Nearly everybody in London works in the service industry with they flip burgers or are stockbrokers and everybody knows the client ought to be king. The lack of information out of the club shows that there is no concern about the general clients, and therefore will never be a business. In David Hughes there is one important client but that does not make a business.
Some back of envelope calculations for the Super League show why:
Cost of running a club = £4M
Sky money = £1M
5,000 season tickets at £200 = £1M
Walk-up tickets and merchandise = £1M
Result most clubs lose £1M that has to be found from donors.
Broncos would be lucky to generate £1M from sales so DH is in for £2M plus every year.
The RFL have negotiated a deal with SKY for £16M a year over five years. The RU Aviva Premiership (crowds and audience almost the same as Super League) have negotiated a deal of £38M a year over four years.
I don't think Super League would ever attract the same money as the RU audience will be perceived to be bigger spenders for the advertising and subscriptions. However it would like to think that £24M+ would be achievable by a breakaway set of 12 clubs. The extra million would make most Super League clubs viable.
For London to survive I think it needs to be part of the breakaway + a group of fans will have to step up and about 500 pay £1,000 a year for some sort of say in the club + we still need a David Hughes.
The final negotiations going on now should be with the breakaway clubs, and the fans not with the RFL who have organized this mess.
Rant over.