Tubbs Wood was hardly a success in Halifax and this £5m that he's taking ten percent from to run Odsal is the 5m profit or turnover, there are quite a few costs to running a sports team. They are where they are due to pie in the sky financial management a bit like Halifax

Do you think that either of these parties would still consider ownership of the Bulls? Have to admit that Omar Khan seemed a very strange fit, to his and the clubs regret I would imagine.

I can't see any new owner going and the first thing he has to do is spend millions on Odsal, It's not going to happen. Even if they think they might want to go back there, money has to found for the ground to get a safety certificate before a single game is played there again.

Very true and that’s before you tie in the fact the RFL previously refused to even discuss selling the lease back to any potential owner. So you have to find someone rich who is happy to throw money into it without any prospect of return as they will own nothing tangible. A very hard sell.

As very well pointed out earlier, we had interested parties, some even had money, but these were turned away mostly in part by the man who eventually got hold of the reigns. Slightly suspicious.

I’d love to be back in super league and I do think we’d be able to became a middle table side (subject to relegation rules) with a few years and a reasonable amount of our ‘floating support’ would come back. But I can’t see it happening for a while yet and with sky money being taken off the table and potential scrapping of academies outside of super league, it might not happen again in my life time.

Thanks for the interesting and informative post.

How much power do the RFL have now in the Bulls saga? I suggest that if Superleague have now negotiated the new SKY contract all for themselves and intend to extend their control of clubs to 20 clubs then what power do the RFL have to do anything? The much maligned Wood no longer works for the RFL and in terms of Bulls future he's answerable to Lenegan, Pearson, McManus & Davey if his remit is to make Bulls a Superleague club again?. Didn't they apply for that this year when the phoney lot walked away?

If the likes of these powerful guys who have just taken the new SKY deal out of the hands of the RFL who have left Red hall to be converted to flats, have decided that crowds of 10,000 at Odsal are still possible (like the Leeds Cup game not long ago) and Bulls fans will travel in numbers who exactly is stopping Superleague hoisting Bulls back up??.

When there were threads on the ground situation triggered by guys who had sneaked into the ground, looked around and found no great disrepair beyond the ceramics in the toilets being kicked in, it became puzzling as to just what was needed to get SL games back on there? Well Wood has now answered that, and I'd guess all the Superleague clubs (all 19 of them) will do all it takes to ensure the Bulls fan base are invited back to the Superleague party.......

As a Bulls fan I understand your pessimism and caution, but their return is a hell of a "must" given the drop in TV money. It's Bulls fans who can help mitigate that supporting their club in Superleague.

On what? Last time I went in 2019 10,256 fans were comfortably and safely accommodated in the ground, as the TV cameras rolled on a fantastic game.

Since then some idiots kicked the toilets in. What do they need to spend these £Millions on?

[i"BRADFORD Bulls have announced they will leave their long-standing Odsal home at the end of the current season and move to Dewsbury Rams’ Tetley’s Stadium.The club have signed a two-year deal to play at their Championship neighbours while they seek to develop a new ground in Bradford. The decision has been made due to the high financial costs of remaining at Odsal"[/i

This was their farewell note

They left because of the cost of the stadium to them and now Mr Wood has announced he can budget for the maintenance. The only other issue is the rent isn't it?

Maybe (more informed commentator welcome) a deal has been done with Bradford council on a rent reduction, which Wood and the council is keeping confidential???

The RFL were paying the lease so the bulls don't have that expense so where is this extra money to going to come from as they will have to spend loads to get a safety certificate before they can play a home game, So where is this extra money coming from that they didn't have before?

I thought they had a safety certificate before they went to Dewsbury in protest at the council rates bill????

I appreciate the question but the fact is I aren't an accountant who has run the RFL and now runs the Bradford Bulls.

Nor am I privvy to the Bradford bulls decision to leave Bradford for two years and pay no rent at all to the council and let said council stew in Bulls Ratepayer fans complaining.

All I can go on is said highly experienced RL administrator and accountant telling people publicly that he can make the books balance now. I can only explain that as a deal with the council. This gets Bulls back in Bradford, voters happy with the council, money back into the council rates account albeit less than before and local businesses having good income as Bulls fans swell the takings on matchdays.

So the extra money doesn't come from anywhere, it's likely the council dropping the rent that makes going back "tenable". Now I have not seen any headline saying "Council drop Bulls rent" and can only guess the council and the Bulls have agreed to keep it private. This isn't BTW a conspiracy theory, it's what the Bulls moved to Dewsbury for to force the councils hand IIRC corrections welcome..

Anyway just flicked open an RL yearbook....Huddersfield.v.Bradford 8,297 fans .......Bradford.v.Huddersfield 11,368 fans..... Hudderfiield.v.Catalans 4,383.............

Again never spoke to Ken Davey, but I'd guess he wants Bulls back in Superleague?

I like most fans would like the Bulls to return to Odsal, and Super League earned on merit and not gifted, but I'm puzzled by where the money will come from that wasn't there before for returning to Odsal

This seems to be the definitive statement on leaving Odsal.............

"Announcing the groundshare agreement earlier this month, Chalmers blamed [uthe cost of rates, rent and maintenance[/u for the decision to leave Odsal - Bradford's home for 85 years". So these were the issues......Here's an old news story.......

[iThe Rugby Football League have bought Odsal Stadium from the Bradford Bulls and will [urent it back to them[/u.The game's governing body say they have paid an undisclosed sum to add the famous Yorkshire ground to their property portfolio, with the Bulls becoming tenants of the home they have occupied since 1934.. Bradford chairman Peter Hood confirmed that his club had made the initial approach to the RFL and hailed the announcement as 'excellent news'.[/i

Further information and analysis would be welcome from any knowledgable fan, all I can recall is Bulls feeling stung on the rent and rates and pulling out of the City in protest. So it could be Nigel Wood has put together a financial plan for Bulls to be able to operate in Superleague from Odsal that includes much lower levels of rent and rates charges from the RFL and the council?

