That sounds not what he's arguing though, I've already admitted my early error about it being an Eire team (as I know f-all about RU) he's disputing that I actually do know and he also know at what point in the space time continuum I Looked at google for the record second post I made was after I looked at the IRFU contacts page seeing where they were based, then I looked at google to see what others claimed, not sure why I'm explaining myself as I'm not the one looking like a fool, CMG has clearly claimed the ultimate prize to go with his ultimate being status

Irony personified

Again again and again I have to keep saying this! RL has a serious image problem! No corporation wants to associate with a sport that has it's 'image' like that based on the TV dramas like the Royle Family, Shameless and Benidorm! Sorry, but that is how they see the game. Tacky, cheap and common. Open your fr*cking eyes.
Union has the image. Before any uneducated troll accuses me of being a union troll, he needs to think again. I can't stand rah rah but they are bl*dy good at marketing their sport and have done pretty well for the past 30 years!
RL in the UK has FAILED to expand it's demographic!
The attitide of the flat capper is:

No middle class
No foreigners
No women
No southerners
No educated

NI isn't a country. It's a province of the nation of the UK!!

Actually it's 6 occupied counties of the Republic of Ireland, populated by a majority of Protestants moved there under the rule of James I in the early 1600's, whereby land once owned by Gaelic Chiefs was seized by the crown.......the reason it's not all 9 counties is because once again, the British didn't want to lose face after they lost the Irish War of Independence in 1922....if they'd included all 9 counties, then the Catholics would be in the majority.......but I digress

FTA coverage of rugby league:
BBC England internationals
BBC Super League highlights show
BBC Rugby League World Cup
BBC Challenge Cup

Sky coverage of rugby league
Super League
NRL
Challenge Cup

As you can see, excluding super League and NRL we have FTA coverage. Most people wouldn't know it exists though.

Next onto this ridiculous notion that the game is shackled to sky and then sky treat the game like dirt.

Where do people get this rubbish from. Sky didn't roll into RFL HQ with sub machine guns demanding super league rights. How many times does this need to be said. Nobody else is willing to pay what sky do!

Stop this fantasy of there being a queue of networks all ready to blow sky out of the water. You will see the reality of the situation soon enough when the current deal expires.

I'm not sure anyone has disparaged Sky in the way you suggest.

I would suggest that the viewing figures I posted (that around a third of RL viewers on Sky were watching Championship games), and adding that the Championship games were routinely in the top ten programs viewed on their channel that week, shows there is an appetite for showing Championship games which is not being satisfied.

My own view is that SLE/RFL have treated clubs below Super League shabbily by sequestering the vast majority of the Sky funds for Super League and by negotiating a deal in which Campionship RL rights were sold either without checking whether games would be screened or in the full understanding that they would not. If it is the latter (that everyone knew rights were being sold but no games would be screened) then, again in my view, that amounts to restriction of trade.

As for there being 'a queue of networks', you're probably correct for Super League, but I do believe that Championship RL could find a new home and the rewards from that might be substantially greater than those currently on offer. However, it does require a Championship with the cohesion, courage and confidence to take a hold of its own future.

The problem with looking at the Championship viewer numbers in isolation is that they don't necessarily make the business case for Sky showing more of the Championship. Many of those viewers may simply be channel-hoppers who landed on a bit of RL, or people who subscribed for Super League content. Whilst you can apportion the viewing figures to argue that Championship clubs deserve that proportion of the revenue, you can't make the case that the Championship clubs are actually generating that proportion of demand - the TV demand is disproportionately for SL content.

The real business case for showing more of the Championship for Sky is whether it would translate into more subscriptions (or whether showing less increases the number of cancelled subs). There are enough case studies to show that lower-league content doesn't necessarily translate into subscriptions both in RL (Premier Sports) and other sports (ITV Digital being a prime example). In other words, people may well be happy to watch the Championship, but are they actually willing to pay money for it? A basketball fan who subscribes to the NBA may be happy to watch BBL, but would they pay an extra subscription for it?

You may be right in what you say bramleyrhino, but we will never know unless someone tries. Championship RL might ever only be a 'filler' program rather than directly a subscription generator but there are plently of new, and old, sports platforms out there who, I believe, will pay for such fillers.

By the way, a number of the programs that Championship RL beat were live RU games.

We have tried it with Premier Sports. I don't know how many subs it generated, but their ability or willingness to pay for Championship access was evidently less that Sky's. Whether Premier decided that the business case didn't stack up or whether the RFL took Sky's dollar, I don't know.

But we can't assume that the appeal of Championship and L1 RL is greater than it is. On several weeks, number of people willing to pay to watch the Championship and League One live in total can be less than the attendance at just one Super League ground.

If the Championship can't be a subscription seller, then it needs to be an advertising puller, and RL fails miserably on that count. If we genuinely want to make RL more attractive to TV, then we need to stop the blame game and the finger pointing and instead talk about how we make the sport more attractive than it is. We are not going to get an enhanced TV deal without offering Sky, BT or anyone else some added value.

Yet you're quite happy for NRL to be broadcast in the UK? Surely SKY should be showing Wath Brow v Siddal as that is British Sport in a Country in which they earn their revenue?

Have you ever stopped to think that a few hundred thousand, if not million people would prefer to watch Rugby Union and not Rugby League? Therefore Channel 4 are showing a product people actually want to watch. Or do you think they just sit there and think 'what shall we bang out in Autumn, tell you what forget what 90% of the UK perceive to be the better code of Rugby we will show West Wales against Coventry because some bloke in Halifax likes Rugby League'