Let's dispell a myth - Wigan do no shout moan and scream for salary cap increases.

Our chairmen has consistently asked for 'cost of living '(@3%) rises to the cap since he took up his tenure, he is anti raising the cap (with a passion!) - and so am I, against the current income profile within the sport.

However, having said all of that the point of this debate is that the cap does need to increase, because if it doesnt the quality of our product will decrease (we will eventually become a part time sport) - we cannnot be led by the weakest in the comp, we need to raise the high jump bar not let the game decline.

So...we need to find a way to enable a rise in the cap and this can only be achieved on the back of significant increases in revenue - a key source of which is the TV deal.

Hence we need the RFL to get a substancial increase, if it doesn't the future of RL in this country will be put at serious risk.

I take Speccy's point re the BARB stats - and this will hamper the negotiations no doubt. However it is the RFL's job to come up with compelling reasons for an increase or look for innovative solutions (like splitting the coverage across multiple suppliers).

In the current climate it'd be a success if they manage to get a deal which maintains the current level of revenue. Given that the Football League recently had to accept a large (25%) cut from Sky then I don't hold out any hope of us getting an increase of any kind.

No more Championship football on the BBC - Sky have hoovered those rights up, and to be honest, the money they paid for 13 live games a season (10 league, 2 League Cup semis + Final) was a disgrace.

And onto our Championship, I think people need to realise how lucky we are that the league(s) are on telly anyway.

You wont be saying that next year

Its when you are travelling up to Whithaven for a 7.30 kick off on a thursday after playing the previous sunday you'll not be happy

If the TV deal is improved so the clubs are receving more money, then we could talk about raising the Salary cap. Not until then.

It would be a massive failure on our part if we failed to negotiate a well improved deal. Sky have invested a lot in us in the past to create one of their more popular products. They're not going to want to that away by paying under the odds for their (allegedly) 2nd most popular product and watching the decent portion of our player pool dissapear down under.

there are some people on this thread living in cloud cuckoo land, if we manage 90% of the current deal then we've done well.

What's your reasoning behind that opinion?

You, sir, are quite the haggler!

Unfortunately,just because someone alleges that a sport is the second most popular,doesn't make it true.Club RL compares favourably with Club RU,unfortunately it doesn't compare favourably with International RU.Nor does it compare favourably with cricket,or indeed darts.People need accurate facts to support their demand that RL must achieve a substantial increase.In the present climate,a modest increase would be a good achievment.People need to start living in the real world,not their own fantasy land.

Hasnt Lewis already said that ESPN are involved though and want to take some games?

If that is the case they are going to know what SKY paid 3 years ago and are going to know what sort of money that they will have to put up if they are indeed interested.

Try horse racing and channel 4

rlIncomes to fall back to 2004 levelsrl

Sky will have to reduce costs for advertisers, they can't do that whilst paying increased amounts for TV rights, they have paid less for football recently, and I expect they will pay less for RL.

Sky will repurchase the rights for SL. They will pay a bit more for it. They will do this for three reasons. Firstly they need to pay roughly what they are paying now, for the product they are paying for to be of the quality it is. Sky dont want lower quality RL because fewer people will watch it. Fewer people watch it, fewer people pay for sky, less money is made from advertisers.

Sky cutting 25% of the cost of RL would likely cut the rights value by about £5m a year. A miniscule sum to Sky, a good amount to RL. It simply doesnt make sense for them to damage their product to save such a miniscule amount.

Secondly, ESPN are rumoured to be bidding, which should force the price up.

Thirdly, RL benefits from its reasonably small size at the moment. We dont have massive long term contracts and debts hanging over us. That gives us a huge amount more flexibility to, if we need to, take a lower amount and go to terrestrial television. Sky pay a heavy premium for exclusivity and the lower visibility they give. If they stop giving us that premium, then we dont need to stay with them. Remembering the premium they pay us, is a fair amount to us, but a miniscule amount to them.