Oh dear me.
In my view, and this is certainly only commenting on the business aspect, what chandg01 says deserves consideration.
The RFL seems determined to leave those Clubs under Super League to collapse upon themselves.
Earlier this year, and many of you may remember, there was a target set forth by the RFL that if certain Clubs within the Championship 1 met certain goals, and delivered a respectful performance on the pitch, they would be considered for Championship....and Haven worked towards those goals...and then...the rules were changed.
My personal opinion is that those rules may have been set to try to entice a "union" between Haven and Workington, but what do I know. All I know is that as the season progressed and neither Club was delivering concrete messages about union...the rules changed.
I will state that any message sent from the RFL regarding expansion because they have already taken care of the "heartland" is so much foolishness. They have been absent to every important marketing and outreach effort we have made other than their minimal contractual engagement to each Club.
My business practice is one of you ground yourself in an area, and then you look to expand. The RFL, in my opinion, takes Haven and others for granted. They will not invest marketing and business investment because they think we will be regardless of what they do and we simply exist to serve "higher" teams.
They refuse to recognize the fragile nature of our existence and I must agree with Jammy...go into debt..and you are dead. This year, with a clean slate, it was not so clean on the accounting side, there was a shortcoming the last time I know what was happening with the books. I'm still waiting for reimbursement for paying repairs that happened to the Scoreboard in March, let alone to other expenditures throughout the season.
And the RFL wants to tell me that they have taken care of the "heartland". Not so much. Perhaps they truly need to connect the Clubs with a marketing programme, with a communcation base, etc, etc..
That is what should be happening, but I'm not holding my breathe.
It's outside of the comfort level they exist in and I'm not sure they will get it.
edit: I should clarify that when I say "clean" I mean it wasn't easy...the Club had to work hard to make its numbers work.