THE Australian journalist Steve Mascord, who is based in London these days, wrote an intriguing piece on his website last week.

This is what he said.

“No one is saying it out loud but there is a fear – in some quarters, a belief – that Sky won’t bid for Rugby League at all beyond this year. Certainly, as previously reported here, IMG told the NRL’s Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo that TV rights would be ‘soft’. How soft? So soft as to be invisible?

“Maybe something was lost in translation but plenty of officials in Australia now believe Sky won’t even enter a bid for the rights beyond this year. If that was to come to pass, given the information we all have right now, you would have to think the British game would be driven into the arms of the NRL.

“But Nigel Wood is no duffer. He must have something up his sleeve. It’s got to be more than hybrid rugby. We await the silver bullet with bated breath.”

That raises three important questions in my mind.

1 Which Australian officials were the source of the suggestion that Sky might not bid for the Super League rights?

2 Who, if anyone, gave them that impression?

3 And is the suggestion correct that Sky might not bid for the rights to broadcast our game?

Let me deal with the third question first.

I’ve been told by quite reliable sources that things are looking better for Rugby League in the current round of negotiations than they have done for many years.

And that is because there are broadcasters and streamers other than Sky who are interested in acquiring the broadcasting rights. It isn’t hard to imagine that these potential bidders could include one or all of DAZN, Netflix, Amazon or even YouTube.

At this stage it’s too early to predict how it will work out.

But it certainly looks promising.

Negotiations are at a very early stage, with neither the RFL nor Sky Sports yet having shown their hand.

Coming back to the first question, I would imagine that an NRL official or an Australian club official may be the source of the opinion that Sky might pull out. After all, the NRL still apparently has an interest in buying into northern hemisphere Rugby League and this might be part of a concerted effort to reduce its apparent value.

But what about the second question? Who could have told someone in Australia that Sky Sports may pull out of negotiations to televise Rugby League?

If anyone did that, then it surely has to be IMG.

I believe that at an RL Commercial board meeting last week the IMG representative was put on the spot about this. Although he denied it came from IMG, I’m not sure that anyone believed him.

The problem is that IMG acts as a consultant for both the RFL and the NRL. That means there is bound to be a conflict of interest in any negotiations between the two bodies.

That is essentially what the RFL appear to be accusing IMG of and I understand there is an ongoing reappraisal of their relationship with a view to updating the current contract between the two organisations.

In that sense, Steve Mascord’s story seems to have been very beneficial for the RFL.