Who would you choose for SL coverage if you could

[Tommygilf]

43 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

BT Sports is an extremely tough sell for sponsorships?  How did the RU Premiership land a title sponsorship worth 40 million £ for 4 years being on BT Sports then??

Because RU has friends in high places and for the most part owns the word "Rugby" in the circles that matter, they received 8 figure sponsorship from a bank entirely owned by the tax payer within the past 10 years

[Sports Prophet]

channel 7

[M j M]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

Sky currently get exclusive control of 6 super league fixtures a weekend and in normal times choose to broadcast only 2 with an extra 3rd on beamback from France every other week for free.

I'm not sure that's right. I think the normal contract puts a limit on how many games they have the right to show over a season and they're only showing more at the moment because we've mutually agreed they can.

[Rupert Prince]

4 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Who would you choose for SL coverage if you could

It is pointless suggesting BBC since there is no advertising money to sell by advertising. They will only pay peanuts.

The best would be any traditional TV channel / Freeview.  The channel can then make money out of advertising.  And as far as the public, its free to air. The BBC have no money to sell.  It just wants to send money drab miserable dramas and humouless comedians.

[Saint Toppy]

A partnership deal would be ideal. A primary partner on a pay site such as Sky who get first choice of games to broadcast every week and then a junior partner on a commercial TV station such as ITV or Channel 4 who can select to broadcast games from the ones the primary partner doesn't want each week.. Ideally they could also include the Championship.

So the primary partner shows a live SL game Thursday, Friday & Saturday, then the junior partner shows a double header on Sunday, 1 SL game followed by a Championship game

[Tommygilf]

38 minutes ago, M j M said:

I'm not sure that's right. I think the normal contract puts a limit on how many games they have the right to show over a season and they're only showing more at the moment because we've mutually agreed they can.

They own exclusivity to the live broadcasts though, the contract is for x number of games.

I suppose its a difficult one because currently without Sky being there the games aren't filmed to broadcast quality. So they are both the broadcasters and producers.

[Bleep1673]

There used to be a pub in Hastings

[Bleep1673]

1 minute ago, Bleep1673 said:

There used to be a pub in Hastings

OOOPS, I meant to continue, that would show the Thursday game without asking, sometimes the Friday game too, between the Football seasons.

[Bleep1673]

In the History of the BBC RL coverage, they have only had Mr Eddie "Up 'n' Under" Waring, Mr Ray "erm, erm erm erm" French, and Dave Woods, How many other sports have had this lack of commentators?

[Leyther_Matt]

19 minutes ago, Bleep1673 said:

OOOPS, I meant to continue, that would show the Thursday game without asking, sometimes the Friday game too, between the Football seasons.

Which I fully expect to be the case nationwide whenever we’re on Main Event. 

[Hela Wigmen]

Sky. The coverage itself is good. We’ve got multiple cameras offering multiple angles and the general viewing experience, on the whole isn’t bad. 

Sky’s issues though are the presentation team. It’s been a case of the grass not being greener. Eddie and Stevo copped stick for years and people called for w freshen up. We got one and it’s not particularly good. The Welsby try at the Grand Final saw shambolic commentary, for example. 

We have a dress down approach to it, which is pretty modern and growing in every day life in the working world. Admittedly, the dress sense of Carney and Clarke isn’t to everyone’s taste and could be better. 

Barrie and Terry are like two blokes in a pub and offer little of any insight or knowledge, Jon Wells seems a bit of a bystander now the player analysis stuff post-match has gone, Phil Clarke is insufferable and should have gone years ago and for a lead Carney is atrocious. Jenna Brooks doing the pitch side stuff, however, is an infinite step up from Angela Powers and her questions that simply weren’t true (she asked Shaun Wane about keeping a team scoreless and he looked bemused and said “we conceded two tries”). Bill Arthur, as above, just doesn’t appear to be the best commentator. He doesn’t talk or describe with any emotion or any particular use of language as a tool and big moments, which admittedly suffer because of a lack of crowds, suffer even more. 

