Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Fri Oct 04, 2013 5:33 pm  

Bulliac wrote:

There's no real reason why a rugby club can't be self sustaining in Bradford, or anywhere else for that matter.

There is. The reason is, nobody will be interested in it, cos it will be crap. If you really mean that they actually break even each year, and live 100% off income.

Bulliac wrote:

I'd guess the Bulls could be run, with current crowds and sponsors, at a middle SL level, maybe making the play-offs [as they are now configured] regularly.

Few are old enough to remember us in the playoffs, and that is while we have been getting crowds of over 10K, and not been on half money. I'm not saying that a herculean effort couldn't get us into the playoffs somehow next year, but that is a long chalk from saying you could be midtable on that basis. If you could, why doesn't it happen?

Bulliac wrote:

Chris Caisley blamed the Bradford crowds for not supporting the success that he'd brought, and much as I railed at him at the time, it wasn't because he was wrong about the public ['cos he was spot on, in truth] but because publicly slagging off the fans for not turning up was only ever going to be counter productive.

About the most irritating thing to me is some chairman blaming the fans for not coming. What a waste of breath! Of course if more came regularly, any club could do better - but there has never been ONE SPECCY, ever, in the universe, who was NOT going to go to a game - but then changed his mind because of a bollocking from the chairman! It is the most futile thing ever, not least because apart from never bringing even one extra body, it also royally pisses off many of the regulars, and might probably even put off many non-regulars.

Any chairman that does this should immediately be removed and shot. And of course we had the privilege of Peter Deakin working for us - crowds in recent times were never better - and he never once ever berated a single fan for not coming. He just found ways to make non-committed people think the place was worth coming to. Which is the REAL key.

[Bulliac]

Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:29 am  

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.

Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Sat Oct 05, 2013 7:50 pm  

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"

Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Sun Oct 06, 2013 1:10 am  

Cibaman wrote:

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.

[Bulliac]

Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Sun Oct 06, 2013 11:05 am  

Cibaman wrote:

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"

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 still 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 plans]and come unstuck, and felt the fans - or maybe not the actual fans as such, but maybe those who chose not to be fans, were to blame - but you can't press gang fans into the ground.

Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Sun Oct 06, 2013 12:34 pm  

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?

[Bulliac]

Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Sun Oct 06, 2013 3:03 pm  

Northernrelic wrote:

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?

The £500k loss was on the balance sheet and I certainly wouldn't pretend to know how that stacked up with the actual operating costs, then or now. We did have capital in the bank back then, of course, from the Odsal settlement [originally intended to compensate for taking on responsibility for ground maintenance from the council], which was used to finance the playing side. CC clearly expected the success of the side to attract more support through the gate, and maybe more sponsorship as well, but as with the best laid plans of mice and men, it never actually worked out that way.

We were paying out much bigger wages [and more of them]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.

Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Sun Oct 06, 2013 4:26 pm  

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.

Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Sun Oct 06, 2013 6:02 pm  

martinwildbull wrote:

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.

Re: Bedz R Us bloke : Sun Oct 06, 2013 6:11 pm  

Nothus wrote:

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.

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

Nothus wrote:

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.

Exactly. AGAIN.