Ive been thinking about this so I'm afraid its diatribe time.
You see I guess a lot of fans at a lot of clubs are talking about grabbing players and denuding Salford of the greatest assets but in the end will that really be good for the game? the vultures are circling!!
I guess that's something that some even handed folks on here who care about the game will be musing over and wrestling with a little. Many will say well they shouldn't have engaged those players knowing that there was a good chance of them not being able to pay them in the long term.
On the one hand is it good for the optics as far as the sport is concerned if 11 of the twelve clubs predate one that is struggling and leave them hobbling along at the foot of the table all season. What chance do they then have of attracting a backer? It was bad enough when we were crap last season to see what it looked like to outsiders watching our sport. It will just devalue our competition further.
On the other hand its one thing promising fans jam tomorrow but what business in its right mind operates and buys assets and brings in workers on the basis of boardroom jam tomorrow, when it knows that possibly in a couple of month it won't be able to pay their wages, without a hand out and in addition, then borrows money against their future income just to keep going with the same level of outgoings, knowing full well they MAY not be able to recoup that money as the season progresses. As a club they basically took a gamble but they are just living a three quarters of a million pounds a year above their means.
Yeh, They could find a sugar daddy or investors from Australia to fish em out, but they've been looking long enough! Rather like Huddersfield they moved ground from their heartland stadium in central Salford in the heart of a strong community expecting the fans to follow to a new stadium that was in essence in a field next to the motorway miles away. So, of course a lot just didn't follow. At that point they needed to review their business model, but they waded on and in the end having had a sugar daddy promising the earth and departing when it didn't come gift wrapped, he then left the club to be run by the fans. A community club Wow how we all liked that idea and how bloody unpractical it was! Yes they have been a good team of late but hey have done it obviously living above their means.
Top sporting entrepreneurs have observed of late that without a rich owner our clubs and indeed our fully professional sport just cannot survive on static or even falling gates and plummeting TV revenues. It's worrying, Cas, Wakey and Us have only just survived by being bought out by rich owners but how long will they and others at other clubs stand for losing money hand over fist year in year out?? Have you seen the financial deficits at just about every club in the game.? One day the rot will start and Salford might be the club that tips the scales and see the game going backwards fast. Even if they survive and get fished out too, I can't see it being long before the sheer economics of money coming in falling far short of money going out can continue at most of the clubs, can You? For me the prospect of going back to a semi professional game again is certainly just over the current horizon. The game is simply living way above its means and the whole game is like Salford waiting for something to come riding over the horizon to save it. Who will do it, well it might be the NRL but I'm afraid it won't be the RFL or IMG.
It will therefore for me be interesting to see what happens at Salford, if they gat a last minute reprise and what the clubs do about them if they don't. I feel for their fans, but is it change, be radicle or disappear or will we see yet another sticking plaster on the inner tube of British rugby league an inner tube that is perishing fast?
