I know it's been mentioned a few times but how good are the viewing figures on SKY?

The Saints Salford game (which isn't exactly the biggest game of the calendar) got the third highest television audience for a SKY RL game since 1996. We have always had good viewing figures on SKY, but to get almost 250k more than an RU game on the same weekend is a superb stat. Be very interesting to see the figures for the top 4 clashes will be.

I think one of the reasons of the increase figures is the exposure the 4N Wembley game got. It would have been seen by a lot of pople, plenty who probably hadn't seen RL before. It was a superb game and it will have attracted new fans to our game.

With attendances also increasing, RL is in a very good position at the moment.

Fantastic figures and what is exciting is that they can go up further with bigger games and as more people subscribe to Sky. I wonder how many watch repeat showings, record via Sky+ or watch on Sky Go. Another great positive is the new Super League Full Time programme getting 70,000 viewers on SS4.

It all shows Sky that they made the correct decision renewing the TV deal and advertisers will be pleased with the exposure.

The absence of other games being played on Friday evenings will also help viewing figures by a few thousand. Clubs should not be permitted to play matches at the same time as Sky games are on.

It's them 100 stobart trucks sat at the HQ in Runcorn 24/7 thats doing it.

Seriously though, the 4nations and Sam Tomkins has raised the profile of the game, viewers are more likely to watch if they are just flicking around. The games involving the big teams should see some great figures.

Cant argue with that,particularly with sam playing for the baa baas i think it was

Sam Tomkins is the closest thing to national recognition we have in our sport. It was fantastic we could keep him in RL, I just hope he doesn't bail to RU once his clause is up.

He should be the face of RL, he already is according to Eddie.

Could you blame him if he did leave really though? Chance to become a millionaire and be loved by the nation (which he would be when he could easily boss the international game with his talent). In RL his pay is being held back by the SC. He will be paid a lot more to do pretty much the same job while becoming famous on a global scale at the same time. If you worked at Tesco and got paid £5 an hour on the till... then ASDA offer you £10 an hour to do the same.. Where would you choose to work?

Our only hope of keeping him is making him the face of the game. That job on SKYSPORTS is a massive part of it. Throw money at him. He is worth keeping, not just from a playing perspective, but he is becoming a household name. We NEED that. I wish Burrow, McGuire, Lomax, Myler, Foster, Briscoe.. etc. could do the same. We need our players signing deals with sports brands, being endorsed. Being shown as ironmen on protein adverts!

Are you having a giraffe? The Sky viewing figures are down to Sam Tomkins playing for the Barbarians?

Are you sure?

Are you sure it wasn't the fact that Widnes were back in Super League and it was first game of the season that led to their viewing figures being better than usual? The Saints game being watched by so many was maybe, just maybe, due to the new stadium and the RL world wanting to see it for the first time?

They still don't know who he is on QoS...even had him in a baa baas shirt

Just done a straw poll of 7 colleagues where I work (north east england), all of whom attend various sporting contests including union games, and not one was able to identify Tomkins correctly although most guessed he played league as they know that's my game of choice.
Re household names, the parochialism within the game doesn't help. Whilst some sort of consensus has been reached that Tomkins is a decent player, I'd struggle to name many others that fans would agree upon. Hardly surprising that the media are reluctant to develop this theme, given that their a high proportion of their core audience is likely to ridicule them for talking up someone's talents, no matter who that player is.

Maybe they tuned into to see whether the roof would blow off it again during the game

True.

I think it is important that we try and build up the players profile as a whole, focusing on one individual is a mistake, Tomkins, as good a player as he is, people would still argue he isnt the best player in the league, and a fair proportion of those who would argue he is the best player in the league would argue he isnt that much better than others. Focussing on Tomkins simply sets him up for a fall. If everything is about how good Tomkins is then people will mock him when Wigan get over-ran by St Helens and James Roby bosses it. Or when Sinfield lifts another trophy.

As much as we need to push Tomkins, pushing only Tomkins is counter-productive. We should be pushing Gaskell and Lomax as top quality young halfbacks the next England pair. Kallum Watkins is probably the first young centre in a long time who looks to not only have the skill but the physicality to stand up to southern hemisphere sides. Zak Hardaker looks like he shouldnt be playing RL, he looks like he is made of spaghetti and will snap if he is tackled but his skills and speed means they cant line him up, Ryan Hall is a monster, speed, size unbelievable agility. Tom Briscoe, Ben Harrison, even the pantomime villainy of Ryan Bailey has a place in the games story

The game needs to set the narrative of these players. It needs to tell the story around the game. It needs to get this information out there so more and more and more and more people know more and more about the game, so that a person who doesnt really know much about the game knows Ryan Hall is a world class winger, they know that means he is bigger than he should be for the speed he can run and the agility he has. So they can appreciate his skills in the way we can, and when he does that to Tomkins they know it was special because they know Tomkins is also a good player. The lack of profile and narrative for our game is one our biggest failures in marketing the game.

And stupid as he's going to leave regardless of how much money everyone throws at him.

Nice to see Sky trying to raise viewing figures by going for the My Little Pony market in flashing up an epilepsy-inducing rainbow at the bottom of the screen after every tackle.