All Super League Matches Live - Confirmed

[Archie Gordon]

Is there a consensus, then, that Rhodri Jones has got it wrong when stating all SL games will be "televised"?

[whatmichaelsays]

3 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

How do you separate the two? A perfect Chicken and Egg scenario there Micheal.

Come on Harry, you and I have been over this ground many times before so I don't think we need to repeat ourselves. 

I think there are markets out there not currently engaging with RL content that could be encouraged to engage with RL content. Those audiences may well be right on our doorstep within our heartlands, but they may also be anywhere else in the world. But what RL is very bad at - both at club and central level - is understanding the audiences it wants to grow, what those audiences want, and delivering it on the terms they want to engage with it. I mentioned recently on a previous thread - for a supposed community sport, RL has been poor at adapting to how those communities have changed over the generations. 

To me, that leads the sport to neglect opportunities with new media, to neglect opportunities with TV, to neglect opportunities with those audiences that want a more premium experience, and so on. That's why we struggle for market share on TV, why we have a tiny digital footprint and why our crowds and sponsors all seem to come from the same, declining pool - not because "people aren't interested". 

I don't think it's chicken and egg in the slightest. There is nothing in the water in WN or WF postcodes that chemically adjusts you to liking RL. There are sports I watch despite never seeing them in person, nor having any real attachment to any of the competitors - but I still enjoy them. RL needs to find who might enjoy this sport, deliver it on those terms, and grow its audience.

That's expansion - not pins in maps. 

[Tommygilf]

Sky were paying all that money previously for the exclusive rights to show the RL content they bought. They chose to only show 2 games a week, but they prevented the rest being shown.

This is an upgrade as now not only will sky be paying for the filming production of each game, but they will be allowing RL Commercial to sell the rights to those games they don't yet want to broadcast.

[Harry Stottle]

41 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

There is nothing in the water in WN or WF postcodes that chemically adjusts you to liking RL.

No but it is in the Genes and Psyche of the locals, kids will follow dads and others, I did and so have my kids as have theirs, and if you have a pro club in the town it is a focal point for the locals, not everyone wants to follow the same path or latches on to the same interests but it is a telling factor that continuity in communities exists.

[Harry Stottle]

32 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

This is an upgrade as now not only will sky be paying for the filming production of each game, but they will be allowing RL Commercial to sell the rights to those games they don't yet want to broadcast.

Which is an unknown, maybe 4, 3, 2, or 1.

So in effect RL commercial need to get the collective Sky + Whoever to £25M to be on par with the last contract.

Then comes the conundrum, (which you no doubt will agree with from previous statements you have made) will SL be saying to RL Commercial that is our money we have earned it by having our games screened, please add it to the reduced funding that we have already been advised we will be recieving.

[Guest]

Any idea on the extra money they can get from branding across more games with sponsors?

[Guest]

For a start, and no idea what they pay, I would think this is an immediate spin off:

 

The new partnership, which represents a 25% increase on the previous record-breaking deal, includes a unique new full-size pitch covering for Wheelchair Rugby League – a transformational development for the Wheelchair game, which will be used for the first time in this Sunday’s Betfred Wheelchair Super League Grand Final in Manchester, and again for England’s World Cup Final rematch against France at the first direct Arena in Leeds next month.

[Rovers13]

3 hours ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

I think the Premier League is the only long format sports comp that holds the public's attention for an extended period. The others are all shorter, intensive format comps - 6 Nations, Hundred, Olympics etc. I'd suggest that RL needs some shorter format comp that could grab some headlines over a short period and gain some attention. The sports market is just too saturated to expect a massive audience to suddenly engage and commit to following an 8-month competition. What that shorter format competition could be, I haven't got a clue.

Moving to summer rugby imo didn’t help as their is far more sports to compete with in summer than winter, people say the rugby is better I would disagree but that’s a mute point tbf on the summer winter competing with other sports. 

[Rovers13]

2 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

I would sooner be hung up by fish hooks attached to my eyelids than watch live prem footy, so you can count me out of everyone Rover

I’m not a fan of footy either Harry but we’re in the minority not the majority lol. 

