RFL suffers sizeable financial loss but reveals increase in participation numbers

The RFL today shared the Annual Report and Financial Statements for 2022 with clubs and other members of the Rugby League Council ahead of next month’s Annual General Meeting, reinforcing the importance of tackling the financial challenges ahead and continuing to ensure the sport’s financial sustainability.

The RFL has also confirmed significant increases in participation numbers in the first half of 2023 reflecting the positive impact of last year’s Rugby League World Cup.

The draft Group Financial Statements detail a loss of £987k for 2022 – following a profit of £1.059m for 2021 – and cash reserves of £7.9m.

Turnover was up by 70% from £24.764m in 2021 to £42.152m in 2022, largely as a result of the World Cup, with sponsorship increasing from £1.668m to £5.744m, and Government funding from £8.351m to £11.030m, mainly due to grants received by Rugby League World Cup 2021 Limited for delivery of the Tournament in 2022.

Distributions to clubs were significantly reduced, from £8.356m in 2021 to £5.278m in 2022 – relating in the main to the reduction in distributions to Championship and League One Clubs resulting from the sport’s lower levels of revenue.

The Strategic Report accompanying the statements summarises the results as follows:

“The Board and Executive team had budgeted to make a profit in 2022 (£394k) in order to continue the financial turnaround from the previous three years and to build reserves for future to bolster the Group’s ability to absorb potential budget shocks in the coming years.

“Despite strict cost control and management of spend by the Executive, the Group has been faced with another challenging year.”

Four key areas are identified, of which Insurance is the most significant, with costs rising from £705,644 in 2021 to £1,430,627 in 2022 – the result of “a significant premium increase which was not able to be budgeted”. This cost is incurred on behalf of the whole game, as it arises from liability insurance placed by the RFL on behalf of its clubs.

Central Events are the next factor identified, with ticketing revenues for the 2022 Challenge Cup Final “below expectations”, and “a significant cost absorbed to stage the Mid-Season International…which gave the England Men’s and Women’s teams a chance to perform ahead of the RLWC2021 tournament held in the autumn”.

The RFL also had to deal with restructuring, as part of the planned realignment of the sport. RL Commercial, which was formed in 2022 as a joint venture between the RFL and Super League Europe, has been assigned the rights of all the commercial properties of the professional sport and is charged with selling those properties as well as staging the sport’s central events.

The resulting restructuring has produced “a smaller Executive team in 2023, at a lower cost than in prior years” – but “there were some one-off restructuring costs accounted for in 2022”.

Finally, the Strategic Report notes that the postponement of Rugby League World Cup to Autumn 2022 led to the refunding of “a substantial number of tickets which had already been purchased. Other revenue streams were also impacted in 2021 and did not recover in 2022 when the Tournament was rescheduled. Clearly, while the RLWC2021 was rationalised during the latter part of 2021, there was certainly a cost of keeping the Tournament functional during this period and retaining key members of the management team and staff”.

RLWC2021, a separate company but part of the RFL Group, therefore has its results included in the RFL’s draft Group 2022 Financial Statements.

The Group also includes Rugby Football League Investments 2020 Ltd, which is the vehicle through which the Sport Survival Fund loans have been administered, and its Balance Sheet reflects the long-term liability in relation to the loans made to eligible entities in 2020, 2021 and 2022

The accounts will be presented to the Rugby League Council at the Annual General Meeting, on July 26.

The AGM will also receive an update on participation figures which reflect the positive and tangible impact of RLWC2021 – and which were shared with the RFL’s Community Board last week.

Marc Lovering, the RFL’s Director of Participation and Development, said:

“In addition to the £26.4m of capital investment enabled by the CreatedBy Capital Grants Programme, the RLWC2021 – the most inclusive Rugby League World Cup in history – has also driven a significant increase in participation particularly amongst female and Wheelchair athletes.

“The World Cup winning England Wheelchair RL squad have been very active in various community initiatives in the aftermath of the tournament. This effort combined with well over 150 new wheelchairs delivered through CreatedBy has resulted in a 75% increase in participation compared with the same period in 2022. With England Community Lions also winning the inaugural Physical Disability World Cup, the number of registered PDRL players has increased by 60%; and there has been a 54% increase in the numbers of players taking part in Learning Disability Rugby League.

“The committed performances by the England Women’s team have helped to increase the numbers of women and girls participants in 2023 by 15% – again when compared with the same point last year. This figure will continue to rise once figures from the Rugbees programme, inspired by RLWC2021 and backed by Sport England, are factored in.

“The core community game [not including education and social] as a whole has seen a 6% increase to date with encouraging growth particularly amongst junior and youth players.”