Sky Sports halves offer for TV rights

[Tex Evans Thigh]

1 hour ago, Big Picture said:

How many viewers does a third of the members (I presume that's what you meant) of your RU club represent?  If that holds with other RU clubs in England, how many viewers in total might that represent?

It clearly doesn't represent a great deal or the funding wouldn't be slashed in half. I suspect many RU fans respect RL and will watch it when it's on but won't go out of their way to watch it, and definitely won't buy sky dishes just because of it. Those types of people exist only in existing RL areas, which goes some way to explaining why Leigh got the nod for the SL spot.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

I don’t know how anyone can think Robert Elstone is still worth his £400,000 a year salary or should keep his position. He’s a complete charlatan. 

[Dave T]

6 hours ago, Damien said:

Because the RU Premiership has enough billionaires as it is. The Super whatever and Pro 14 have chased expansion though because they need to.

Pro14 haven't really expanded though tbh, it has brought together existing clubs. I think there is plenty to learn from Pro14 though, so it's a fair shout, but it is very different. 

But it brought together existing clubs in existing territories with existing rights. It just structured them differently. 

Super Rugby has attempted some expansion into new territories, and had to back out. 

[Dave T]

6 hours ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

That's  huge risk. I very much doubt (m)any clubs would survive that.

Of course you could. I'm surprised you haven't been snapped up by the Bulls long before now.

To clarify on this one, if the cash becomes so low from Sky, you then lose that tie to them. You can start to tout yourself to terrestrial TV for really modest amounts to compensate. At the moment nobody else will come near £40m, I think we have more chance of others at half that. 

I wouldn't give it to Sky for £20m, but I'd give rights to the BBC/C4 for £10m and then use our own setup too. 

[Dave T]

6 hours ago, Johnoco said:

It’s almost irrelevant what the reality is of the offer, what is definite is that RL is in a very weak position. It’s making it’s bed and it will have to lie in it.

It's made its bed for 25 years and ended up with £200m last time. Rights are dropping, not everything is to do with TWP as much as people want to link it back. 

[Dave T]

6 hours ago, Man of Kent said:

Why deny it? Sky have reported the same figure.

Where's that? 

[frank]

4 hours ago, Tex Evans Thigh said:

How much have we missed out on by not having Toronto and Toulouse in? Can anyone speculate on that figure? It would make for a good topic and discussion. I suspect zero difference but we'll never know. $20m is more than we deserve, it's a joke of a sport in all aspects apart from what is delivered on the pitch, which is the really sad thing.

Love the game but your bang on.

[whatmichaelsays]

9 hours ago, Scotchy1 said:

That's slightly different. But pretty much every sky sports subscriber gets all the sports channels and what sky sell is a package rather than one sport. 

For some SL is a big part of that package no doubt about it. But their decision is still based on the package of sports sky sell.

RL does have a loyal fan base but the number for whom it is the defining factor is really small.

Understanding that is key to SL building its value because if it is to increase its value to Sky, it needs to appeal to the wider sports fan. It needs to be a bigger part of that package for a bigger proportion of that audience. 

Exactly. 

Arguing that "we have a loyal base of fans who subscribe to Sky Sports" isn't a justification for a better TV deal if that loyal fan base isn't growing. 

Throughout all of this, people have made the point that SL / RL needed to spend the years before the TV deal expired finding ways to add value to prospective broadcasters for the next TV deal. That meant finding, engaging and building new audiences, as well coming up with new properties that broadcasters could buy. Those people were dismissed as "having an agenda". 

You could argue that the sport didn't have the money to do that, yet not doing it may well be the most expensive decision of the modern era. 

[Spidey]

7 hours ago, yipyee said:

St Helen's

Warrington

Leigh

Widnes

Dont know about the other side of the hill

There are more premiership football fans in Warrington than attend RL games.    The local team Warrington Town have been trying to tap into that market for years with limited success

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

57 minutes ago, Dave T said:

To clarify on this one, if the cash becomes so low from Sky, you then lose that tie to them. You can start to tout yourself to terrestrial TV for really modest amounts to compensate. At the moment nobody else will come near £40m, I think we have more chance of others at half that. 

