Dave T

Should never have even been a penalty, never mind a yellow imo.

They've mastered shots of the rain though!

Yup. Shame really.

Interception full length try!

You're welcome to give your own opinion.

It still doesn't excuse only a couple of cameras and a rubbish sound setup. BBC Sport online coverage is usually still decent.

It's rubbish. Really not good enough tbh. It doesn't look like anyone's interested, fans, broadcasters, clubs.

I think they've focused on the wrong things, constantly shifting the dates and trying double headers at semi final and final stage. Putting top clubs coming in really late has generally been seen as a negative. None of those things are going to get more bums on seats in meaningful numbers. I wouldn't say they've done anything really to make it more attractive to punters. Wire v London this weekend is a tough sell. But tbh, Wire look like they aren't even bothering and I expect they'll get 4k or so as a reward. It's as low-key as they come. It's as much on the clubs as it is the RFL. It's weird, because the opportunity to get a half decent crowd has probably better returns than many league games which has many as ST holders. But in reality it'll have the feel of a pre-season friendly and isn't worth getting off your backside for.

I think that's a good question. Because on the surface they may appear to have done bits and bobs, but I don't think they have done anything of any substance.

Yep, speaking to companies LIKE sky is far better than using their website. It's probably the opposite of most companies.

22% of the SL commercial deals is a substantial amount of money.

To be fair, we have had various different TV deals for our 2nd tier over the years, right back to the BBC, ITV and Channel 5, as well as Sky Sports, Premier and Viaplay, so somebody obviously is asking. But I'm not sure I can think of any comparable sport that gets its 2nd tier broadcast prominently, certainly not on major terrestrial TV. In reality, we are talking really minor leagues (SL ain't exactly huge!) and TV deals with the likes of Premier are probably the level, at best maybe a Sky Sports deal, but we've even seen there that they don't commit.

I suppose your first para shows that it ain't so simple. Commercial agreements can be written however you want them to be written, meaning future protection can be written in without this structure. I can understand to an extent having a fixed % share of distributable income - in principle this means the clubs outside of SL get plenty of 'freebies' as most commercial income is driven from SL, but it does come with unintended consequences like this. Where is the incentive for non-SL clubs to try new things, take deals like this if their reward for it is less than 20% of the commercial value it brings in? The principle of 'the more we put in, the more we get out' is sound, but it does deliver poor outcomes like this, where decisions can be made for the wrong reasons.

I've never been a fan of these tackles (James Graham used to be bad for them) and imo they can be far more dangerous than a high tackle with the arm which we'd see given red.

That head on head contact would be a red card in SL. And I must admit, I think it's hard to argue against. The tackler rose into the tackle and made to attempt to move his head into a safe place. It's quite a horrible injury that can absolutely be prevented.

Yeah, like I say, I get it as a statement for fans/media etc. A 7 year contract doesn't really do anything that a more standard 5 year contract doesn't do. It's PR really, which isn't a bad thing. I think the only other 7 year contract we've seen here though was Brodie Croft!

At risk of becoming a rout this one.

Some lovely slick passing there, looks easy but high quality stuff.

Ah, it's not a place I ever venture tbh.

What is the longest coaching tenure in the SL era? Always weird these 7 year deals. They are there to send a message really, but I'm not sure why you'd ever offer somebody a 7 year deal, especially not an assistant coach.

Yeah, working from home has benefits for these Thursday matches!

What about the share for RL comm, including the RFL and IMG? I expect the split isn't that simple.

We do need to get a clear view of what are the benefits of a lower league TV deal. I know people who say it offers no benefits are dismissed as neanderthals, but we do need to be wary of fantasy stuff. Let's be honest, there is no up front financial value in this deal, hopefully no costs at best. But we do need to have a clear strategy around how to turn it into a positive - we can all talk about things like awareness, benefits for sponsors, fan engagement etc. but I'm not convinced many of these bullet points are worth the paper they are written on for 2nd and 3rd tier comps with clubs the size of ours. I don't think it's just as clear cut as seeing any tv deal as a positive.

I think it's a bit more random than that tbh. We've got Thurs/Fri/Sat for the next couple of weeks, then a Sunday, they we have a Friday and a Saturday double header. There is obviously a selection person, not sure whether that's on game attractiveness for UK audience, or based on Sky schedules.

Yup. It's a poor structure if that is what's been agreed. And we are just going off RL journos. Things should pass the sniff test, and this doesn't. It's not difficult to have commercial agreements that are weighted in favour of the main focus of the deal. I'm sure international tv deals won't be weighted like that, so I'm not sure it will be true.