If the RFL are insistent on it remaining on a Bank Holiday weekend then it's August or move it from Wembley, as the Football League playoff finals are hosted there on Spring Bank weekend.

Personally I'd go with end of June, but that also tends to clash with football world cups and the like which the RFL may want to avoid.

There's no question that (as annoying as Eddie/Stevo/Phil 'Rugby Gods' Clarke are) Sky's coverage is outstanding. By that I mean general camera work, replays, graphics, stats, post match interviews etc etc.

IMO the BBC's coverage of RL is the reason "most people" think it's a c[ir[/iap, semi-professional sport, when the reality is it's one of (if not THE) most spectator friendly sports there is. I'm sure we all know people who, once they've watched a game or two, are hooked.

"Most People" only get to see RL on the BBC, and thus that is there impression of it. The problem is, on the BBC it looks semi-professional at best (more often than not amateur!!). It's usually presented by somebody who's on the BEEB's books as "General Sport Presenter" who's available on the day. The sort of presenter that usually presents the coverage of The Boat Race, or any other "General Semi-Professional Sporting Event", not to mention the fact that their main "Studio Expert" doesn't even WATCH RL every week, never mind comment on it. I remember Davis saying something this year about Ryan Hall along the lines of... "This kid will top the try scoring charts one day, mark my words!!" (The year AFTER he finished 10 tries clear of the bloke in 2nd!).

I'm afraid it's ever decreasing circles. Nobody watches it, so they spend very little money on it, they spend very little money on it, so nobody watches it.

The other thing is, a Question of Sport, whenever they show RL, they show the challenge cup (fair enough, why pay Sky for a clip when you can use a clip you own!) but they only show, what 6/7 matches a year?! Which just means they've got less material to choose from, so it never appears. Whereas sports that they don't have any rights to at all, Golf for example, appears all the time, because if they're having to pay for clip, they may as well choose a decent clip. It almost works to RL's detriment that they have a few select clips to choose, rather than none.

Last year BBC had the rights to show the following golf: US Masters, The Open, The pre-open tournament at Loch Lomond, World Match PLay as well as Ryder Cup highlights. So they probably show more hours live golf than Sky show live Super League and I doubt that they need to buy any golf clips from Sky for Question of Sport.

By the same token as the BBC already have secondary broadcast rites with the Super League Show would they have to pay again to include a clip they have already paid for once?

if sky suddenly paid extra millions to cover rugby the clammer for a raise in the salery cap would increase so that the players rather than the clubs gain

perhaps whats needed is a better package from sky, look at how many highlights shows there are for different leagues in football where a proper preview and highlights show would greatly help our game