Would clubs be any better off were they to opt for an early restart behind closed doors if the furlough option was further extended for say another month after this one, which it might well be?
They'd have to start paying full salaries once more without the top up of gate money.

I guess if they were the first sport to start up again a TV deal showing all games could be lucrative and capture a fairly captive audience

Good point, financially surely the best thing to do would be to wait until the end of the furlough period before restarting the season.

Theres going to have to be plenty of testing etc and I doubt with the failures going on around that it'd look favourably on any sport having to have constant testing of all involved.

If they can find a safe work around I'm all for it. People are crying out for some live sport.

No sporting events in Canada or France until September at the earliest, which will mean the relocation of Catalans and Toulouse as well as Toronto playing in the UK.

That should make them exempt from relegation at least, assuming there will be any anyway.

Surely there can be no relegation this year, the sooner that is agreed the better

Michael Carter's views worth a listen https://forty20rl.podbean.com/feed.xml

Michael Carter's views worth a listen https://forty20rl.podbean.com/feed.xml

Too many risks

Agreed. Madness to do otherwise

Would this work?

Season starts from scratch, no P&R.

Catalans relocate to UK and Toronto stay in Manchester.

Return to games played behind closed doors, 2 games on sky rest PPV, possible discount or free games for ST holders.

2 venues per round, Headingley and one of either Saints or Warrington grounds, 3 games per stadium, obviously go back to normal when crowds are possible.

Straight ‘home’ and ‘away’ fixtures, 2 fixtures per week. Team finishes top goes straight to GF 2&3 playoff to get to GF.

Season finishing in Nov/Dec.

Possibly keep CC but have final in October.

Unfortunately it looks like Aussies won’t tour so Ashes series scrapped along with Magic Weekend.

If Sky do air 2 free games and the rest on PPV, why woud they give any discount to season ticket holders? they haven't received anything from them and will have all the costs to go with it. Doesnt make sense for Sky unless they feel altruistic to the sport but don't forget that they have lost revenus too

i get what you're saying but maybe the discount is from the clubs not sky - i.e voucher code or something, I'd be happy paying for the extra PPV Leeds games but I'm sure many would want some kind of kick back.

The discount would obviously only be for the home team games that wouldn't usually be on Sky. Having the games all at 2 stadiums would reduce sky's costs and remember as soon as sky start showing live games again the subscription payments which have been halted would start again.

It's not perfect but just a suggestion, playing games behind closed doors without any chance of creating revenue is pointless.

Sjy will also want to be showing as much Live sport as they can as soon as they can

Re PPV, Carter's views on the podcast I linked a couple of posts back give a bit of context. As an example, he reckons Wakey v Hudds would maybe find 5K buyers at £5 a shot. That, he feels, would be realistic. Knock off the VAT and it raises £20k. To cover it, using fewer camera angles than sky provides hence a lower quality product, would cost c£25k. Obviously Leeds's figures would be more workable but if Carter's figures are correct - and he sounded like he'd given it some thought - I don't see any such scheme being approved by enough clubs to make it happen,

I listened to the podcast, the issue is what’s the alternative, he didn’t suggest anything iirc