Saints V Wigan not on TV

[Tommygilf]

Well I mean it says it all there really. Saints home game against Wigan will be the first non televised SL derby ever - whoever said loop fixtures were a great idea.

Instead Sky have gone with the much more crucial for the season clash of Leeds v KR at Headingley. The Thursday night game is Hull v London too. Clearly the relegation battle is more interesting! Either that or Leeds are such a huge draw Sky wants as many of their games on as possible before we potentially go down???

 

[Damien]

That is revealing.

[Moove]

Not sure it's anything to do with the loop fixtures, more a case of Saints being clear at the top and Wigan being poor so far this season. If it had been a top of the table clash then it would have been on TV. The Leeds game is on paper more likely to be competitive with quite a lot riding on it. Should hopefully boost the Saints crowd also.

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Moove said:

Not sure it's anything to do with the loop fixtures, more a case of Saints being clear at the top and Wigan being poor so far this season. If it had been a top of the table clash then it would have been on TV. The Leeds game is on paper more likely to be competitive with quite a lot riding on it. Should hopefully boost the Saints crowd also.

I can see your point. However surely this game is the biggest game in RL it doesn't matter where in the table these two are, hence why it has ALWAYS been shown. This is like not showing the 3rd Old Firm game or Man City V United or the Merseyside Derby.

[costa]

As a neutral I'd rather see the game with more on the line. Leeds v Hull KR ticks that box. 

[Dave T]

6 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I can see your point. However surely this game is the biggest game in RL it doesn't matter where in the table these two are, hence why it has ALWAYS been shown. This is like not showing the 3rd Old Firm game or Man City V United or the Merseyside Derby.

Sky do seem to be taking a slightly different approach to things this year with things like their presentation and commentary team etc. I'm not sure if this is to do with the new producer or what. 

It should be pointed out though that the figures, whilst decent in RL terms, aren't always blockbuster, and maybe Sky are showing their lethargy to these repeat fixtures. 

Personally I am ok with it.

[RidingPie]

Sky want to show entertaining close games. This year it is unlikely that this will be the case. 

They've got commercial interests to think of so I don’t think this is an issue 

[Tommygilf]

9 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

It seems a bit of an overstatement. I think more goes in to choosing these games than people realise. Its certainly not purely on the bigger figures or what they think the biggest game will be. If it were we certainly wouldn't be having Salford v Hudds on a Thursday next week. 

Thursday games are slightly different though as I get the sense clubs don't want to play these and only do so because Sky wants it. 

Also I don't think it is an overstatement. This is a watershed moment where one of Super League's founding marquee fixtures has been dropped.

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, costa said:

As a neutral I'd rather see the game with more on the line. Leeds v Hull KR ticks that box. 

Agreed. Its a watershed moment though when this overtakes Saints v Wigan.

 

[Dave T]

7 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Yeah but by the logic that the choice of Leeds v HKR is 'revealing' why would they choose that game to not only broadcast but to move and broadcast? You would certainly think its not something SL would choose to do. 

 There are a lot of practical considerations that go in to it that we don't think of, OB availability, how many times each has already been shown, what else is being shown that night, a lot of things we don't really think about. 

I don't think its a pure correlation between choice of game and size/prestige/audience for that game. 

Though I would also say that the difference in audience for these two games under any circumstances will be pretty negligible and make next to no difference to skys business

However all of those things have also been true over the last 25 years when they have showed every one of these games.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

How many times have Saints and Wigan played over the last 5 years? Too many. The fact you can face the same team 7 times a year is ridiculous (1 pre season, 3 league, 1 cup, 2 play offs) 

[Tommygilf]

11 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Yeah but by the logic that the choice of Leeds v HKR is 'revealing' why would they choose that game to not only broadcast but to move and broadcast? You would certainly think its not something SL would choose to do. 

There are a lot of practical considerations that go in to it that we don't think of, OB availability, how many times each has already been shown, what else is being shown that night, a lot of things we don't really think about. 

I don't think its a pure correlation between choice of game and size/prestige/audience for that game. 

Though I would also say that the difference in audience for these two games under any circumstances will be pretty negligible and make next to no difference to skys business

If you're going to argue Saints v Wigan isn't a marquee fixture every year you have to be joking. Its built up every year regardless of form etc. I'd bet its likely to be a cracker anyway. It is a prestige game of the Super League Era, quite literally the Derby, and the relegation fight is being shown instead. 

 

[jacksy]

I see they didn't drop the one true Derby

[Tommygilf]

Whats interesting from a Sky/SL TV rights negotiation is the thought process behind this.

Is it "we don't want loop fixtures, neither do the clubs as they struggle to sell tickets". In that case Loop fixtures will have to go - they've diminished one of the biggest games in the League.

