but you may not need a Sky subscription to access, which is the issue

if i dont need to pay to subscribe to Sky to watch RL, why would i still pay Sky to watch RL?

I think the RFL make some good points in that report. Sky are accused of a monopoly but they took the risks years ago when the rights were cheap. They invested in football and rugby league massively and made them the sports they are today. It's not there fault competitors have over spent and collapsed. First ITV Digital then Setanta. I can't see how Sky can be blamed for the collapse of Setanta. They both clearly over spent on football and it failed massively.

Without Sky our sport would have collapsed completly. We'd have gone back to how it was in the late 70s/early 80s with 4,000 crowds being regular at places like Central Park and Knowsley Road with league games probably only being covered on a regional basis. Without Sky Wigan would have gone under as well in the late 90s and they probably wouldn't have been the only club.

Having said that Sky have always been crafty in giving themselves an edge. For a long time they denied Sky Sports Xtra to Cable viewers and put Football League and Champions League games on that channel so they missed out. I remember a Wigan v Saints derby was aired on that channel in 2002 which left Cable viewers missing out. They only got that channel in the end because Sky's new edge is exclusive HD.

What OFCOM should look it is that the consumer can't just buy Sky Sports from Sky. You have to buy a load of basically repeat channels as well.

The championship would go amateur and most of the SL would be semi pro.
Leeds, Wire, Wigan and Hull would probably be alright off the top of my head but costs would be cut massively.

This has to be stopped.
As soon as sky rights go, our sky in our house go, same for a lot of people i reckon

You will still pay for it, they're not proposing that it will be free to air - Sky will still get the money, but via wholesale rather than direct subscriber.

You don't need to pay to subscribe to Sky to watch RL at the moment, if you live in the right area you can pay to Virgin instead for the same channel - currently Virgin get dicked by Sky in the amount they are charged.

Touche.

This is very true, and could possibly happen with the threat of Sky being forced to wholesale the channels.

One thing is for sure, Sky won't magically change anything unless they feel their under pressure to do something or be legislated against.

I just have a problem with the whole idea of taking from those who have earned their place in the market and giving it to those who haven't. As the RFL point out, all they are trying to do is punish the proactive and creative media company in favour of those that aren't investing and aren't producing anything.

Sky is successful because Sky has the best channels. They were put there by Sky investing money into it. IMO it's unfair to give two bob media companies better access to something for less money just because they haven't got the skills to be there in the first place.

This is the reason I've never been with Virgin. All the best channels have the word Sky in front of them. Sky Sports, Sky Sports News, Sky News, Sky One, Sky Movies. Why should I pay Virgin to watch them, what have they done to earn the money? Balls all. Are OFCOM suggesting the likes of Virgin, BT, ESPN etc don't have the money to compete?

NO , why would losing nothing revenue wise affect the Championships , what exactly do you think we currently get ?

I'm not saying it would be a good thing and unlike Maurice i dont want it to happen , but it wouldn't make a ripple in the finances of non SL clubs

Again the lines are blurring between Content production and Content delivery - the media world has increasingly and will continue to move towards separation of the two, Sky themselves actively want to do this, their strategy is not to keep the content exclusive to their delivery platform, rather to control and squeeze the most out of all the other delivery providers - that's why OFCOM have started to look at it.

As of this, your best year regards to media awareness, you receive 70k a pop if i read correctly.
You've already had to reduce your salary caps, 2 clubs have gone bust with oldham and gateshead to follow, you had a few pro clubs but now they've also gone semi pro due to money problems. no..everythings fine and dandy

You havent

The fact clubs are going pop has nothing to do with us having SKY coverage

When have the lower tier ever had more than 1/2 F/T clubs [ one normally being the recently relegated SL team ] ?

Everything is definatley not fine and dandy [ If you look you will not find me suggesting such ] but the losing of SKY tv coverage or money would have little effect on any Championship clubs


As for the media awareness , that also is of little to no value at the moment

There is a separate thread with a full and lively discussion of Championship and Championship 1 revenues from the RFL/ broadcasting deal (the Oldham one). Let's not simply repeat that discussion here.

Genuine question. Would SkySports have a larger income if it were distributed on more platforms, but at a lower wholesale cost than now?

I don't think the competition authorities are saying that SkySports is intrinsically too profitable. Therefore the reduction in wholesale charges to Virgin would be marginal. It's possible they would end up having substantially more customers for the channels via TopupTV/BT and other internet providers and actually have more revenue.

The question for RL and other minority sports, is whether this will create an even bigger SportsTV Leviathan that will not have to compete so keenly on price when purchasing sports rights. If SkySports are to be forced to wholesale to other platforms, then the authorities should insist that Skysports be broken up. This would ensure that there is competition in the sports rights market.

SkySports' current cozy deal with ESPN is already a sign that SkySports is delighted to have pretend opposition channels. But when Setanta was threatening its core business, it used its effective monopoly power to put the competition out of business. People who say that Setanta weren't good enough to compete with SkySports don't understand that as the market is currently operating, nobody can compete with SkySports. SkySports can take almost any loss until the opposition is bankrupt. Hence even ESPN, who are owned by the mega corporation Disney, don't dare risk a competitive fight with SkySports.

It's true that SkySports saw a gap in the market when it was set up in 1990. They deserved to make a profit for the risk they took, but they've had a good run. It's not much different from the breakup of Rockerfeller's Standard Oil, or AT+T. At a certain point, when a commercial company gains sufficient market power to effectively monopolise the market, it has to be broken up. The RFL /RFU/ECB etc are obviously fearful of change, but it may prove to be in their interests in the longer term.

Wrong.... again