Btw, I think the latest AFL deal had 50/100 million or something in there for the IT rights

We don't havecan official stream right now do we? So unless SKY have put the blockers on it (probably) could be a bit of money their. Though let's not compare to AFL that gets MEGA money deals.

I don't understand the talk of expanding the SL on the back of this. The majority of clubs aren't spending up to the cap and we aren't playing our players enough. To keep the level of SL as high as possible this money needs to filter through so clubs can offer players enough to keep our talent.

The figure only looks a lot higher as the last deal (about £65mill?) was split over 3 years this is over 5 years which you could argue in inflation terms could make it equal / worse as over a longer period!

I'm sure the IT rights are separate to the TV deals not unless Uncle Rupert has a clause in the contract.

If he doesn't, that means any company could bye the rights and stream live games, replays, RL shows, news and all the rest and charge whatever they think it's worth.

The NBA in the USA has a live streaming site for Basketball, you pay a certain amount a month or year and you can watch it at any time without it eating into you ISP bandwidth.

Telstra has it out here for AFL, RL and V8 Super Cars.

Yeah but didn't sky get in early last time to stop ESPN getting it?

Don't know tbh. But of you look over inflation since signed last deal and projected growth by time this one will be up it's not really that good a deal at all. ( though better than nothing).

Also if for example if Union get a new bumper deal next year we have to wait until 2017 to match it!

Yes that's what I mean, depends on what clauses / control SKY have.

Bare in mind they also have SKY player which (under a multi room package) you can stream the live SL games on too they may well have something in place.

But if it's only for the ESL, it's not bad, you could still end up with another 10/15/20 million from Challenge Cup, Championship, WCC and Internationals.

And hopefully Internet rights.

Looking at this deal at around 140 million Aus, that's about what the ARL got back in the early 90's just before Rupert and Kerry took an axe to the game, at the time, RL was killing AFL in TV money and expansion, now look at it.

Yea true but then again we are also presuming that every penny of the SL deal goes directly to the clubs which I'm sure is not the case exactly.

I hope the championships see a hood direct increase as we get next to nothing now and considering that 90% of players are all British and a lot of young talent. Great strides could be made in our games development should funding see and increase.

For sure, lower Leagues and grass roots are the lifeblood of all sports.

Club game against club game RL gets the much higher figures. The only reason Sky pays a huge amount for Club RU is for those nice England games in October.

It would be good if games were streamed online two teams in USARL now do this so why can't we. Even if it means just the Sunday games and are pay per view.

Given the state of the economy, it's probably as good as we'll get, even if inflation'll eat away a fair bit of it (there's more chance of Jonny Vegas standing up in public and saying that Wigan are the greatest RL side this planet's ever seen than the Bank of England getting an inflation forecast right!).

For online rights to be worth something, the quality (and money spent) on recording non-Sky games would need to be massively improved. MLB/NBA and whatever already have broadcast quality feeds coming from every game. We had some bloke with a camcorder and comedy biased club commentators.