THE Rugby Football League board of directors is likely to make a decision this week on whether to go ahead with an offer from broadcaster Premier Sports to screen Championship matches this season.
Premier Sports, which is about to complete its demerger from Viaplay, giving it more control over its domestic broadcasting policy, are thought to have offered to stream all the Championship games this season (seven matches per week) with some of those games being shown on its main channels.
Premier is thought to have been keen to guarantee coverage to all the clubs in order to boost its own subscription numbers, with all the fans of Championship clubs, including Toulouse, able to subscribe in the knowledge they could watch their club every week via the Premier streaming service.
Previously when Premier covered the competition, one match was covered most weeks on a Monday evening with some blank weeks, which it is thought deterred large number of supporters from taking out subscriptions.
The clubs considered the proposal at a meeting in Wakefield last week and voted by a margin of seven votes to six to reject the offer, with Whitehaven abstaining from the vote because they didn’t attend.
The six clubs who voted in favour were Barrow, Halifax, Sheffield, Swinton, Toulouse, and York.
The seven clubs who voted against were Batley, Bradford, Dewsbury, Doncaster, Featherstone, Wakefield and Widnes.
Their main concern was the impact of attendances if every match could be streamed.
The vote, however, was advisory only, with the final decision to be made by the RFL directors, although it is unlikely that the RFL would vote to overrule the preference of the clubs.
But League Express understands that the RFL and RL Commercial will seek to hold further discussions with Premier Sports to assess whether an alternative proposal that would be acceptable to all the clubs can be put forward.
Another sticking point was the payment Premier Sports would be making for the broadcasting rights.
It proposed a £50,000 rights fee in year one, increasing to £75,000 and £100,000 in the following years.
The deal also included a provision whereby all the income from subscriptions would be retained by Premier Sports until it reaches a breakeven figure, but beyond that there would be an 80%/20% split between Premier and the Championship clubs.
Another issue of concern to clubs relates to the impact of the coverage on grading scores, with any coverage on Premier’s main channels (10-15 games planned for the main Premier Sports channels) being counted in the grading scores, but streaming coverage wouldn’t be included.
