never said such a thing, I said they should get the game on FTA, if it means a short term hit on sky exclusivity, whatever that may be worth (given Sky only show two SL games a week I doubt many subscribers sign up purely for the RL anyway), . Get the game on FTA, get a million people watching it a week and see the interest grow, the corporates get more interested and the media start to sit up and take notice. At the moment it is hidden from 2/3rds of the country.

Sky wouldn’t be interested without exclusivity.

What makes you think FTA television - which effectively means either BBC, ITV, C4, 5 or a Freeview broadcaster with an even smaller viewer base than Sky - has any interest in turning over two hours of its prime time weekend programming to a minority sport like rugby league, even if it got it for free?

There would still be costs involved to the broadcaster in running an outside broadcast, hiring in freelance presenters etc, with no evidence of being able to make these costs back through increased advertising.

Premiership rugby union has no live FTA coverage. Even the current best Test cricket side in the world has no FTA coverage. Why would anyone be interested in RL?

Undoubtedly RL is in difficult times. Last time there was a big recession, and when SL came along, clubs sold grounds to survive and span it is a great new dawn, moving to newer stadia. As I pointed out then, come the next economic downturn or a cut in TV funding there would be no assets to mortgage to keep things going. So, difficult times ahead.

The country's been in recession since 2009, so RL's done pretty well to cope with the economic climate so far. A lot better than the High Street, I might add.

Do you know of any links to UK TV viewing audiences? I'd be interested to know what current Sat & Sun afternoon viewing figues are across the channels.

I only have sky sports for rugby league I can not stand wendy ball if sky did not have rugby league i think i would slash my throat if it was not on only kiding

I am really weary of this reduce the number of clubs mantra.
It always comes from those who feel it would benefit their own clubs.
Reduction would be a backward step.
The game would have a lower profile and therefore even less monies coming in.
The answer is exactly the opposite in my opinion.
Bring in more gradually , with a lower salary cap, limit foreign imports to two per club ,and bring in a higher number of locally produced players who must be included in each 17 on match day.

Salary cap needs to match SL grant, if we lose a couple more players to RU or fail to bring over a couple more NRL reserve graders so be it. I would also put a min income level on SL clubs as the main part of the SL license requirement. If you can't meet whatever is needed to be a sustainable SL club on the agreed salary cap then bye bye. Reality is the SL is no better for being 14 teams than it was for being 12 and probably would be if it was 10. If it is weaker is debateable but I certainly do not see it as stronger.

I do.

Me too.

Me too

Is RU 'bankrupt' just cos Wycombe Wasps are going bust? I hope so.