Dave T

A key element of being televised is that scheduling is affected. Some of that impact will be through no-standard days/times, but some will be down to lateness of changes. But those things are only happening because of a TV deal. When people talk about tv deals impacting crowds, they aren't just talking about the actual end point of the match being on telly.

It's 3 NRL games per week.

It would be weird if it didn't. But the RL journo claimed otherwise.

I think that metric is pretty much worthless this year tbh.

It feels a bit of a basic commercial agreement for all income to be split as described. I can understand it to an extent, but hopefully it is people misunderstanding it, as it is set up to cause issues.

It'll be interesting to see if we ever find out the accurate viewing figs for this current system. All we have to go off really are weekends like Magic Weekend historically. We have generally seen that the audience has been spread a little, bug total audience is higher than only 2 games, as you'd expect. That Magic saw c650k viewers across the 6 games (4 matches on Arena only, 2 on Arena and Main). We know that broadly we average c150k per match, so showing 4 extra games more than doubled the audience. Of course we don't have stats on unique viewers etc, but then we've never compared that, so there is no reason we should do that here. Obviously this year we have overlap, so figures won't be as high as 650k per week, but it'll be interesting to see what we are bringing in.

More importantly, how rubbish is this weekend? Only 2 live UK 'TV' games!

All three, the NRL game casually and then the other two properly if I can free up time from some chores and stuff.

I wonder why we are seeing so many sellouts this year, or is my perception wrong here? There certainly seems to be a lot of positive noises about certain games.

I expect that, like those who insist all games should kick off at different times, they will appreciate that the last round is an exceptional event and can happily be treated differently.

I must admit, joking aside, I do have some sympathy with this view, but I think it's more a general view of less is more with commentators. I'd rather they quieten down and let us hear from the refs and let it play out in front of us.

Rolling hills of leafy Cheshire, why?

Superb, a new angle on spoilers to debate

Do Premier League games start with Bundesliga spoilers?

We can flip that to suit. They tried something new (spoilers when showing other games - they haven't done it ever before for RL) and it delivers no uplift, that's hardly a success. As I say, ultimately, it's a preference, we have different preferences, happy to disagree.

I'll bet if you didn't do it viewers wouldn't drop.

Aye, that doesn't bother me tbh, however with an open mind we should consider there are maybe better ways. As has been pointed out, these games are played during 9-5 working hours, so watching methods for these are more likely to be on delay. I'm not sure why they can't even just show a try and sell it by saying there was a stunning match and watch it on catch up etc. That just feels a better model tbh - especially when we consider that Premier League coverage doesn't start with Bundesliga results, so that one is quite unique, and tbh quite unnecessary.

I think one point touched on by GJ about sport being live is probably important from Sky's point of view. Even though people's methods of watching are changing. And things like delays are used, let's be honest, they want us watching Live so that we can't forward the ads. One of the positives about maybe watching a match on a 20 minute delay is breaks can be nudged on, and I'm not sure thats what they want. I don't think this is some kind of fan experience thinking piece, especially when they don't bother doing it on the secondary matches really, other than a fumbled mention at times.

This isn't really true though. A quick search does show people in other sports ranting about the same things. Many major sports apps do have spoiler blockers too, so it is a thing. Ultimately it's a preference thing, but it ain't just an RL thing. Spoiler alerts are a huge thing across entertainment in general too. If it doesn't bother people, fine, but it isn't weird that it does bother some people.

I think Wales needs to be thought about differently. If we look at their four Premier clubs, that shows that despite all of their advantages and huge central funding etc, Union still can't really form huge clubs. I think we will always struggle building a top flight club there. That said, I find the Welsh sporting public to be far more open to RL than many other areas in my experience, and they do have a rich history in RL, so I think we should be making more effort at grassroots and player development levels. I think Welsh players have historically been a good fit, there are all sorts of complex reasons why they fit better than English RU players I'm sure, but they have been a natural fit, and the public have often been happy to come along and support RL when played there - although we shouldn't dismiss the draw that the likes of Davies, Quinnell, Moriarty, Devereux, Bateman etc were for them.

I'm enjoying that, although RL can be challenging as there are far fewer breaks to flick over to the other channels. If a games rubbish it's nice to be able to move on. Friday night is now pretty much guaranteed SL on tv, whereas previously it was always very much dependent on the match.

Reported.

Fair enough. Plenty I agree with here. I've said my piece on this overall, happy to mildly disagree on a few points, but all good mate!

It looks like their 'main' games get the full treatment. The Wire v Hull KR game is on in a 15m format six times over the next 12 hours or so. The WCC on around half a dozen (qhr highlights) over the next day. It looks like they cover 2 matches with full production and the other 4 on the cheap. I think that's an OK starting point, and I assume that's a reason for these being hidden behind the app in future.

I'm not sure we are strongly disagreeing on this point, I just think your slant is unnecessarily negative on this. As long as I've watched the game (40ish years) there have been calls for more support for France, there still is. I've listed what I think are the potential benefits that could be realised with a well implemented strategy, but many of those things could also be recognised with other territories. France was the natural place to play, in the same way NZ was for the NRL, but it was hardly a pot of gold sitting waiting to be taken. And if it was an exploitative relationship, I'd argue that the UK game have been the worst exploiters around.