I wouldn't give it to Sky for £20m, but I'd give rights to the BBC/C4 for £10m and then use our own setup too. 

While everyone agrees it’d be great to get Super League on free to air tv, if tv funding is cut from £40M a year to £10M a year players salaries would have to be significantly slashed. Any player that was good enough to get an NRL contract or Rugby Union deal would be leaving. It’d probably mean some part time Super League clubs, or at least a mix of full time and part time players.

[Dave T]

2 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

How long was that deal for? If it was that good, why the continual financial troubles?
I haven’t mentioned TWP,  more the mentality that is seeing RL shrink back to clubs from traditional areas.
Leigh aren’t the Harlem Globetrotters, pretty much nobody outside Leigh is going to go and see them or buy a subscription to watch them on tv. 

RL is saying ‘it’s our party and we’ll invite who we like’. Which is fine....just don’t expect others to show interest.
 

On your last point, it absolutely is our party. This is the British RL championship irrespective of any pretence that it is any kind of European Championship. This is a comp run by the RFL for much of its history, and we shouldn't be ashamed of having British teams in it. Anyone can play RL anywhere any time, but we are allowed to decide who participates in our comp, that is standard. 

Without going cross code, I'll mention Pro14 again, that is a true international comp, in that it is a joint venture with the different unions being shareholders, so decisions will be made based on those stakeholder needs, and they all bring tv and commercial value to the table. It'd be lovely if RL was in that kind of position, but we don't have different federations across different countries that you would want to partner with, as you are basically carrying them. 

I still think we should be focusing on France as the only other half-strong RL nation locally (plus other UK nations), but all the interests, money, investment is UK based, and we have no responsibility to Canada, Jamaica, USA etc - that is for the International boards. If there is value for our comp, go for it, if not, don't waste time and effort. 

 

[Hela Wigmen]

Was the BT interest rumour just that, a rumour?

[Dave T]

2 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

Channel 4 were at the first Grand Final in 1998. The rumours at the time was that they were interested in covering the game. Nothing came of it, nor since. So why are they or the cash strapped BBC, suddenly going to stump up millions now? 

£40m by Sky is enough to kill dead any interest from any other provider, as it is a huge investment. When those numbers drop substantially, that could open up the possibility of other channels being interested. Sky need to be careful too. Of course its just a hypothesis, I expect we will sign a new deal with Sky. 

[Dave T]

7 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

Exactly. RU doesn’t need to try to put a club from Canada in its top flight because a) there’s quite a bit of money in it and b ) RU in Canada is a thing. 
 

RL has to try different things, not necessarily because it wants to but because the alternative is total irrelevance.

I'm not sure those different things should be investing millions in virgin territory though. 

There is a lot to be said for getting our house in order and focusing on UK and French expansion. With the growth of Newcastle and Toulouse there is a case to say that is what we are doing. 

[Moove]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I'm not sure those different things should be investing millions in virgin territory though. 

There is a lot to be said for getting our house in order and focusing on UK and French expansion. With the growth of Newcastle and Toulouse there is a case to say that is what we are doing. 

While I don't disagree with the premise of building from stable foundations, we've been trying to do that for goodness knows how long and it's not exactly growing (or even stablising) the sport. So either we've not been doing it particularly well or it's not necessarily the right thing to do.

And Newcastle and Toulouse are focusing on Newcastle and Toulouse. 'We' as in the sport are doing nothing of the sort.

[PECETTO]

10 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I'm not sure those different things should be investing millions in virgin territory though. 

There is a lot to be said for getting our house in order and focusing on UK and French expansion. With the growth of Newcastle and Toulouse there is a case to say that is what we are doing. 

Superleague needs newcastle, york, london, bradford, Manchester, toulouse, To looks like SUPERleague.... then a good sky deal. 

