Cowboys were in the same boat, were burdened with huge costs and were virtually dead.
Without that dirty dirty News money we wouldn't exist.
News sucks arse but, and this might be a shock to some, I'm more loyal to my club then I am to boardroom.
Was about to post the same thing but you beat me to it Canard.
NQ only way to survive was new$, coupled in with the fact the club was formed in the early days by the Tvl Bully and Doug Kingston and with a board that was news aligned...... The rest is history.
The Cowboys weren't the only ones in that boat either, the Raiders, Sharks, Warriors and Panthers were all financially on their knees at the time and without the News money would have struggled to make it into the 21st century let alone much further into it (and that's whether or not the war happened), and the Bulldogs were also in a similar situation (though not quite as dire).
The only one of the SuperLeague 'traitors' that wasn't absolutely desperate for money at the time was the Broncos, which I think shows just how the times had to be (once in a lifetime) perfect for the SL to even get off the ground. Of all the most successful clubs at the time (Broncos, Bulldogs, Dragons, Raiders, Panthers and Sea Eagles) only the Sea Eagles and Dragons didn't jump and the rest, apart from the Broncos, were all very desperate for cash and almost certainly would have gone under without it.
It could also be argued that had the Bears and/or the Dragons jumped over to the SL that they would still be around today, un-merged and still in the NRL. It could also be argued that had the money been on offer to them (which it wasn't to those that don't know) and they'd taken it, that both the Chargers and the Crushers would most likely still be around today also.
It's very interesting to wonder how things could have been different if News could have gotten either or both the Knights and the Bears on board, like they originally planned (which would have removed the need for both the Rams and the Mariners). It's also interesting to note that at the time both the Bears and Knights (and later on the Dragons) were not particularly in dire straits (though that changed by the end of the SL war) and they were the ones that refused News limited, which leads me to believe that if the other clubs weren't up sh!t creek they may have refused the SL also, which means that apart from the Broncos the other 'traitors' were almost certainly only in the SL for self preservation and not because they saw it as the future of RL (or any of the other tag lines that were put out by the SL at the time).
