Lockyer: London Broncos consortium to invest if Super League bid dashed
The consortium behind the proposed acquisition of the London Broncos rugby league team insist they’ll invest and play in the Championship if their Super League application is unsuccessful.
A dozen clubs have expressed an interest in being part of an expanded Super League next season, when the English top flight grows by two teams to a total of 14.
London Broncos will be one of the teams submitting a bid by Friday’s deadline with the consortium’s frontman, former Brisbane Broncos legend Darren Lockyer, clarifying that their proposed takeover of the club would continue if they were unsuccessful.
“We’re willing to roll our sleeves up and go quickly to get ready for the Super League,” the Australian tells Morning Wire. “If we happen to be unsuccessful then we have to be prepared to play in the Championship.
“The positive to that would be having more time to build the business, build out the football [rugby] and build a roster.”
Lockyer’s consortium includes Grant Wechsel of MWG Mining and the former Brisbane Broncos chief Paul White, while former Leeds man Gary Hetherington will remain involved.
Brisbane board member Lockyer, who took off to head back to Australia last night, says the club will target the play-offs next season should they be a Super League team – finishing in the top six after the regular season – while they have ambitions of becoming the most profitable club in the top flight within five years.
London Broncos have big plans
Lockyer is eager to tap into the widespread Aussie and Kiwi expat community in the capital, targeting 8,000 season ticket holders – as a yardstick there will be around 65,000 fans at the rugby league Ashes this October at Wembley Stadium.
“The club at the moment is pretty much a bit of a skeleton,” he says. “There’s not a lot there.
“There’s a lot of good people that are working there, but they’ve had limited resources now for a while. But we feel like there’s a good culture there, because there’s a lot of resilience amongst the people that play there and work there.”
Lockyer, though, concedes that his background in the NRL could be a starting gun for greater collaboration between the Super League and its Australian equivalent.
Though complete alignment is unlikely, the former fullback and five-eighth insists there’s a lot the Super League can learn from NRL.
“It makes sense that the bosses of the NRL and the bosses of the Rugby Football League are working together so that they’re maximising the outcome for the game,” he adds.
“It makes sense for that to happen, because I think the Super League needs to be a strong competition for the international game.”
The new ownership is also set to overhaul the current sponsorship structure, despite the club currently having a front-of-shirt deal with Brewdog.