Yet the comment that I quoted mentioned nowt of television coverage. Topics do tend to drift somewhat, you know. Jesus wept.

Just doing my bit to keep it off drift before tb gets here

'before tb gets here'?

I'm both omnipresent and omniscient.

There's a big difference between not selling out Old Trafford and clubs pulling in around 50% of their average home gate for Challenge Cup ties.

Maybe Quadrivium would be better asking where those 30k Warrington fans had been in the earlier rounds?

Let's wait and see what happens to the BBC if the Conservatives win the next election. There was no sign of any adverse reaction from Conservative Central Office after the Shadow Minister of Culture (or whatever he's called) talked about modifying or even tearing up the BBC's charter in a recent interview. If they do emasculate (or possibly close) the BBC then Sky will be the only company interested in us. NOT a good thing.

Sky won't bid for the challenge cup. It wouldn't be of any benefit to them.

care to expand on that? its not as plenty of people dont watch the cup and if people watch theres advertising revenue to be made.

I actually think that this a good thing for Rugby League. It allows the RFL to get a true market value for the Challenge Cup and stops them being held to ransom by the BBC. In addition they still have the option of keeping it on terrestrial TV if they wish.

IF the challenge cup becomes open to satellite broadcasters it actually may kick some life into the comp.

The RFL could no longer ignore the comp as opportunities open up for the RFL.

For example

1 You could easily sell split coverage between terrestrial and satellite and get both to broadcast the final.

2 You could merge the magic weekend and the last 16 of the comp which would free up a weekend and all the magic fixtures could be shown across 2 channels.

This would perhaps be an extra stimulus to the early stages of the cup for a team to make a showpiece event and give the magic games a competitive edge that it lacks.

3 IF you also seed the top 7 in sl and the nl1 champs into the last 16 you can make the draw as soon as the regular season finishes with 8 qualifier balls.

This would further reduce 2 games on players making the playoffs.

I'd be more concerned if it wasn't for the fact that the sponsorship for the CC has been so poor in the last few years. Hardly a sign that being on terrestrial is helping.

However, despite this, it would be sad. RL is only just hanging on to any form of national profile by its fingertips due to the CC being on the BBC. Take it off the BBC and we're a completely satellite game, and will retreat to hardcore 200-300k fans (compare that to the 1m who watched France v Australia mismatch last weekend). It's not like sports editors need any more excuses to give us no coverage.

Also, anyone who thinks the BBC will bid seriously for our game is sadly mistaken. The BBC is the establishment broadcaster and its sports priorities will always be the establishment sports. The beeb has shown plenty of times in the past that it values one viewer of a RU match far more highly than one viewer of a RL match. Which is odd, as it isn't reliant on advertising. But we all know what it's about.

It's not about advertising revenue or even ratings for Sky these days. Adverts during Super League games have become less and less as the years have rolled by.

These days Sky buy new sports rights that'll bring new subscribers in and retain enough to see that current subscribers stay. New subscribers getting Sky HD boxes is key and I don't think the Challenge Cup would bring Sky any extra subscribers as they have Super League anyway so it wouldn't be of any benefit to them what so ever.

An example of this is the National League games. They don't rate that well compared to Super League but if a few NL fans subscribe to watch it's well worth Sky showing the games even though the ratings are low.

People talk about Sky getting the NRL rights. Well they might if no one else bids but if it ends up a bidding war they just won't bother because it won't drag that many new subscribers in.

ESPN maybe but I don't think we televise enough, nor is their enough quality of matches to choose from, to make a pay broadcaster bite. The Cup just isn't a good enough competition these days. NRL + Challenge Cup could be a good package for ESPN but they don't seem that interested in splashing out. They seem happy to have American Sports + Premier League and be happy with that.

And we've only ourselves to blame. I keep saying that taking home internationals off the BBC and putting the games on Sky has damaged our sport a lot. They should have given the whole four nations to the BBC. Imagine if the final was on the BBC this weekend on Saturday Afternoon with the football premiership having a weekend off. I think a lot of pubs would have bitten that despite the Union international on Sky.

The irony of this four nations is the two best games Australia v New Zealand & England v New Zealand have been on Sky. A wasted opportunity because probably only the already preached saw it!

There's been nothing stopping Sky from bidding for the Challenge Cup and that includes showing the final.

Only the final is on the protected list and like the FA Cup Final previously it could be shown on both free and pay TV live.

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/front_page/8356391.stm

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/front_page/8356391.stm