Lord Tony Smith wrote:
Absolutely spot on. This idea that the cub are suddenly skint and that sacking Price a year early would cost our finances severely is a nonsense. We signed Greg Inglis in the middle of the pandemic.
We shouldn't underestimate the financial impact this will have on the club. £1m has been quoted, that was before they knew 2021 would be impacted, I'd expect lower attendances next year with a mix of lower capacities at the start and people with potentially lower disposable income due to the economic impact of the past year along with reduced corporate and sponsorship income.
The owners could easily be looking at £1.5m by the time things return to some form of normality and this doesn't take in to account the reduced cash flow we can expect between now and the start of the 2021 season. Normally the club would be launching Season ticket packages by now, I can't see many people signing up to that until they have a clearer view of how the season will look. I'm not sure how many season tickets we sell and at what avg price, but 7,500 season tickets at £250 each is knocking on for £2m in reduced cash flow during that period. ( I accept the impact won't be as great as that as some - like probably myself - will buy a season ticket regardless, but it will no doubt be a big problem for the club I expect). The players will still need to be paid in November / December and it's unlikely we will see massive season ticket income coming in to support that.
£200k (or whatever the amount is) to pay off the coaching staff is unlikely to be looked at favourably by the owners, when they already have massive financial headaches at the club and their own businesses.