AS the owner of a business, Mike Sunderland knows all too well the importance of ensuring the balance sheet remains healthy.

By day, the Barrow Raiders chairman makes his living running a company in Dalton supplying the oil and gas industry – a market which, at the present time, is perhaps only slightly less volatile than that of professional rugby league.

The recent liquidation and reformation of Bradford Bulls shows no team is immune to the financial uncertainty clouding the sport at present, with Sheffield Eagles, and Barrow’s Kingstone Press League One rivals York City Knights and North Wales Crusaders having suffered serious doubts over their respective futures in the past 12 months.

Indeed, it not too many year since the Raiders had similar issues, and Sunderland – who took over at the helm following David Sharpe’s resignation last year – and his fellow board members have been looking at ways to secure the club’s long-term future.

“You’ve got to tighten up and then make sure the revenue streams are there,” said Sunderland. “Anything we do, it has got to generate something as well.

“It’s not just a case of repairing what we’ve got to look at completing something that can generate an income and future-proof the club.

“These are things we have to look at; you’ve got to price up, do a risk assessment – whether it be a financial one or a building one – it’s the same with any business.

“You’ve got to weigh everything up, make sure the right decision is made and look at the return you can get off any investment. But it’s not our money to invest, we’ve got to be very careful of where we do it and how we do it. We’ve got to make sure we do get a return for any work we do.”

One change ahead of the new season has been a return to Saturday evening kick-offs at 6.30pm for home games at Craven Park from 3.30pm on Sundays, although this has met with a mixed reaction from Barrow’s supporters.

Nevertheless, Sunderland believes the timeslot will prove beneficial to the club’s attendances, although he has not ruled going back to Sundays for the second half of the league season if it is proving unpopular. The success or failure of the switch will also be reviewed at the end of the year.

“We’ve had people say it’s fantastic, we’ve had people say they don’t like it and they can’t make it, but unfortunately we can’t please everybody,” said Sunderland.

“We can change when the Super Eights come on. We’ve got to agree fixtures for that, so it is what it is. It (Saturday evening) was successful a couple of years ago.

“We thought we’d go back to a Sunday and try that, but unfortunately we’re tied to a certain time on a Sunday and I think the gates did suffer last year through that.

“Going back to a Saturday was a bit of a no-brainer for us this year, but that’s not to say that if we could start earlier on a Sunday next year, we might go back to that.

“We just need to see what league we’re in and what we’re doing. These decisions are made year to year.”

The recently-launched Raiders’ supporters trust are already involved in a variety of fundraising initiatives with the intention of generating enough money to help the club bring in a new player.

Meanwhile, Sunderland and the board are looking at everything from bringing back a reserve team to possible ground improvements at Craven Park, although nothing will happen without the finances being in place.

And while JF Hornby and Co and Process Pipework Services have come on board as the two new main sponsors, the chairman knows the Raiders must try to secure other partnerships to support them as they bid to win promotion and establish themselves back in the Championship.

“We’ve got to be looking at being up there for promotion,” said Sunderland. “Really, we want to be up into the Championship now and I think we’re ready.

“We’ve got a bit of work to do behind the scenes, we want to look at a few ideas for next year that can maybe bring in some more revenue and open us up to non-rugby events at the ground.

“I think we can’t keep hitting the same people all of the time for sponsorship and support, we’ve got to look beyond that.

“One of the ambitions is to get a reserve team up and running, but we’ve got to do a financial assessment on that to make sure we can afford to do it, but I’m quite happy with the way things are going and the progress.”