Opportunity Missed?

[Tommygilf]

I suppose this thread is almost a week and a half late if we're considering the Championship too, but now football is back in full swing have we in RL missed out on the gap in the market whilst the football was not on?

Barely any of our games have been on Main Event (now effectively the channel most pubs have on as standard) for the past couple of months despite no competition from Football or Union on SKY. Why is this? Surely that has to be one of the major benefits of playing our regular season through Summer?

The chances of our Friday and Saturday games being on Main Event now are slim, though our Thursday games still have a chance.

For me this should be something Elstone uses in the TV negotiations. Main Event coverage has to be guaranteed or SKY exclusivity becomes far less valuable.

[gingerjon]

It's been surprising to me how little we've been on Main Event, especially given what we've been up against.

[Harry Stottle]

18 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I suppose this thread is almost a week and a half late if we're considering the Championship too, but now football is back in full swing have we in RL missed out on the gap in the market whilst the football was not on?

Barely any of our games have been on Main Event (now effectively the channel most pubs have on as standard) for the past couple of months despite no competition from Football or Union on SKY. Why is this? Surely that has to be one of the major benefits of playing our regular season through Summer?

The chances of our Friday and Saturday games being on Main Event now are slim, though our Thursday games still have a chance.

For me this should be something Elstone uses in the TV negotiations. Main Event coverage has to be guaranteed or SKY exclusivity becomes far less valuable.

I don't disagree Tommy, but and I consider it a big BUT do you actually think that Mr Elstone is going to have much bargaining power at his disposal in negotiations with Sky, I consider Sky will still be the company who offers the most money, Elstone must take the best monetary offer on the table and I believe that will still come from Sky albeit I think the offer will be a reduction of the last contract, I have a feeling so does SL hence Leneghans suggestion of no funding below SL.

[Tommygilf]

7 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

It's been surprising to me how little we've been on Main Event, especially given what we've been up against.

Absolutely, and I don't want to demean these sports, but stuff like darts, women's cricket and god knows what else we really should be comfortably above

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

I don't disagree Tommy, but and I consider it a big BUT do actually think that Mr Elstone is going to have much bargaining power at his disposal in negotiations with Sky, I consider Sky will still be the company who offers the most money, Elstone must take the best monetary offer on the table and I believe that will still come from Sky albeit I think the offer will be a reduction of the last contract, I have a feeling so does SL hence Leneghans suggestion of no funding below SL.

I can see what you're saying in that he has probably been empowered to take a lower offer on the proviso that more money is actually going to SL. I'd still think that Main Event coverage, especially outside of the football season, should be what we are aiming for with SKY, as it is considerably better than been hidden away on action and Arena. We as a sport have been massively hit by the change in channel structure, whereas we used to be able to guarantee Sky Sports 1 or 2 we are now effectively relegated to 3 and 4, the miscellaneous channels Action and Arena, behind the Golf, F1 and Cricket dedicated shows. 

By bunging us onto those 2 channels, what are Sky actually offering us? We give them content yes, but in terms of what they offer us other than finance it is very little.

[gingerjon]

5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Absolutely, and I don't want to demean these sports, but stuff like darts, women's cricket and god knows what else we really should be comfortably above

TBH, both those, once or twice, I'd not really have an issue with. But I'd swear it's close to every time. And I'm sure we've been behind PGA Golf from some random tournament as well.

Like you say, it's not arrogance to say we should be on there most weeks, especially Thursdays in the summer.

[iangidds]

3 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

What do we do to gain that though? Ive said numerous times how we could use the summer but we just don't. 

There are about 10 weeks when there is no football on and we should be pushing that as our big ten weeks. Events every week. Games scheduled to give Sky wall to wall RL. It would be so easy to schedule and sell a 1pm and a 4pm kick off on a Saturday, we could have had a 6pm kick off from Perpignan and 9pm from Toronto, with almost all their games scheduled in that 10 week block and link with the NRL for 'Super League Summer Saturdays' 

Why not a championship double header on a Sunday for 10 weeks, Or maybe a Monday game. 

Sky want events, we need to create them and those 10 weeks should be a big focus

There is no need whatsoever to have smart focused ideas like this ! There are so many simple easy fixes out there if the people in power could be bothered to think

[Tommygilf]

8 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

What do we do to gain that though? Ive said numerous times how we could use the summer but we just don't. 

There are about 10 weeks when there is no football on and we should be pushing that as our big ten weeks. Events every week. Games scheduled to give Sky wall to wall RL. It would be so easy to schedule and sell a 1pm and a 4pm kick off on a Saturday, we could have had a 6pm kick off from Perpignan and 9pm from Toronto, with almost all their games scheduled in that 10 week block and link with the NRL for 'Super League Summer Saturdays' 

Why not a championship double header on a Sunday for 10 weeks, Or maybe a Monday game. 

Sky want events, we need to create them and those 10 weeks should be a big focus

I agree that we should be doing stuff like this, hence opportunity missed.

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

I can see what you're saying in that he has probably been empowered to take a lower offer on the proviso that more money is actually going to SL. I'd still think that Main Event coverage, especially outside of the football season, should be what we are aiming for with SKY, as it is considerably better than been hidden away on action and Arena. We as a sport have been massively hit by the change in channel structure, whereas we used to be able to guarantee Sky Sports 1 or 2 we are now effectively relegated to 3 and 4, the miscellaneous channels Action and Arena, behind the Golf, F1 and Cricket dedicated shows. 

