Quote: Durham Giant "Whatever peoples views of the Q and As
I mentioned at the end that we needed the next TV deal to be based about clubs plans for fixture times ie Friday evenings or Sunday afternoons not for the tv company to change times to fit in with their slots. This would be worth mentioning for anyone who does the survey.
Messing around with days and fixture time changes has in my opinion killed the attendances.
Impossible to sell season tickets to fans not knowing whether they are going Thursday Friday Saturday or Sunday or Monday or Wednesday!
This affected Huddersfield moving from Sunday to Friday lost a lot of fans.
Changing times constantly meant it breaks the bond between club and fans.
If you agree please copy to other boards sites or Facebook and if we all do the same we might end up with a tv deal that is good for fans as well as Sky'"
Quote: Durham Giant "Quite possibly but, Durham Giant makes an excellent point which must be taken seriously.'"
Quote: Durham Giant "Agree, also no other games should take place while a TV game is on. Some nights there are thousands sat in grounds and not watching SKY (or vice versa people stay home/the pub and dont get to a ground) and that hits both the TV revenue and gate receipts.'"
Couple of things here.
Firstly....he who pays the piper calls the tune. We are constantly told the NRL gazillion dollar deal is EPIC and proof that the game is far better, but in reality, it is a slave to the TV deal in the same way all sports are. Fox often have triple header Saturdays, with 3 games on immediately one after the other and regardless of the venues are Auckland, Townsville then Sydney, it will impact viewing figures and attendances. Same with Thursday to Monday games.....teams not playing in the same day is a pain, but if you wish to hark back to the good old days of 3pm Sunday, then get used to the pittance the BBC paid for the challenge cup back then too......
....yes, fans are important, but if the game is to move forward, then the clubs will have to work harder to engage with us....give us multiple reasons to go. Imagine if Sky wanted Monday night SL and had Wigan hosting Saints......unlike this week's wendyball at united, fans of RL would be up in arms about it being a work night, school night, the cost, the traffic etc.....football, the goliath of sports does as it's told and so shall we.
That said.....and secondly, how hard is it for clubs to all select their preferred KO dates and time and * these with a subject to SKY?
Leeds choose Friday nights.....so unless SKY move them, then that's when they play......if SKY have another game on 5hat night, then so be it, but if Leeds fans know that the club intends to play on Saturdays at 7.30 then they're at least trying to accommodate their fans.
As no Sunday at 3pm games are shown live in SKY, it's safe to assume that this is a good time for clubs to have their home games *subject to SKY. Likewise, C4 seem to have made Saturday at 12/2 their won slot and Catalans Saturday evening......but it has to be accepted that SKY pay the bills so they will have a big say........which leads to the last point.
Scheduling. I would suggest that any future TV deal would be subject to some strict rules and input from both broadcaster and SL. Things like moving games in France should be barred and whomever scheduled Toulouse v Catalan on a Thursday should be reemployed elsewhere.....yes SKY pay the bills, but neither of those teams get much from it.....it's almost like SKY saying they don't care about French teams.....
...a broadcast partner should be just that. Not a dictator, nor a bully, but a collaborative partner helping to grow the game and in turn grow their audience.
I really hope IMG are not going to just try and put lippy on a pig....
