want to wear our clubs' colours and, ultimately the money goes to our club, so we pay it and smile......

Spot on. They've been expensive for as long as I can remember. But as you say, you grin and bear it a little more when you know the money is going towards the club you love, rather than into Mr. Debenhams' money chest. Are you being ripped off? Yeah, probably. But with the amount they sell compared to the amount big retail stores shift, they probably need a bigger markup to make it worthwhile.
It's almost like wondering why the corner shop charges 30p more for a loaf of bread than Tesco do.

Message to Marc Green, get some Bull Bread in £5 a loaf.....they'd pay it!

Merry Xmas all

You may joke, but I bet some people would!

The only problem being that this constant barrage of 'buy this' 'buy that' and 'buy bulls' is putting the supporter base off, whilst making the club look desperate.

Yes, we know money is extremely tight and that we're currently living on a hand to mouth existence, but please don't alienate the already diminished support base.

Dennis, I know from the email that is circulating from Parker and Hunter Paul re: sponsorship opportunities 2016, that everything is far from healthy in the club's account balance.

The stand off between the disillusioned supporter not buying a season ticket and club isn't just one way. It's fact that the Bradford Bulls' season memberships are one of the most expensive clubs in England to watch Rugby League.

Until Mr Green can find a buyer we're on a downward spiral.

I don't disagree with that. It's certainly putting me off looking at any club media feeds, and I've no doubt it will be to others too. All I'm saying is, they must think the positives outweigh the negatives, or why do it? I'm happy to be personally put off looking at the website or twitter feed, as long as it's working and bringing more cash into the club. Probably a difficult balance to hit right, but since they're still overloading it after a year, I'd think they believe it works.

Again it’s not really the time of year for lots of press releases but bear in mind the press guy recently left and I don’t know if a replacement is in post yet. Hence the sales stuff is getting a lot of prominence. It would annoy me but as I don’t bother with the twitter feed I get to avoid it.

So, because the CEO and marketing manager are courting additional sponsorship, that means the club is in dire straights. It's not that they're doing their jobs or anything like that, then?

The reason for the expensive tickets is that the club wants to get into SL and needs the income to support that goal. Which is also why they're sell sell sell on the merchandise.

If the Bradford fan base got off its collective backside and actually went to the games then the club could afford to offer cheaper tickets. But they won't. They'd turn up if there's a final in the offing, but otherwise they'll stay home.

It won't stop them critiquing the club for its choices of player, coach, strip, choice of toilet paper etc because they feel that, even though they put no money towards the running of the club, the voice should be considered more important than anyone else's.

You see these sorts of people all the time usually in the pub after the game and their question is always the same "how did WE do". If you're that bothered, buy a ticket like the rest of us.

The is no big money benefactor at Bradford. Never had been and likely there never will be. The club is being run as a business by an astute business man who rarely comes second in his dealings. I'm sorry if people don't like the fact that the club is proactively selling itself and its brand, but maybe if we'd had a board that did this 10 years ago, we'd not not be in the state we are

Certainly the only reasons the tickets are so expensive is that the club needs the money.

We've seen where cheap tickets gets us.

That may well be the case but being a Jeremiah about it will only hasten that downward spiral.

We are where we are. We need to get behind what we have. That doesn't mean we need to swallow every bit of hype - just maintain a healthy cynicism and support the team.

Peter Hood - wtf gives you the right to claim you speak for "the fan base"? I for one am a fan and nothing you claim relates to me at all. Who appointed you?

And how ludicrous that a marketing push in the off-season makes the club "look desperate". I am trying to get my head around your point; so, we should NOT market, and just cross our fingers and hope, then we would look what - cool?

Does the barrage of billions of pounds of adverts on every TV channel make all those advertisers look "desperate"? Does it buggery, even when we know that undoubtedly to some degree many of them may well be. If you are in the business of sales, what the fsck do you expect them to do if not try their damndest to, er, sell?

And it is not rocket science to work out that times are hard when we run full-time in the Championship, and when there are HMRC winding up petitions floating about, but you have no access to actual current financial information so you don't actually know any specifics yet you try to pretend that you do.


i remember a previous management deciding to sell cheap season tickets. I can't remember how that ended up though - did we become the wealthiest club in the world?


Wrong! We are throwing money at a second -and probably final in my view - attempt to regain a SL place. if it doesn't come off, again, then yes I would agree we would then be on a downward spiral, I posted as much last year that failing to go back up places clubs without a sugar daddy very quickly in an unsustainable place, the cash runs out, they go part time and the better players go, crowds and sales go down, and the gap between income and expenditure never seems to shrink - more economies lead to an equal or greater loss of more revenue. It ends in tears for a big club like ours. It doesn't end in tears for little clubs, which can operate at the lower levels on a wing and a prayer and never aspire to much, but it can't work for a big club like Bradford.

If we were to run out of cash this year, chasing the dream, that would be that, but it wouldn't be due to any spirals, rather, due to just pushing out the promotion boat unsustainably far. This year is much more like a hideously expensive mortgage, than any downward spiral.

Last, you quaintly refer to "finding a buyer", when you actually mean "Until we find a billionaire who has cash to burn and is prepared to pour millions of it down our particular hole". It would be great to have a sugar daddy, but financially, the books would look several factors worse than whatever they do now - it would just be that someone with very deep pockets was willing to underwrite huge losses.

Pretty much this. We're now being run as a business that has to finance itself and maximise its income streams, rather than a plaything for a sugar daddy or group of directors spending a one off council payment wildly. We're also selling sponsorships for going rate rather than letting them go on the cheap to board members companies. Likewise season tickets are priced at a level that covers the costs. We tried going for volume under the real Peter hood and we all know how that went.

Sad thing is now we only attract championship/ t&a level trolling.

Duffers used to deal with the press side of things [including doing articles for the website which the T&A, when they had no 'official' Bulls' reporter, used to copy and paste so I 'd guess he'll take that on until it's sorted.

As said before though, it's not exactly the time of year when folk are hanging onto every word. It [iis[/i a strong sales period though, so it's not hard to understand why that should be the case...why is it necessary to add up 2 + 2 for people?

Regarding the "relevant income" part - I asked this question a week or 2 ago.

Buy Bulls came about as we are allowed to spend half of our "relevant income" on player salaries. So obviously they're pushing that angle. At the time the chairman listed tickets, merchandising, social events, bar takings as "relevant income", but he didn't mention sponsorship or central funding (TV money).

As those 2 income streams bring in a huge slice of our income, is it correct that they don't count?

As far as I understand it central funding and TV money does count, though on shop and bar takings etc [less vat, of course it is only 50% of [iprofits[/i not turnover, Mr Green's suggestion of a £40 sale in the shop equating to £20 more to spend on the team wouldn't be, well, an exact representation of the reality. Unless we get the goods for nothing and operate in the Cayman Islands....

Workington have just announced the signing of Sammut.

It's a strong sales period? It's not as if it's Christmas though is it...

On a 2 year deal as well. Good signing for them.