By bunging us onto those 2 channels, what are Sky actually offering us? We give them content yes, but in terms of what they offer us other than finance it is very little.

Do you recall the slogan Sky used at the begining of the season, "always thinking about Rugby League" I used to think then "always thinking about where they can hide away Rugby League" actually I missed the Catalan v Wire game the other week when they hid it away on Sky Mix, I have the series link on Areana and Action, on that day Sky broadcast a Gaelic Football match on both those channels at the time of the Cats game, and it was the same game Gaelic match simultaneously on both channels. WHY would they do that? 

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Do you recall the slogan Sky used at the begining of the season, "always thinking about Rugby League" I used to think then "always thinking about where they can hide away Rugby League" actually I missed the Catalan v Wire game the other week when they hid it away on Sky Mix, I have the series link on Areana and Action, on that day Sky broadcast a Gaelic Football match on both those channels at the time of the Cats game, and it was the same game Gaelic match simultaneously on both channels. WHY would they do that? 

Totally agree. This sort of thing is unacceptable from a broadcaster that seems to want exclusivity. This isn't the attitude we should be accepting from Sky towards our game.

[Harry Stottle]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

Totally agree. This sort of thing is unacceptable from a broadcaster that seems to want exclusivity. This isn't the attitude we should be accepting from Sky towards our game.

But as I referred to in my first post, do you think in negotiations for the next contract we will be in any position to call any shots with Sky, or will we have to take have to take it on the chin doff our caps and walk out backwards exclaiming "your humble servent Mr Sky" I personally think that will be way it will be.

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

But as I referred to in my first post, do you think in negotiations for the next contract we will be in any position to call any shots with Sky, or will we have to take have to take it on the chin doff our caps and walk out backwards exclaiming "your humble servent Mr Sky" I personally think that will be way it will be.

I can see where your cynicism is coming from, but I think we'll have to see what happens. Elstone has already turned down a paltry offer from Bein Sport in France and would hope he'd do the same from Sky. Like I said I think Main Event exposure will be a key bargaining chip in the negotiations. Without it RL may as well be part on BT with greater exposure on FTA. I agree though that Elstone will not be going for the whole game funding model the last TV negotiation went for and that could affect things.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

Given we’ve had the Cricket World Cup, Ashes, Netball World Cup etc, it’s not a surprise we haven’t featured. 

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Given we’ve had the Cricket World Cup, Ashes, Netball World Cup etc, it’s not a surprise we haven’t featured. 

The Cricket World Cup and the Ashes both finish by 7pm.

The Netball World Cup was mostly on Mix (renamed Sky Sports Netball).

[gingerjon]

32 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

it was the same game Gaelic match simultaneously on both channels

If it's the occasion I'm aware of then it wasn't. It was two games in the same competition being played at the same time.

[paulwalker71]

Leeds vs Saints is on Main Event tomorrow evening

#justsaying

 

[HawkMan]

Football offers their sport in different packages, Saturday lunchtime, Saturday evening, Sunday , Monday evening etc. Sky are only allowed so many, I think it's five out of six, or perhaps four. Couldn't RL do the same? Four packages maybe, Thursdays,Fridays, Saturday evening and perhaps Championship package. With Sky allowed three, other broadcasters, like Ch 4 may fancy one package. It's a gamble possibly, the overall income would probably be less, but exposure possibly more. As Harry Stottle said previously ( love that username), football comparisons are irrelevant really, we have the million pound game, they have the 175 million pound game, I mention this to show how Sky's finances are irrevocably tied to football. RL is a useful channel filler, but they're business people foremost, if greater RL coverage meant more bucks for Sky, they'd do it.

The real gripe with Sky I have is no matter how big the RL story or game is, it's shoehorned onto Sky sports news five minutes before the hour, a quick mention, that's it for another hour. Linking this to the Sun's casual abandoning of RL for three weeks earlier this summer, I believe the media in general think there's a static audience for RL. Have it in the paper/ don't have it, have it on Main Event / don't have it, show a game on the night that the Premier League opens/ don't have a match showing at the same time, won't matter to the RL audience figures, it's static. Hopefully that's not the case because it doesn't bode well for future tv contract negotiations.

[Dave T]

I dont think it is as bad as people are suggesting here.

A quick flick back at Barb shows that we have been on Main Event around 6 times over the last 6 weeks or so. In most cases we have been at the bottom of the top 15 that week.

The reality is that we have been left behind, the majority of shows that are ahead of us have more popular appeal than RL. 

We have generally been losing out to Golf, International football, International Cricket etc.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

50 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

The Cricket World Cup and the Ashes both finish by 7pm.

The Netball World Cup was mostly on Mix (renamed Sky Sports Netball).

It’s still little surprise that we’ve not got on regardless of the time games are finished as I’m sure there’s analysis and highlights packages on. 

 

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

It’s still little surprise that we’ve not got on regardless of the time games are finished as I’m sure there’s analysis and highlights packages on. 

 

They tend to be on the other channels. So, for example, the Ashes Debate/Verdict is on 404 after the play has finished, it's never on 401.