I find it hard to believe that the Reds were paying travel costs in 96-97 during the excesses of the SL war when reserve graders were getting paid half a mil sign on bonuses.
I never said that they were paying travel costs in 96-97, however I believe that were in 96 but not in 97.
However by that time they thought that they were safe.
In the end it wasn't the travel costs that killed them it was Murdoch screwing them, but it was (mainly) expenses from the travel costs that put them on the path to signing up to SL in the first place.
However, The Reds Management did offer to pay these costs in their bid document before they were admitted to the comp. I find it dishonest that some use this as some type of ARL inspired reason that ultimately ended up bankrupting them.
Again I don't know whether or not the ARL pressured the Reds into paying the travel costs or if they offered to do so themselves, and nor do I think the ARL was intentionally setting them up to fail if they did pressure them into it.
In my opinion it was a series of bad business decisions probably made by both the Reds and the ARL that lead to them having to pay those travel cost, that also left them on death row before they had got of the ground, and not some strange scheme set in place by the ARL to set them up to fail.
In the end, the Reds failed. Murdoch could have saved them if he so chose ( like he did the Warriors and Cowboys who went broke as well)
Apart from the money that he gave them during the war Murdoch didn't really do anything to help either the Cowboys or the Warriors survive.
The only clubs that the Murdochs' and News helped were the Broncos and the Storm, the rest were left to fend for themselves.
The Rams and Mariners were never getting saved.
Well their was a serious opportunity for the Mariners to merge with the Chargers that would have saved both of them, but it fell through, and realistically speaking the Rams could have continued to survive had News not taken all their assets and given them to the Storm and then cut their funding.
The Mariners died because they couldn't agree to terms with the Chargers and the Rams suffered the same fate as the Reds and were wrapped up to give the Storm the best chance of being an instant success.