[Harry Stottle]

31 minutes ago, Rovers13 said:

I’m not a fan of footy either Harry but we’re in the minority not the majority lol. 

Like I have always said re popularity over quality:-

Millions and millions more people eat Macdonalds burgers other than Sirloin Steak, so does that make burgers better because it is more popular?

[Rovers13]

Just now, Harry Stottle said:

Like I have always said re popularity over quality:-

Millions and millions more people eat Macdonalds burgers other than Sirloin Steak, so does that make burgers better because it is more popular?

Never said it was a better product as I prefer RL any day of week, but majority disagree with me.

[Rovers13]

What we have never done well with is marketing players, making them big names in the sporting world. 

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Which is an unknown, maybe 4, 3, 2, or 1.

So in effect RL commercial need to get the collective Sky + Whoever to £25M to be on par with the last contract.

Then comes the conundrum, (which you no doubt will agree with from previous statements you have made) will SL be saying to RL Commercial that is our money we have earned it by having our games screened, please add it to the reduced funding that we have already been advised we will be recieving.

Clearly there will have been a number agreed with Sky that is commercially sensitive till a FTA deal is done with Channel 4.

I think the money coming into the sport should be primarily driven into providing the best content to drive greater amounts of money coming in. In conjunction with that I think strategic areas across mens, womens and Wheelchair etc versions of the game should be supported.

Do you think differently?

[HawkMan]

20 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Like I have always said re popularity over quality:-

Millions and millions more people eat Macdonalds burgers other than Sirloin Steak, so does that make burgers better because it is more popular?

It depends what you mean by better. This is a subjective term, I'm sure there are water polo enthusiasts who think their sport is better than RL. Are they wrong? No, nobody is right or wrong, " better" is in the eye of the beholder. All you can do is tot up elements of a sport that are "countable " , as is said,  in mathematics only will you find truth.

So we're talking  about TV viewers,  footprint of a sport, number of countries that play it, paying spectators , grassroots participation etc. Football comes close to the top, RL low down, but you can't extrapolate from that which is better, just the numbers of folk entertained by it. Why people are entertained by a sport is a whole other topic. Someone on here said Football is the ugly game, pandering to base instincts,  probably true, but base instincts are very popular.

 

[Harry Stottle]

6 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Clearly there will have been a number agreed with Sky that is commercially sensitive till a FTA deal is done with Channel 4.

I think the money coming into the sport should be primarily driven into providing the best content to drive greater amounts of money coming in. In conjunction with that I think strategic areas across mens, womens and Wheelchair etc versions of the game should be supported.

Do you think differently?

What happened to your SL clubs earn the TV monies they should have it?

Can't disagree though with your thoughts, but the lions share for me should go to the community side of the game, if that fails, it all fails.

[Harry Stottle]

11 minutes ago, HawkMan said:

It depends what you mean by better. This is a subjective term, I'm sure there are water polo enthusiasts who think their sport is better than RL. Are they wrong? No, nobody is right or wrong, " better" is in the eye of the beholder. All you can do is tot up elements of a sport that are "countable " , as is said,  in mathematics only will you find truth.

So we're talking  about TV viewers,  footprint of a sport, number of countries that play it, paying spectators , grassroots participation etc. Football comes close to the top, RL low down, but you can't extrapolate from that which is better, just the numbers of folk entertained by it. Why people are entertained by a sport is a whole other topic. Someone on here said Football is the ugly game, pandering to base instincts,  probably true, but base instincts are very popular.

 

Maybe I wasn't to articulate in my wording, I wasn't actually saying anything is better than anything else, I was just using an analogy that if something is much more popular than something else the common concept is that it must be better, apart from that agreed.

[HawkMan]

8 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Maybe I wasn't to articulate in my wording, I wasn't actually saying anything is better than anything else, I was just using an analogy that if something is much more popular than something else the common concept is that it must be better, apart from that agreed.

We're nearly in agreement here,  Burgers are better than Sirloin steak,  in certain contexts. Such as food on the go, eating on top of a bus maybe ( annoying other passengers), steak better for a sit down meal. Actually that's not a bad analogy, football = burgers, RL= steak, but in the popularity stakes (no pun intended), there's only one winner and it ain't the steak.