Or is it "Leeds are a big draw on TV and KR travel well and its a 4 pointer so its probably a better game to show" in which case we face the dilemma of SL being more interesting with p/r but also everything that comes with that. Including of course the risk of a big TV draw team like "Leeds" being relegated.

[Chris22]

To be fair, Saints vs Wigan is one of the few fixtures not to suffer from overkill in recent years.

We have played each other "only" 3 times every year since 2014. In 2013, there were 2 meetings. In the few years before that, and especially in the first decade of Super League, there was that element of overkill.

The later derbies in the year usually suffer from a crowd drop off. I think that the decision not to televise will reverse that this year.

In fact, I'm quite looking forward to seeing a big game with no video ref! 

When you consider what is on the line in the Leeds vs Hull KR match (and that the Thursday matches up to late July all were chosen before the season), I think this is the correct call.

[Tommygilf]

Just now, scotchy1 said:

Im not saying its not a marquee fixture at all. Im saying that a lot goes in to the scheduling of matches and the choices sky make that we don't think about. 

Im also saying that the difference between what saints v wigan would get and Leeds v Hull KR get isn't massive and even if it were it wouldn't make that much difference to Sky's business plan. 

A lot of the Saints Wigan games have been shown not necessarily because sky make a real effort to choose it but because we schedule it to be shown. 

Its not a watershed, I think you are over-estimating how much SKy care about the Saints v WIgan derby and how big an issue this decision is for them. 

Half the commentary team have played in this game. I'm pretty sure they understand at sky how big this is every time its played. Sky pick marquee fixtures regardless hence them picking saints v leeds last weekend rather than the other games that were almost all closer games table wise.

Its like the Premier League fixture between Liverpool and Man U not being shown. Sky have had this game, and almost certainly expected this game to be shown, for the past 24 years! 

The only difference is the loop fixture nature of this fixture as far as I can see. Reverse side of this is if there was no relegation no way would Leeds v Hull KR be shown instead. 

[deluded pom?]

You need to calm down a tad Tommy. It’s not the end of the world. Take some deep breaths and go and lie down in a darkened room.

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

But they don't, generally do that. They don't show every Leeds v Cas game, they didn't show every Leeds v Bradford game, they don't show every Cas v Wakefield game, they don't even show every Hull Derby. 

And I doubt, had we not made the effort in previous years to schedule the season to promote the Saints v Wigan derby (which is not a bad thing by any means) then they wouldn't have shown every Saints Wigan game. 

The structure we have now is largely the same as the structure we had between 2000 and 2007, yet sky apparently made this big effort to show all the Saints Wigan games then. 

 

Probably because those games aren't as big. Although its rare they wouldn't show those games if they are big fixtures. 

[Dave T]

51 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

But a lot of the time we have done that on purpose though haven't we. We've had them as Magic Weekend games, they are the Good Friday games, first game of the season this year

79 games since the start of SL, excluding cup games.

Games classed as compulsory for TV:

17 (5 magic, 11 playoff/GF and 1 SL on the road.)

Good Friday games (not compulsory, but traditional):

24

Other, regular SL games, optional for TV:

38

This excludes Challenge Cup games, where we can probably add another 10-15 games over this period live on BBC.

[GUBRATS]

If Wigan had been at the top , or nearer to the bottom , it would have been televised , but Wigan are in ' no man's land ' , safe but not challenging , so they go for the ' nail biter ' instead 

[Dave T]

Just now, scotchy1 said:

I think that kind of supports my point. 

It supports the point that Sky have chosen to televise Saints v Wigan wherever and whenever we have staged them, but have chosen not to this time.

[Dave T]

5 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

And more than half the time (not even including the ones deliberately scheduled for Broadcasters, I.e First game of the year this year) that hasn't really been a choice to make. 

Well your point is of course right if you are going to count games that Sky choose to show as being compulsory. 

[hindle xiii]

Gotta show Leeds Leeds Leeds while they still can can can.

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Which other games were they going to show in the traditional Good Friday slot we have put them in deliberately? 

Imagine a world where we hadn't put 24 good Friday derbies on, we hadn't put 5 magic games on, and 1 of them weren't on the road. They were just normal standard games. Like they are for many other big games. Do you think Sky would have shown every single one of these 30 games over the last 24 years? 

Dave literally separated those.

Its the 38 other ones that are indicative of how Sky have viewed this game for 24 years.

[deluded pom?]

Is Man U v Man C a compulsory must see TV game or is that just a recent phenomenon due to City’s new money? I can’t recall it being that big a game outside of Manchester in the past whereas Liverpool v United has always had more appeal nationally IMO.