Haven't the last few TV deals been negotiated on behalf of the RFL by IMG? These guys aren't idiots by any stretch of the imagination.

In any case, I think it's wrong to assume that our TV deal is a result of the RFL "not negotiating hard enough" and I think that if we're going into negotiations for the new deal offering the same as what we have now, it's not going to end well. Sky know exactly what we bring to them in terms of monetary value, and the onus is on the sport to maximise that value.

Why would Sky pay more when the top talent is playing in another competition? Why would Sky pay more when we seem to be the only sport that seems to willingly dilute our own TV audience every Friday? Why would Sky pay more in a climate where new advertising technologies means that the advertising slots around RL content are going to become less valuable against other sports?

RL fans seem to like lazy answers and like "reserve teams" and "Eddie Hearn", the "The RFL doesn't negotiate hard enough with Sky" is another one. Broadcasters and sponsors expect more - and the sport needs to offer it.

Excellent point.

Premier League matches while the majority kick off at 15:00 they have ONE at 12:30, ONE at 17:30, then sometimes TWO at 13:30 on the Sunday and ONE at 16:00, then ONE on Monday night.

Almost all the televised games are at a time when no other games are being played! Other than the very few times a season there are midweek league fixtures.

Even the people who go to the 15:00 games get to watch the 12:30 and 17:30 ones in the pub before and after.

You can easily preserve a decent rest period and 'block out' TV nights from the rest of the fixture list. A Sun-Thurs turnaround might be tough on teams, but you can compensate this in the following week. In an ideal world, we'd also have fewer fixtures, so you can mitigate the impact on player welfare by reducing the total number of games.

The "its easier to sell corporates" is a long-standing reasoning and I can believe it, but I don't think the benefits of that outweigh the potential devaluation of the broadcast contract by diluting our TV audience.

The other factor that comes into play is ground sharing arrangements. We all know that certain clubs (looking at you Wigan) are a pain in the when it comes to their ground arrangements, but should we be allowing clubs that have negotiated and entered into inflexible arrangements with their landlord to devalue the TV deal for the rest of the sport? I would argue not.

On the TV deal, I'd love to see us strike a deal where at least 1 game per week is on terrestrial free to air.
Sure it would impact on the total TV deal earnings, but longer term, that free to air national coverage could have a huge impact on our ability to secure top end sponsorships at whole of game, individual club level and player personal sponsorship.
Imagine if there was a game live on BBC every Sunday afternoon for instance - what other sport is ever on terrestrial tv? Hardly any nowadays - I could see it really taking off.
Also agree with the point on playing all our games when there is a match on TV, it's madness.

I know people wanna see some live coverage on FTA TV but we can't just give games away. It's up to FTA networks to put up the money and try and negotiate with sky to get a deal.

Giving away sports right cheaply is not the answer.

Are there any details of the BT/C5 deal with the Aviva? I have read that the 4 year deal to show 5 games a year is only worth £1,000,000? Surely that is very cheap? I now read that Chanel 4 will show live European Cup Rugby from next year......so yet again, we go from being the only domestic Rugby Comp on FTA in terms of the Challenge Cup, to probably having fewer games than Union next year.
I can't see BT saying to themselves, "let's give some stuff away cheap" rather I can see the IRB/RFU saying "as part of the rights deal, you will get us on Terrestrial FTA channels too........
........it works for many products to give stuff away and once it becomes popular you can charge for it, but we've already sold our game in its entirety to SKY!

Surely some free to air is needed to try and attract more interest? You only have to see the reactions after some of the BBC's sadly rare coverage to see that there are many who are surprised at the quality of the sport!

The sport needs to use it's own devices that are not covered contractually via Sky. Streaming is obviously not covered.

Here in Australia the lack of FTA coverage of RU has been a disaster for the sport. They sold everything except internationals to Fox (Sky here) and now the general awareness of RU is close to zero away from hard core fans. The local basketball competition (NBL) made the same mistake about 20 years ago by selling everything to Fox. Its now back on FTA and the awareness levels around the sport have rapidly risen.

WRT to SL, I'd say it's definitely be worth losing some headline income from Sky to get more covereage FTA. In the end it also pays for Sky, as if general awareness rises so will the value of the product.

THIS

Exactly... and we don't have to give the FTA game away, simply stipulate that 1 game must be on terrestrial, and then let that go to the highest bidder. Sky will no doubt reduce their offer for another 2 or 3 games per week, and overall I'm sure the TV deal will initially drop, but it's short term pain for long term gain. Using digital better would also help make up the shortfall.

Ultimately, we need more people watching the game to broaden our appeal to sponsors/advertisers. In terms of a TV deal helping this, FTA coverage seems the most obvious answer to me.

It's not just sponsors and advertisers, it's fans paying on the gate too.........Let's face it, we're pretty limited when it comes to attracting new fans to come to games, but get a Friday evening game Live on BBC, ITV or Channel 4 or 5 and they'll get a million + tuning in. Clever tactic would be for the RFL to run a competition during the broadcast and maybe a couple of adverts....same for SKY TV advertising their latest deal.......if people like it they'll start looking out for it.....


The cost of an outside broadcast set up is quite high. For a club to buy the equipment themselves would be insane......but to have the infrastructure put in place for an easy set up would be good....5 Cameras in set places and 2 Mobile units.......but it's still going to set you back £50,000 for the game....so you need subscribers in the thousands prepared to pay up front....and we now how free with their cash RL fans are

The NRL have the luxury of TV companies at every game, so on-selling that via NRL pass is simple......a mate of mine works in the OB business...a Premiership game runs to £105,000 a pop in OB costs......no club in SL could handle that.