[Davo5]

13 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I'm not sure those different things should be investing millions in virgin territory though. 

There is a lot to be said for getting our house in order and focusing on UK and French expansion. With the growth of Newcastle and Toulouse there is a case to say that is what we are doing. 

Have we invested millions in virgin territory ?

Are we focusing on UK & French expansion ?

Are we even getting our own house in order ?

[Dave T]

6 minutes ago, Moove said:

While I don't disagree with the premise of building from stable foundations, we've been trying to do that for goodness knows how long and it's not exactly growing (or even stablising) the sport. So either we've not been doing it particularly well or it's not necessarily the right thing to do.

And Newcastle and Toulouse are focusing on Newcastle and Toulouse. 'We' as in the sport are doing nothing of the sort.

It's a continuous thing. Newcastle have Magic and a heavy Rlwc presence. Toulouse are in the British pyramid. 

Two things we are doing. 

[Oxford]

When I come onto the threads I find I'm forever checking the title at the top pf the page as each one comes to resemble all the others. Sky offer less so they get less . If the money is halved then half the rights are theirs. I don't criticise Sky as much as some. I have it solely for RL and wouldn't give it house room if our sport wasn't there. All I read on these pages is what we're not, what we haven't got or don't do. A lack of confidence and belief in our product that puts almost nothing on the game's side that might be of value to Sky. I sometimes think the posters must be doing the negotiating with everyone because we do so badly. A game riddled with self-doubt and full of negativity can only bring Gove like bluff and bluster to the table and very little else. So can we interest someone in the portion of SL Sky clearly don't want or need?

1 minute ago, Davo5 said:

Have we invested millions in virgin territory ? No we never have and never will!

Are we focusing on UK & French expansion ? No and all very unlikely, less Sky Money less cake, less effort!

Are we even getting our own house in order ? I would say if fire fighting is getting the domestics sorted then yes.

 

[Dave T]

5 minutes ago, Davo5 said:

Have we invested millions in virgin territory ?

Are we focusing on UK & French expansion ?

Are we even getting our own house in order ?

No - which people seem outraged about (TWP). 

Yes - Newcastle and France, taking games to Liverpool etc. But I'd rather we did much more. 

Yes, daily. Running the game, spending money, doing everything we can. It's never ending. 

[Rupert Prince]

10 hours ago, The Future is League said:

We have just let in a team into Super who are in a suburb of Wigan and offer nothing to Super League that isn't already there

Yes.  Another option was a club that is is a suburb of Wakefield which already has 2 SL clubs.

The reality is there are not 12 practical clubs in SL. The reality is that whoever was put in, under the circumstances, was just a sticking plaster a short term fix.

[Moove]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

It's a continuous thing. Newcastle have Magic and a heavy Rlwc presence. Toulouse are in the British pyramid. 

Two things we are doing. 

That's next to nothing. Allowing a club to play in our leagues, playing one annual and one one-off event in a city (and even then taking the annual one off them temporarily) isn't really doing anything except closing our eyes and hoping someone at those clubs knows what they're doing and hoping they can make a success out of it.

That isn't investment, isn't growth and isn't really giving any sort of meaningful 'focus' to them.

[Man of Kent]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Where's that? 

In the Sky business desk’s story about the NRL ‘takeover’ 

[gingerjon]

2 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

In the Sky business desk’s story about the NRL ‘takeover’ 

Link: https://news.sky.com/story/australians-approach-rugbys-super-league-about-stake-purchase-12156206

[Dave T]

10 minutes ago, Moove said:

That's next to nothing. Allowing a club to play in our leagues, playing one annual and one one-off event in a city (and even then taking the annual one off them temporarily) isn't really doing anything except closing our eyes and hoping someone at those clubs knows what they're doing and hoping they can make a success out of it.

That isn't investment, isn't growth and isn't really giving any sort of meaningful 'focus' to them.

Our pyramid and access to that is the biggest asset we have.