With a bit of a brush up aesthetically and a bit of a joint initiative to push the sport via social media and other channels and I don’t see why we’d want to jump into bed with anyone else unless the money was significantly better. 

[THE RED ROOSTER]

BT Sport, if it also had live games simulcast on Channel 5 and Channel 4 as Rugby Union has. If the game ever was to contract to 2 x 10 I would even think about bringing back the Floodlit Trophy for a terrestrial channel sold seperately.

For sure, SKY have the biggest customer base but I am convinced that the waty a sport can enter the public consciousness is through being on as many platforms as possible. The current arrangement with SKY / BBC has been going on for over 25 years and the game has declined behind a paywall.

Time to accept that even if it means less money short term, greater exposure can enhance the product long term and increase revenue.

[Tommygilf]

3 hours ago, THE RED ROOSTER said:

BT Sport, if it also had live games simulcast on Channel 5 and Channel 4 as Rugby Union has. If the game ever was to contract to 2 x 10 I would even think about bringing back the Floodlit Trophy for a terrestrial channel sold seperately.

For sure, SKY have the biggest customer base but I am convinced that the waty a sport can enter the public consciousness is through being on as many platforms as possible. The current arrangement with SKY / BBC has been going on for over 25 years and the game has declined behind a paywall.

Time to accept that even if it means less money short term, greater exposure can enhance the product long term and increase revenue.

I think the only way that would make sense would be if BT offered a significantly different customer base to Sky. Anecdotally I doubt that.

I agree that we need to diversify our output though as cricket and RU have realised being behind a paywall comes with the costs of visibility too.

[Mr Plow]

4 hours ago, Hela Wigmen said:

Sky. The coverage itself is good. We’ve got multiple cameras offering multiple angles and the general viewing experience, on the whole isn’t bad. 

Sky’s issues though are the presentation team. It’s been a case of the grass not being greener. Eddie and Stevo copped stick for years and people called for w freshen up. We got one and it’s not particularly good. The Welsby try at the Grand Final saw shambolic commentary, for example. 

We have a dress down approach to it, which is pretty modern and growing in every day life in the working world. Admittedly, the dress sense of Carney and Clarke isn’t to everyone’s taste and could be better. 

Barrie and Terry are like two blokes in a pub and offer little of any insight or knowledge, Jon Wells seems a bit of a bystander now the player analysis stuff post-match has gone, Phil Clarke is insufferable and should have gone years ago and for a lead Carney is atrocious. Jenna Brooks doing the pitch side stuff, however, is an infinite step up from Angela Powers and her questions that simply weren’t true (she asked Shaun Wane about keeping a team scoreless and he looked bemused and said “we conceded two tries”). Bill Arthur, as above, just doesn’t appear to be the best commentator. He doesn’t talk or describe with any emotion or any particular use of language as a tool and big moments, which admittedly suffer because of a lack of crowds, suffer even more. 

With a bit of a brush up aesthetically and a bit of a joint initiative to push the sport via social media and other channels and I don’t see why we’d want to jump into bed with anyone else unless the money was significantly better. 

Yeah sky’s coverage needs a shake up. Eddie and Steve were tough to follow after they’d been there since the start but I’d like to see coverage more like the BBC with current and recently retired players

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

8 hours ago, To Be Confirmed said:

would be interested to see the reasoning behind this? Exclusivity carries a premium which sky obviously currently pay for. I would hazard a guess that you would not get anywhere near what has currently been offered and its doubtful that any other broadcaster paying for a few games would make up the deficit. dangerous game going down that route

Not for the RU premiership and BT Sports and Channel 5

Or cricket now and Channel 4

 

[Oldbear]

Whoever can continue to sell games to Canada, although they are behind the Sportsnet World paywall it does mean that 2 SL games a week are getting broadcast here. If Amazon were to get SL then I’m pretty sure we would see nothing in Canada (for example we never got the We Play League programme). Although I suspect SL viewing figures over here are very low, at least people see that the NRL is not the only RL in the world.

