gingerjon

One of the lowest quality penalty shoot outs follows one of the worst England performances but because the Lionesses get the win I DO NOT REMOTELY CARE. It really is only soccer that behaves like this. Love it.

They don’t step in for those now. This is absolutely insane.

It’s done. Team needs an overhaul and the defence needs their marching orders.

His severance package was 300k. The loss on the Odsal shenanigans to the RFL is, what, 900k. His vison is forever short term. His list of failures extensive. The damage caused by his actions irreperable. So, yes, I'm happy to accept for me that it is personal *as well as* the absolute unnecessary carnage caused by the ridiculous coup that, so far, has delivered precisely nothing. So I can add to the list above: failure to deliver review on time, failure to take control of any of the issues affecting the game, failure to be open on any aspect of governance.

I did some reading around the TV deal based on responses at the time. There were a lot of negative comments about it from those within the game. An especially damning voice was Ian Lenagan who said that the sport had chosen big money now (then) but that by isolating itself from broadcasters for 8 years would struggle to repeat that in the future. I’d argue he has broadly been proved right on that. We start every TV round as if it’s the first time we’ve done it. Of course, I’d also argue that Lenagan has also been part of the problem numerous times as well so I’m just flagging this up as “for interest”.

We did the maths a bit back for whether League 1 clubs could make a profit on streaming. A bang average set up, which is not the quality of the Sky additional games, is, for a punter to buy, about £1,200 a match. Even taking that low figure and multiplying it by 4 and then by 26 rounds you get to a value of 125k.

An AI Eddie Waring for the retro slots. Steve Ryder to come on every so often to mispronounce Salford and interrupt coverage so we cover the 2.40 from Wincanton.

You just need an iPhone and someone shouting “I can’t spayk”.

It’s real rugby league people appealing to real rugby league fans. For a certain mindset, especially say a group who resent any outside interference, that may be very appealing.

If I were asked, not that I have been, I would probably say that Super League is my reason for subscribing to Sky. At least in the sense of what motivated me to do so. But having now done so, if Super League leaves Sky it doesn’t necessarily follow that I will go where Super League goes. And I’m unlikely to feel the value of a £40 a month per SL platform.

I wasn't sure if anyone had covered which got the bigger viewing figures England v Wales in the women's Euros or Chelsea v PSG in the Club World Cup so I looked it up. https://shekicks.net/england-euro-2025-viewing-figures-club-world-cup-final/ The coverage on TV channel ITV One averaged 2.9m viewers and peaked at 4.4m. This is more than double the audience that tuned in to Channel 5 to watch Chelsea vs PSG. The average viewing figure on Channel 5 was 1.1m, with a peak of 2.3m. DAZN streaming will add a bit*, but not much, to those numbers and, obviously, globally, the CWC will be well ahead but interesting nevertheless. * as indeed would ITVX and S4C streaming to the England-Wales game.

It's even better than that. You're missing out the very objective and well-thought-through bits where we get Nigel wouldn't have done that added to anything that happened with any negative connotations outside of the Nigel Wood Era of RL Greatness. Even when, for example Stobart, Nigel did do that.

If that's Ratcliffe's assessment of Manchester United then it's no wonder he's been an abject failure when given the keys to any sports side. United's cash position is because of the leveraged deal, illegal in most countries, that the Glazers used to 'purchase' the club and then put the debt from their own money raising onto the club's balance sheet. It's a trick similar to that used by a lot of venture capital purchases - Toys R Us being the one most people have heard of - and has nothing to do with any of the things listed in the summary above. But it's a nice distraction from addressing any of the real issues constructively, I guess.

Yes, I get that and a it’s a good line (genuinely), but it’s not what transparent means, sadly, in recruitment and governance.

Scabs