Yosser

That's the Sports Rights man making that claim not me , Oxford. However I agree with you that if he is going to claim the BBC would not ditch RL for political reasons, he needs to back that up. It's a big claim but he doesn't explain or justify it.

Dave Woods interviews an independent Sports Rights Consultant and former Head of BBC Sports Rights, who says RL is no longer a strategic summer sport for Sky and it may even be paying too much for RL now ! It used to be seen as filling the gap in the Football season but Formula 1 and cricket now fill that role for them. So when Sky is taken over the new owners may not see a need for RL. However it seems not everyone would necessarily want to ditch us. He claims that with the BBC Sports Department now based in Salford it would be difficult for the BBC politically to walk away from RL but he insists the BBC need to sell the Challenge Cup more and that the RFL need to push for this. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p064gq87

Thanks for that Krzzy. I enjoyed Jy's story about how he knocked himself out. Priceless ! 1:38

There is already a thread on this topic with 67 replies further down the page. No harm done, they'll merge the threads.

Although it is way to early in the season to be talking in terms of "thrashed" 1.9M compared to 1.4M gives the NRL 26% more viewers than the AFL which if it continued to the end of the season would certainly make sponsors sit up.

"AFL viewership on pay TV is down almost 6% after two rounds of their competition while the NRL has gone the other way and is up 6%." "In total, across both pay TV and free-to-air, the NRL thrashed the AFL 1.9 million viewers to 1.5 million." I wouldn't call it "thrashed" but it's certainly very encouraging. http://the81stminute.com/2018/04/doomsayers-think-again-as-nrl-smash-afl-in-tv-ratings/

Assuming that's Canadian $s then that's £55. Maybe they should have included a Baseball hat and/or Tee shirt to beef up the package. But then I understand they have had problems in the past getting supplies of merchandise.

Good clean fast game so far and the first penalty not until the 10 minute mark.

"As a bonus to the Club, Marwan will match the gate receipts taken on the day ......." To continue to throw money at Salford after the way some fans responded when he owned it is remarkable. He is still trying to build bridges with people he offended when he first came into the sport, even Gary Hetherington; "Much of @leedsrhinos success is down to the best administrator in RL, Gary Hetherington . I may have not got on with him but I wish I listened to him when I first came into the sport" I think all this suggests he is itching to get back into the game in some capacity.

re Steve Mascord on twitter 20 minutes ago; If @RLChallenge1 is called off, that’s it for me. #rugbyleague will be nothing more than an income stream. It clearly has a self destruct gene due to its working class origins. I’m NOT going down with the ship. Good riddance.

Now a three way race; 1) A fresh bid from ARL 2) Waikato-based businessmen who have funds from Chinese backers .3) The U.S consortium. A NZ TV reporter interviews the people behind the U.S. bid on the link below on the 9th March https://twitter.com/MattManukia

Excellent documentary. I was impressed by their researched. They even tracked down a clip from the BBC Sports Personality of the year for 1972 when GB won the RL World Cup with Clive Sullivan as captain. While showing a clip of some pompous presenter from SPOTY Carolyn Hitt says; "..... a Welsh man captaining a World Cup winning side and scoring in the final surely that would cause some ripples back home. Amazingly Clive's achievement does n't even warrant a single mention." Very satisfying to see the BBC's prejudices exposed.

A lot of this will be known to most older RL supporters, but it is important that it is being voiced on Welsh TV and by Wales on line. That the writer of this piece knew nothing of this is proof of how important it is that this piece of history be retold.

NSW 26 Queensland 28 Great finish

Following on from some of the posters above on the theme of guests and accents, I'd like to see former Backchat guest Lionel Hurst (ex All Golds Chairman) invited back. He is so not the RL stereotype it's almost surreal watching him talk so knowledgeably about RL. In particular I'd like to hear his opinion of the demise of the All Golds and what he thinks of the chances of Bristol getting off the ground.