KEN Davy has revealed the harsh reality of the financial state of the Betfred Super League, with nearly every club dependent entirely on their owners and the competition’s broadcast deal with Sky Sports.
The 84-year-old businessman has been owner and chairman of Huddersfield Giants since 1996, but admitted it is getting harder every year to maintain the club’s viability without investing significant seven-figure sum.
The Giants are currently 11th in the Super League table and have an average home attendance of just over 4,000, but Davy claimed even those clubs which draw five-figure home attendances are in a similar situation.
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“I can tell you even four or five years ago, it was pointed out to me I could have given everybody who came through the gate to every game a £20 note and I’d have been better off,” Davy told The Bench podcast.
“That is a salutary thought, isn’t it? So every fan, every game, a £20 note.
“We’ve kept Super League going in Huddersfield, the birthplace of the game…but the reality is the game is entirely dependent, at this moment in time, on Sky and the owners.
“Virtually every owner is having to put significant sums into the game to keep it going.”
Davy’s warning comes at a time when Salford Red Devils, the only side below Huddersfield in the table, continue to be embroiled in highly-publicised financial turmoil which has seen them placed in special measures by the RFL and forced to sell many of their best players.
This is amid an ongoing club-led review into the state of rugby league at all levels in the UK, the findings of which are due to be presented at July’s RFL Council meeting.
Super League’s current three-season agreement with Sky Sports, which sees every game shown live by the pay-TV broadcaster plus at least 12 per season simulcast by the BBC, is due to expire at the end of the 2026 season and is worth £21.5million per season, down from a peak of £40million per season from 2017-21.
Rumours of the NRL possibly taking a stake in Super League or a new elite-level European competition to help revitalise the club game in the Northern Hemisphere persist, with former Super League general manager and South Sydney Rabbitohs CEO Blake Solly again touting that as a viable option in his recent Hello Sport podcast appearance.
In any case, Davy, who previous served as interim Super League chair, knows just how much all of the competition’s clubs need a cash injection from somewhere.
“There are probably 10 or 11 clubs in the game, at the moment, that couldn’t survive without contributions from their owners – and significant seven-figure contributions,” Davy said.
“If you look at the some of the leading clubs who have 10,000 or more fanbases, their owners are putting in the best part of a couple of million pounds or more.
“They’re not financially viable in the game, as it stands.”