Quote: kobashi "
Next onto this ridiculous notion that the game is shackled to sky and then sky treat the game like dirt.
Where do people get this rubbish from. Sky didn't roll into RFL HQ with sub machine guns demanding super league rights. How many times does this need to be said. Nobody else is willing to pay what sky do!
Stop this fantasy of there being a queue of networks all ready to blow sky out of the water. You will see the reality of the situation soon enough when the current deal expires.'"
I'm not sure anyone has disparaged Sky in the way you suggest.
I would suggest that the viewing figures I posted (that around a third of RL viewers on Sky were watching Championship games), and adding that the Championship games were routinely in the top ten programs viewed on their channel that week, shows there is an appetite for showing Championship games which is not being satisfied.
My own view is that SLE/RFL have treated clubs below Super League shabbily by sequestering the vast majority of the Sky funds for Super League and by negotiating a deal in which Campionship RL rights were sold either without checking whether games would be screened or in the full understanding that they would not. If it is the latter (that everyone knew rights were being sold but no games would be screened) then, again in my view, that amounts to restriction of trade.
As for there being 'a queue of networks', you're probably correct for Super League, but I do believe that Championship RL could find a new home and the rewards from that might be substantially greater than those currently on offer. However, it does require a Championship with the cohesion, courage and confidence to take a hold of its own future.
