I wonder how much the licence fee would be if they didnt spend so much of it trying to make the six nations look relevant and exciting, or how good the SLS would be with a simlar budget!

You're spot on there - the problem of course is that there is a generation of people growing up who think the pinnacle skill of the sport of 'rugby' is kicking the ball between the posts more times than their opponents (and I don't mean conversations for all the Warrington fans from last night!)

Saturday "entertainment" on the Beeb

Onion followed by moronball with a bit of news in between!!


Yeh great use of resources!!!

and on their other channels?



and if you only get the 4 channels and are stuck at home then my sympathys are with you.

Just don't cut your wrists yet!!!

The Moronball World cup is coming soon

Does make you wonder how much over the £40m for the rights they spend on it every year. There's lots of waste though in the BBC Sport department - not just the overinflated union costs. How about the Five Live football commentaries with 2 commentators?

The BBC used to show all kinds of sport on a Saturday afternoon in Grandstand - now they say they concentrate on 'major events' but surely this hurts the smaller sports who don't have bidding wars over their coverage, and which a public service broadcaster should cater for as well as the big ones.

Great post.

Given the huge costs the BBC has been ordered to cut, I'll be surprised if Rugby League gets a mention on any form of media in a couple of years.

Possibly. Dave Woods though was interviewed in Rugby League World that the BBC is more interested in Rugby League than ever. And perhaps we as a sport could benefit from the BBC Sports department moving to Salford.

A start for me would be to get ALL test matches back on the BBC.

Assuming that they are interested, I'd like to see all international rugby league and the Challenge Cup on the BBC.

I'm not sure that's the case. £40m is a lot to spend every year for just 15 games.

Yes. But it becomes tedious and counter-productive if all you do is get battered with metronomic regularity.

You see, that's the thing about TV deals: At some point you've got to WIN.

Mugwump's point about the need to win more than the odd match every so often is valid but we do I agree need internationals to be on the BBC for exposure to gain credibilty. I think one option would be to add an England B team (like the Saxons in RU) to the European Cup and try to get that on the BBC. I know it would essentially be copying the 6 nations but it has more chance of being competitive than the 4 nations does.

The staging of the rounds is very frustrating.
3 rounds played in quite a short space of time followed by a 9/10 week gap to the Semis is way to inconsistent; of what was once regarded as the Blue riband event in RL

Agreed but as long as the final is in August that is what will have to happen as every year almost there are larger (spectator-wise) events during June and July - Olympics, Soccer World Cup, Soccer Euro Championships, RU World Cups, Wimbledon Championships all a bigger TV audience so we get bumped to make room.

The only solution is to bite the bullet and move the Challenge Cup final back to late May. We could then have SFs in early May (3 weeks before final) with the earlier rounds every two weeks meaning 4th round (SL enter) in Mid March with 3rd round (Champ & Champ 1 enter) in early March. Rounds 1 and 2 (amateur only) played in Feb. The cup would still fall within the seasons for the participating clubs and we would not have the enforced need for the massive gap. A feeling of building excitement and momentum for the final would be maintained among the fans and casual observers on TV would be more likely to stick with it. After 10 weeks non RL fans would have forgotten the late drama that sent Warrington through to the semis (for example) and would be less likely to remeber that a semi final was being played when it finally was played.

Magic weekend could then be staged in August when the CC final is played now. Having it at the latter part of the season may lead to more attending as fans will know the importance of the fixtures (including those of rivals for position in the league) and would have more incentive to see the games.

We're talking about the Beeb right? At the last round of TV talks they made it clear that they were only interested in bidding for the Cup rights if the final was held in August. Move it back to May and not only does it become a preseason comp for many teams, but it never gets shown on TV.