BRADFORD Bulls' Odsal stadium will be transformed into a profitable business which will support successful rugby as a 'by-product', chairman Marc Green has announced.

He believes it is necessary to "sweat the assets" which exist at Odsal and then develop the facilities further to create a profitable business which will support the efforts to return the Bulls to the Super League.

Plans for the business were revealed to the T&A ahead of a packed fans meeting at the Cedar Court Hotel where the Big One lottery was relaunched to raise money for youth development work at the club, an area which had been "decimated" said Mr Green.

So many fans turned up for the meeting it had to be delayed by around 40 minutes and some had to stay outside and watch on video screens.

His plans for the club's future and his assurances of commitment to the role were greeted with enthusiasm, though Mr Green admitted when he arrived he had seen it as business opportunity to create a profitable business.

In the months since then he insisted he had been won over by Bradford was now "unarguably red, amber and black".

"I always make promises I can keep and one thing I can promise is to run this club with honesty, integrity and transparency," he said.

"The most important thing for this club is not what goes off on the field. What goes off on the field is a by-product of a business run for profit.

"If this club is run that way, the by-product will be a successful team delivering top class success on the field," he said.

Earlier, he told the T&A he hoped to own the stadium, rather than occupying it as a tenant and was in negotiations over that issue.

The stadium was used for only 0.27 per cent of the time to host rugby matches and it was important to find other uses he said, but ruled out a return of speedway at the venue.

"The site doesn't work properly. We have to make the site work, it has to be a more coherent business," he said.

"We have to sweat the assets we have. We don't use the conference and banqueting to its full potential."

Mr Green declined to go into detail about what other uses may be found for the site in future, but said the first task was to make better use of what was already there.

The old shop had gone to make way for a new joint ticket office and retail outlet, with the result that sales of merchandise had increased by 300 per cent, because fans saw the goods when they turned up to buy tickets.

"It (the site) will be used as a business to generate income 24/7. We will have the money for an extremely successful youth programme, seniors and successful first team," he said.