Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 1:39 pm  

Interesting idea FA, just a practical query if I may? who would take our SL place for 1 year? And more importantly who would make way were we to be allowed back in? Or are you suggesting the one SL team gets a "bye" each week? If so I'm not sure the league or sky would be happy with the reduced numbers.

I can see the logic behind attempting to do things on our terms to rebuild rather than continue down the "death by a thousand cuts" road we're currently being dragged down.


All this has certainly lead to some interesting discussions...

Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 1:44 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

snip.

I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, but how would the other Championship clubs feel about losing their possible opportunity to get a SL licence by winning the Championship in favour of a SL club who couldn't get their own house in order?

[Bulliac]

Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:08 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

Well, one thing is crystal clear, and that is, there is as much chance of us having a top-level SL team next season (whether oldco or newco) as there is of man landing on the Sun.

Once you resign yourself to that fact, and that IF we are in SL next year, then it will be a season of embarrassing crowds and many humiliations, my suggestion is we volunteer to drop into the Championship and take our chance. Whilst we would not play in SL next year, we would still have our SL licence, and the deal would be if we win the Championship then we resume in 2014.

We would have a good year in the Championship and as we would be the leading team we would have much better crowds than the anticipated 3-5K we will have in SL if everything goes tits, we'd have good crowds too - maybe very good; nowt the fans like better than a winning team. It would also be a big fillip for the Championship.

The idea struck me when moping about how depressing it will be in 2013 getting flogged every week in an empty stadium while watching all our former best players in other colours, and waiting for the final nail. I also remember that the season we volunteered to play in Div 2 for a year was one of the best years the fans ever had.

Deals would need to be struck with players, and with the RFL about Sky money etc., but this way we would have a financial and on-field breather year, when we could be a big fish in a small pond, and avoid the horrors that 2013 will otherwise inevitably bring. The club seems destined to exit SL to me now, one way or another, so why not this way, as opposed to a slower and much more painful and unpleasant demise?

Maybe, given that you could budget for a much higher home crowd average in the Championship (if only for a year) we could actually afford to make reasonable offers to players to persuade some of the better younger ones to stick with it. Maybe not, true, but my point on that is, we'd have more chance than we have now, as I see it. All I can see is our squad being raped over the summer, and unless our mythical investor/s finally descend from the clouds, bearing pots of gold, in the next 48 hours, then that's my suggestion, much as it pains me.

Can't imagine the Championship clubs being happy with that one to be honest. Btw, I'm intrigued by this year when we "volunteered to play in Div 2"; why can't I remember it?

Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:12 pm  

But being serious now, the wider economic context is important: disposable income in Bradford went down again in 2011 and may well again in 2012. I have not got any unemployment figures but the rate was mitigated in the later years of Labour by a number of public sector jobs being created in the area - which also had the effect of increasing average wages and of course that is where the Conservatives have got their teeth into. I could go on, that the Bradford - West Yorkshire - Uk divide on virtually every statistic, such as educational levels attained, continues to widen. Basically the black hole in teh middle of Bradford is a lead indicator of the Bulls prospects.

So I just do not see how income is ever going to get back to where it was without major transformation in either Bradford or benefactor as opposed to investor funding, and the only way the business will succeed is to lower all elements of direct costs, ie stadium anything left to squeeze out of admin and players in that order. Which as you say FA will mean expectations as drastically lowered as you suggest for the next few years. but the Sky money is just too big an income to do without, so wooden spoon is most likely.

Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:28 pm  

Duckman wrote:

Interesting idea FA, just a practical query if I may? who would take our SL place for 1 year? And more importantly who would make way were we to be allowed back in? Or are you suggesting the one SL team gets a "bye" each week? If so I'm not sure the league or sky would be happy with the reduced numbers.

If SL played a team short for a year then the players get their alleged wish of less rugby, and the RFL could make the Exiles a 3-match series. Also a possible window for a 3-game WCC.

