https://www.rugby-league.com/article/57 ... ary-return You would think behind closed doors. Early start.

https://www.rugby-league.com/article/57 ... ary-return You would think behind closed doors. Early start.

Well the Bulls have announced their season tickets and part of that includes games being streamed.

Desperation to keep clubs from the wall I think. I'm amazed none have gone under already.

From the Fax website:

"Clubs have already agreed that games played behind closed doors will be streamed live on the RFL’s Our League platforms (app & website) on a pay per view basis, allowing supporters to watch fixtures even if they cannot attend in person – with home season ticket holders given free access to the live stream packages for their club’s league games."

Fax have also announced that Season Ticket sales are up on this time in previous years.

I do think this is the future of season tickets especially in the championship at least. Clubs sell a traditional season ticket and a ‘virtual’ season ticket for perhaps 2/3rds the price allowing access to all home games on a streaming service.

Saying that the OurLeague streaming has been a bit poor for me the odd time I’ve tried watching so might need improvements if they want people to pay for it.

The games I've watched on Our League weren't bad, but it's going to be hard to cover all 7 games over each weekend? £15 for Premier League matches proved to be far too expensive (iirc with very low take-up) and scrapped, and ppv for RL has to be at a sensible level for streaming with just a couple of cameras covering the match.

Per Fax Machine's response, the re-branding of Fax seems to have had an impact, with the hashtag #panthersareintown apparently generating over 700m impressions rlhttps://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/news/12196/12169971/halifax-panthers-championship-club-on-the-hunt-for-a-new-audience-with-rebrandrl with season ticket and merchandise sales going well.

That will likely be the case for most clubs but, the "hit" on revenue is just huge - unsustainable.
Bizarrely, some of the so called poorer clubs, with smaller wage bills, will be better able to cope than some of the big boys, unless their owners have very, very deep pockets.

Noting:

"This 26-round campaign will provide the first fixtures in 11 months for the 14 clubs, which lead to a play-off for the top-six clubs and a '£1m Game' promotion final to decide the champions."

Does that the mean bottom team of SL will be relegated, and have Leigh been given any exemption (should they end up there - not saying they will)?

I think closing down and mothballing their clubs worked across the board. Covid will no longer be a problem with immunisation, funding for 2021 is already there......

You will probably find 2022 with no SKY money at all could threaten a number of clubs, but many have bucketloads of resilience.

Seriously ?
When do you expect that clubs will be able to have "meaningful" numbers attending games
It's probably going to be April / May and IF this is the case, a later start may have been better?

Once they immunise the old and infirm that may include us 13:10