Barclays Premiership Soccer.
rlhttp://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/sky-tv-lose-rights-english-premier-league-5468856rl

No biggie for me, but it does point to the way TV rights are heading. SKY have 900,000 homes on board from a potential 1.7 million and I don't see them losing many subscribers as a result of not being able to show soccer at 6am, but this does point to new players in the market who will try and corner particular areas.

Premiership soccer rarely gets a mention in the TV ratings over here, which have a threshold of 30,000, so it will be interesting to see how many (mainly ex-pat) kiwis buy into this.

In the UK, Sky face opposition from Premier and BT as well as ITV when it comes to the RWC.......I believe that this competition can be used to RL's advantage, but only if the people in charge stop playing down the sport and start asking the important questions.

Soccer is a small sport down here, but it is growing. League has a slightly higher standing in the UK, but this could point to where the game might be heading in a few years when the current SKY deal dies.

Sky were clever to see BT coming and tie Super League down for a few years. Instead of the three year deal we'd been having they got us tied down for five.

We are being pushed down the ladder of importance though at Sky. As I've said elsewhere....Sky have rights, for the first time, to Saturday Teatime 5:30pm Premier League next season instead of 12:45pm (which have gone to BT). That has generally has been our broadcast slot since 1996. So it's going to be interesting to see if they choose to put us head to head with that (thus on Sports 2, 3 or 4) or move us away from that broadcast slot. If so will we get a regular different slot or just be bounced around and fitting in where they can. If its the latter than thats quite worrying I think for our sport.

I suppose the key for the next rights is whether BT are still competitive come 2016 when the current rights deal expires. Setanta and ESPN both failed to break Sky dominance and I don't actually hold high hopes for BT either....but we shall see.

Maybe Dr Koukash's new channel will be up and running for the next tv deal? Anyway, back to reality.

Think by the end of the TV deal there may well be better ways of broadcasting sport. Look at UFC and how they are doing it currently through YouTube. If that model becomes successful we may see a new direction for broadcasting all together and that could have an impact on our sport.

There was a good article in Forty-20 magazine about it.

Please post me a new keyboard

Gutterfax accusing other people of 'playing down the sport' - oh the irony.

How so?
I ing love RL! Just because I criticise its running doesn't make me a hater.......or a unionite.
When was my last post criticising the general play or rules of the game?

How so?
I ing love RL! Just because I criticise its running doesn't make me a hater.......or a unionite.
When was my last post criticising the general play or rules of the game?

Satellite Pay TV is a dying model.

I can see within 10-15 years that RL will have its own online subscription service, ideally globally. A million people+ paying $3-20 a week for 30+ games of RL from competitions in France, USA, Oz, PNG, NZ and England, Internationals and SOO. Hopefully money is pooled and spread to grow the game around the world.

The technology is pretty much there now, just needs some initiative and entrepreneur to bring it all together.

You wouldn’t get a million people paying £10 a week to watch 30 games of RL. But even if you did, what would you do about the 7billion people in the world? RL would just drop off the radar no new fans would be brought in by TV viewing the visibility of the game would disappear.

From a business point of view, companies aren’t going to invest like that. Its too risky. They cant subsidise their less successful programming with the more successful programming because if it is individualised people wouldn’t bother with the less successful content, there would be no lead-in programming. Also they just wouldn’t bother with new content. How/why would people bother with new content if they are having to pay for it. It could be rubbish, it could be great but an individual isn’t going to risk their own money finding that out.

Bundling works because it gives a wider selection to the consumer, generally for a cheaper price than it would to buy everything individually, and it is more secure and stable for networks to programme in that way.

Satellite pay tv will evolve it won't die

how many causual fans would watch it? Frank warren had a similar idea with boxnation and that channel is struggling to survive and hoping for bt to buy it.

As good a a purely rugby subscription channel would be it would struggle to attract new subscribers, the clubs wouldn't get as much tv money so they'd struggle to survive as well.

The trade-off come the next TV deal will be who is offering the most cash against the size of their subscriber base.

BT Sport seems to have a very "winter heavy" portfolio at the moment, focussing on Premier League football and top flight domestic rugby union. I'll be interested to see what it intends to fill its summers with and what kind of subscriber numbers it pulls in compared to say Sky.

I don't see Sky wanting to lose Super League, given that we provide them their second biggest ratings after Premier League. The biggest question is why we have never pushed them for a deal as big as we deserve.

In terms of BT, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. I'll leave it at that.

Anyone think that RL could get bumped into the 12:45 slot on Sky??