[Tommygilf]

36 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

What happened to your SL clubs earn the TV monies they should have it?

Can't disagree though with your thoughts, but the lions share for me should go to the community side of the game, if that fails, it all fails.

It never was that, that is either a strawman you've invented or you're mixing me up with someone else.

The lions share should go to what will bring the most back in next time so there is always more to go around. The community game should, indeed will benefit from that too I would like to think.

Super League brings in the vast majority of TV money. Unlike say football where a massive amount of competition for rights drives up their value, RL rights are about who can pay for a full time pro RL competition to add content for their subscriber packages. Sky will pay what they can be convinced to, there is some goodwill there but its inevitably pretty small financially. Ultimately they don't want to pay more than they have to for anything.

[whatmichaelsays]

3 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

No but it is in the Genes and Psyche of the locals, kids will follow dads and others, I did and so have my kids as have theirs, and if you have a pro club in the town it is a focal point for the locals, not everyone wants to follow the same path or latches on to the same interests but it is a telling factor that continuity in communities exists.

But that is only a small part of how people "get into" sports viewership and, I'd argue, is much less relevant today that it perhaps was on your or my day. 

Nobody at Tottenham Stadium yesterday was there because their grandad took them to an NFL game as a kid and lifted them over a turnstile. The kids walking around with Mo Salah or Haaland shirts can't even get tickets to games these days, and no kid grew up wanting to be a Hundred batsman because The Hundred didn't exist. 

The local thing is helpful and useful, but it's not a pre-requisite for liking RL, which is why I don't buy this "nobody away from the M62 is/will ever be interested" nihilism. 

If the sport is relying on dad's and grandads dragging their reluctant kids along, then we're encapsulating the problem right there. It's the same as those arguments we see on here after every CC Final blaming the poor crowds on the demise of pub trips - that pub culture hasn't existed for over 20 years. It's time to move on. 

[Rugbyleaguesupporter]

I think broadcast will work out as follows: 

2 to 3 games broadcast with around 12 cameras on Sky (some of these also on free to air) 

Catalans home games will be via French production 

Remaining 2 to 4 games a week will have 6 cameras, replays and commentators- and be broadcast online or via red button. 

Sky broadcast 4 camera EFL match on Sky sports arena 8 times a year- i expect coverage will be similar to that for the 'extra' matches 

[RigbyLuger]

"Sky's approach to Rugby League" being that which, in addition to the men's SL, has added coverage of more women's games than before, and the wheelchair Grand Final?

Interesting to see where the Championship ends up, because, if I was a club, I'd be looking at streaming my own games and monetising that. If I not, I'm a fool.

[Guest]

Not been following - but does this include Cats away?

If so - any news on a French deal for them? If Sky are paying for the coverage - I assume this makes it attractive for a local channel to pick up?

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Leonard said:

Not been following - but does this include Cats away?

If so - any news on a French deal for them? If Sky are paying for the coverage - I assume this makes it attractive for a local channel to pick up?

I believe Catalans games will be covered too. Catalans were celebrating this element of the deal a month or so back. 

As a supporter, I love it - in terms of finances, well, without being harsh, but that is for the clubs and the owners to work out!

[gingerjon]

3 hours ago, Dave T said:

I believe Catalans games will be covered too. Catalans were celebrating this element of the deal a month or so back. 

As a supporter, I love it - in terms of finances, well, without being harsh, but that is for the clubs and the owners to work out!

But it makes no difference in terms of finances?

There was no money from any other broadcaster for these games and being on streaming or TV does not harm attendances.

There is no production cost to any side involved.

So where's the finance problem?

[Dave T]

31 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

But it makes no difference in terms of finances?

There was no money from any other broadcaster for these games and being on streaming or TV does not harm attendances.

There is no production cost to any side involved.

So where's the finance problem?

Sorry, I could have been clearer, the finances comment was regarding the overall drop in income that the recent deals have seen. IN terms of hard cash, I think we have left ourselves in a weak position due to the historic performance, but at least this deal has the opportunity to be genuinely transformational if it's done as well as it can be.