I appreciate your desire for Bulls to actually win promotion, I also appreciate the desire of 9 big Superleague clubs to just hoist them back into Superleague 2022 so they can get the income from the Bulls fanbase to mitigate the lower TV deal. But would they do this? maybe Derek Beaumont can comment??

So the obvious questions are will the RFL reduce the rent?
Will the council reduce the rates?
Maintenance costs never reduce they only go up.
I note the quote " SO IT COULD BE NIGEL WOOD HAS PUT TOGETHER FINANCIAL PLAN FOR BUL TO BE ABLE TO OPERATE IN SUPER LEAGUE FROM ODSAL THAT INCLUDES MUCH LOWER LEVELS OF RENT AND RATES FROM THE RFL AND THE COUNCIL" So Mr Wood hopes that the RFL might reduce the rate,but the RFL is penurious at the moment for obvious reasons, and zero chance of the council reducing rates and this seems to hiang on a return to Super League

Except most of it is bull. Bradford were tenants long before the RFL became involved and the RFL DID NOT buy Odsal, but did buy the (head) lease.

The rateable value (and hence business rates payable) is not set by the Council but by the Valuation Office Agency (an arm of HM Revenue and Customs) and was last revalued in April 2017.

Massive gamble to move back to a archaic ground. Why not cut losses and look at planning a new ground as lots of others have done instead of pouring money into money pit ground that will never be a modern ground.

Many thanks to Mr. Dog and Mr. Huddersfield 1895......

It will be interesting to see how this saga goes. It has been suggested that Bulls will need a "money man" benefactor something they haven't really had, but it doesn't appear Mr, Sawyer is that man. Having said that the club was highly successful for many years without one.

Spot on, but they have tried this avenue that at times needs help from the local council, or somewhere. Wakefield and Cas have spent many years hamstrung without help from their council. Where Bradford council were encouraged to come in was to sell Odsal (it's apparently very valuable land) and use part of the money to build a ground across the road on the land where the council sports centre is.

It seemed to make great sense, especially as it may not have burdened Bradford ratepayers, but again nothing happened and it's puzzling to understand why?

We were told that maintenance just to keep the dump safe was £350k per annum. Now whether that's true or not I couldn't say, but the issue of affordability has never really been about rent which is pretty tiny.

What ever it is the cost of maintenance will go up every year.That's a given
For me from the outside looking in i can't see how the Bulls can afford to return to Odsal the the near future as i can't see where the money will come from as it wasn't there before, not unless there is a sugar daddy waiting in the wings which obviously i wouldn't be aware of.

That maintenance cost was being shouldered solely by the club under the previous deal. Maybe a new deal would share that out between the various stakeholders ie. council, Bulls, that stock car racing bloke and RFL? Let’s be honest the twisted tale of our largest shareholder’s involvement with the club before and after him leaving the RFL is pretty murky.

Getting it up to a safe standard (safe not necessarily decent) won’t be an issue as that’s being taken care of by the stock car promotors that have been carrying out work there.

It may also be motivated by the news yesterday that Kirklees council have only been allowed to allow 700 fans to return to Tetley’s stadium after COVID.

Either way as someone who has had great memories from watching games at the old girl over the last 30 years I’m not massively excited about a return “home”.

Precisely the moment I walked from the game entirely.

Pure chance that I hit "f" in the address bar on an old computer today and this site came up and I decided to take a nosy.

I may go to the odd non-Bradford game. I will certainly pick unreasonable fights with Welsh colleagues in my (north) Wales based employer. I will not put any money in to that club while that man is involved. When it all burns to the ground again I doubt I'll even notice.

I am very far from the only one with that view point.

The club has always struggled financially while it's had to pay for stadium upkeep itself. The only time it did not was 1986-2000 when the Council paid for the upkeep. It's no coincidence that the club's fortunes went downhill fairly quickly after the re-development fell through in 2002/3.

One thing that always puzzled me was Chalmers saying how unaffordable Odsal was when he was quite clearly spending nothing on it - but I suppose he didn't have two brass farthings to rub together when Wood approved his application sio he was never able to spend anything.

Things behind the scenes are more unclear than ever and I trust Wood about as far as I could throw him but he must know whether a move back to Odsal is affordable or not. I just hope it's not predicated on yet another poop or bust tilt at SL.

A poop from Wood will bust anything it lands on.

As evidence I submit the sport of Rugby League.

You've no idea what the cost of maintenance is. Maintenance costs go up and down depending on what needs fixing or replacing. It isn't index linked. There is only one stand and only the roof is an actual structure. The terracing is not that old.

I don't see how the RFL can help the Bulls return to Odsal financially than they are already doing.
My understanding is that the rent they charged was very reasonable and the RFL being penurious i can't see how they can reduce it if the Bulls returned and certainly won't be able to help with the Maintenance costs, Nigel Wood is kidding himself if he thinks this will happen, but he could proof me wrong.
He's leaving the RFL for me raised more questions than answers

Maintenance costs never go down year on year.
If the Bulls can't afford to pay there share of maintenance costs they won't be returning to Odsal, and for the record I WANT THE BULLS TO RETURN TO ODSAL

We’ve no idea what’s going on behind the scenes and being honest I’ve more faith that every single COVID contract handed out to a Tory donor or peer was above board than the shenanigans around odsal stadium.