[To Be Confirmed]

On 19/02/2021 at 19:14, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Not for the RU premiership and BT Sports and Channel 5

Or cricket now and Channel 4

 

Difference being tat the sports you mentioned are played extensively across the entire country, Despite what most believe Rugby League is predominantly played in the north of England with a few clubs operating outside that bubble. you only have to look at the fixtures in both Rugby Union and Cricket to see that. 

As has been pointed out previously sky are not only the Broadcasters they are the producers of the game as well. Meaning any other broadcaster would not only have to pay the game for the rights to show it but also the full production costs of each of those games. 

A £5m per season deal suddenly ends up costing the broadcaster much more than that which they aren't guaranteed to see any return.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

The BBC always get very good viewing figures for Rugby League. Whether it’s BBC or another channel getting some Super League games on free to air tv is a possibility and something we should strive for. If the Challenge Cup is played early to mid season, we should look to get a handful of Super League games on free to air tv mid to late season, giving fairly regular Rugby League coverage on free to air tv.

[To Be Confirmed]

6 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

The BBC always get very good viewing figures for Rugby League. Whether it’s BBC or another channel getting some Super League games on free to air tv is a possibility and something we should strive for. If the Challenge Cup is played early to mid season, we should look to get a handful of Super League games on free to air tv mid to late season, giving fairly regular Rugby League coverage on free to air tv.

In order to do that Sky would have to agree to relinquish their exclusivity which i doubt they will do without receiving some form of rebate against what they have already paid. therefore we would need tot eh BBC to not only pay for those rights to make up that shortfall but also pay the full production costs of the gams. its not going to happen.  

[Hela Wigmen]

Obviously an international game mid-season on BBC would be great. It’s quite an ask at the minute, admittedly, but it would be beneficial, I feel.

It would be nice if key points of the season (first and last rounds of the season and Magic, for example) were available to be shown on the BBC, too. 

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

55 minutes ago, To Be Confirmed said:

In order to do that Sky would have to agree to relinquish their exclusivity which i doubt they will do without receiving some form of rebate against what they have already paid. therefore we would need tot eh BBC to not only pay for those rights to make up that shortfall but also pay the full production costs of the gams. its not going to happen.  

There is a new tv deal to start in 2022. Sky could have say exclusive coverage of 20 regular rounds, play offs and the grand final. They could also have shared coverage and the 1st 2 picks for games of the other 7 rounds, with the 3rd pick going to the highest free to air tv channel bidder.

Would sky pay slightly less for this? Yes. Would it be worth it for the additional coverage the sport would get? IMO Yes.

[To Be Confirmed]

42 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

There is a new tv deal to start in 2022. Sky could have say exclusive coverage of 20 regular rounds, play offs and the grand final. They could also have shared coverage and the 1st 2 picks for games of the other 7 rounds, with the 3rd pick going to the highest free to air tv channel bidder.

Would sky pay slightly less for this? Yes. Would it be worth it for the additional coverage the sport would get? IMO Yes.

If the additional coverage was to bring in additional revenue then i would be inclined to agree with you, however given the current economical climate can clubs realistically handle having a further reduction in central funding probably not. 

you are essentially asking a broadcaster to pay all production costs and a fee for what is essentially a third choice game. likelihood of that happening slim to none. 

[arcticchris]

Would happily keep with Sky and try to push for a Channel 4 or 5 hourlong highlight show every Monday evening at 8pm.

The super league show on BBC is actually a decent programme but the problem is they hide it away late at night and only show it in a few regions.

[owls]

I remember when channel 4 first started broadcasting, the 2 sports they started off with were British Basketball and the NFL, I watched both and was quite impressed with what i saw even though i was no fan of either sport, with back up channels such as more 4 and E4 ,I wonder what they could do with the great game,