Sky wouldn't be a factor, as the number of games they show is clearly not connected to the number of teams in the league.

tigertot wrote:

I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, but how would the other Championship clubs feel about losing their possible opportunity to get a SL licence by winning the Championship in favour of a SL club who couldn't get their own house in order?

Eh? How do they lose that? My idea was that the Bulls come back up, and all that does is restores the numerical status quo. Whether another Championship team is promoted and a SL team loses its place is entirely unaffected. Obviously the Bulls would be the white hot favourite to finish top of the pile, but the top Championship team would clearly still have the same opportunity, unless the RFL moved the goalposts. Naturally for them it would have to be "win the Final or be runner up to Bulls". A sort of betting without the favourite scenario.

Also, if the version of Bullsco that came up did qualify to do so, it would be because it HAD put its house in order. Like the new flavour Widnes had recently done.

I am, though, a mere visionary. I have not written a full 5,000 page manual on the nuts bolts and practicalities.

Bulliac wrote:

Can't imagine the Championship clubs being happy with that one to be honest. Btw, I'm intrigued by this year when we "volunteered to play in Div 2"; why can't I remember it?

1973, when the single league was split into a First and a Second Division. We won the Second Division with a fine record and some fine rugby.

Why wouldn't they be happy? Cash is king and that's at least 2 bumper paydays for every one of them. What other issues would they have?

As for the Sky money, we are where we are having HAD the Sky money all these years. Much good it has done us, but I wasn't suggesting we cut it off, rather do a deal on it. The whole thing would be a one-off, so everything would be up for discussion.

Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:29 pm  

martinwildbull wrote:

so wooden spoon is most likely.

Given our current luck I bet we couldn't even win that!


Good post btw, I agree with pretty much all of it.

Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:31 pm  

Slighly changing my own subject - isn't time up tomorrow for the protection from creditors? Does anyone know for a fact when the 2 weeks expires?

Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:35 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

Slighly changing my own subject - isn't time up tomorrow for the protection from creditors? Does anyone know for a fact when the 2 weeks expires?

Tuesday latest - although 10 working days (its not two calendar weeks) from 12 June is strictly Monday?

Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:29 pm  

Bulliac wrote:

Can't imagine the Championship clubs being happy with that one to be honest. Btw, I'm intrigued by this year when we "volunteered to play in Div 2"; why can't I remember it?

Volunteered is a good word for it. In the previous season, when final league positions determined who went into the new Div 1 and Div 2, we more or less gave up on the league from January onwards and concentrated on the cup.

But the economics were completely different then. Part time players and very little telly money. We weren't much worse off financially being in Div 2. And there wasn't that big a gulf in standards. We actually strengthened the squad whilst in Div 2. After winning the Div 2 title we played in the old end of season Premiership and knocked out Div 1 Champions, Salford. Bit different nowadays.

[Bulliac]

Re: Latest financial situation - all posts here : Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:36 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

1973, when the single league was split into a First and a Second Division. We won the Second Division with a fine record and some fine rugby.

Why wouldn't they be happy? Cash is king and that's at least 2 bumper paydays for every one of them. What other issues would they have?

As for the Sky money, we are where we are having HAD the Sky money all these years. Much good it has done us, but I wasn't suggesting we cut it off, rather do a deal on it. The whole thing would be a one-off, so everything would be up for discussion.

Ah, I remember 1973, or 72 - 73 as we were still in the winter season in those days. It was a super season, you're right but I'm sure we didn't 'volunteer' for it. IIRC, when the clubs voted to swap the old Yorkshire and Lancashire leagues for a 1st and 2nd division system the (I think) 30 clubs went for the top 16 at the end of the previous season to be the 1st division and the bottom 14 (which included us) to be the 2nd division. It was decided on league standings not something we volunteered for.

For being happy, maybe I'm not thinking of the clubs themselves but of the fans of those clubs, who I'm certain would be far from happy - not least because it would mean a much reduced chance of their side topping the league. Not to mention complaints about "big" sides taking the mick and getting everything they want etc etc.