BBC reports that a new TV deal has been made and the annual payment is between 25 and 30 million. So if this Executive Report tweeted by Matthew Shaw is followed ........the RFL. Championship and League 1 clubs will get zilch. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0DHEhNWYAAwW7J.jpg

BBC reports that a new TV deal has been made and the annual payment is between 25 and 30 million. So if this Executive Report tweeted by Matthew Shaw is followed ........the RFL. Championship and League 1 clubs will get zilch. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0DHEhNWYAAwW7J.jpg

Unsurprising unfortunately. Only a matter of time before SL is mainly semi pro too. I give it 10 years at the most.

Any team that wants to be at the top table, including ourselves, now has this season & next to get there. My own opinion is that SL started to wither when they relegated London & ourselves to get to 12 teams. I'm confident we'll have a stab at the playoffs this year. Next? Who knows...

Talk of it going down to 10 teams. I've kept sky as I still like to watch SL even though we're not in it anymore and the quality isn't as high. But if it were to go down to 10 teams I would cancel my subscription as Im not interested in watching Wigan play Warrington 5 times a year.

Loop games are a turn off. Familiarity breeds contempt. Trouble is clubs seem unable to generate enough income via other means so they need the extra games. Twas ever thus. I've just read Tony Collins excellent Rugby League in Twentieth Century Britain and these issues have dogged the game for decades. Seems the game has slumps every so often 60s-70s slump, 80s-90s boom. Now we're in a slump again.

There isn't the money in the game to sustain 12 or 14 professional clubs. There never has been but now things are particularly tight. The way to attract new money is to reach new audiences in the heartlands and in new areas. The game needs to spend money on grassroots development with new development officers, proper Peter Deakin style marketing to attract new fans and sponsorship and get a proper international fixture list set up long term that can attract some attention nationally.

Tony Collins book was good at contrasting the malaise the game was in during the last years of Bill Fallowfield's tenure compared with what David Oxley and David Howes achieved in the ten years afterwards. It can be done again but it needs the game to look at itself as a whole. A few clubs re-arranging their own deckchairs just ignores the bigger issues.

There are three options on the table and all three suggest the sport is in trouble.

Whilst Super League moving to two divisions of ten would benefit Bradford, the worry is what happens to the other clubs that aren't lucky enough to be given a golden ticket to the riches of central funding?

This all just smacks of a diabetic with an infection cutting off a toe, then the foot and finally the leg.

Cutting everything to twenty teams is not the answer.

After 20 years with Sky I cancelled it last Nov. They contact me every other week with deals but no more Sky for me. I thought I would always have Sky.
RL has been my main sport for 40 years and unfortunately the last couple of years watching SL leaves me bored. I hardly ever watched a full game. Lower leagues are more entertaining but Sky won't show them. I told Sky this and know of three others who have also cancelled all of sky this last year. I would guess they and BT are feeling the pinch as people look at their finances and this will affect the new deals to sports like ours.
I also see RL moving back to semi pro as there is far more things for people to do and people get out of the habit of going to and watching games. I don't care what people do for a living but up to £50 for a family to go to a live game that could be rubbish will put them off. I don't know what the answer is though.

This particular Warrington supporter would agree with you, as a ten team SL would be a disaster. Are there enough potential club owners out there numbering 14 that would be willing to fork out for a vanity project, or do we need to go back to a semi pro SL to make it financially work?