I'm puzzled you believe (as a realist) they will stay at 12? I don't see that Elstone has any sort of a hand to play at all?? The penny has dropped with me that Carney's the SKY anchorman for RL so that's probably relevant to the validity of his comments, but there has been a more rounded explanation that SKY were up against newbies BT last time and they flexed their financial muscles. Now BT and SKY are more in harmony and BT are happy to let SKY take the game. I trust that SKY won't shoot themselves in the foot by giving us so little that the quality drops?

How about £2.5M a club for 10 clubs for 5 years = £125M?? We talk about 2021 is it the case the season coming up 2020 is the last season under this deal do you know?

Quote: Donnyman "I'm puzzled you believe (as a realist) they will stay at 12? I don't see that Elstone has any sort of a hand to play at all?? The penny has dropped with me that Carney's the SKY anchorman for RL so that's probably relevant to the validity of his comments, but there has been a more rounded explanation that SKY were up against newbies BT last time and they flexed their financial muscles. Now BT and SKY are more in harmony and BT are happy to let SKY take the game. I trust that SKY won't shoot themselves in the foot by giving us so little that the quality drops? We talk about 2021 is it the case the season coming up 2020 is the last season under this deal do you know?'" The current deal is until the end of the 2021: https://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/ ... rship-deal

Quote: Donnyman "I'm puzzled you believe (as a realist) they will stay at 12? I don't see that Elstone has any sort of a hand to play at all?? The penny has dropped with me that Carney's the SKY anchorman for RL so that's probably relevant to the validity of his comments, but there has been a more rounded explanation that SKY were up against newbies BT last time and they flexed their financial muscles. Now BT and SKY are more in harmony and BT are happy to let SKY take the game. I trust that SKY won't shoot themselves in the foot by giving us so little that the quality drops? We talk about 2021 is it the case the season coming up 2020 is the last season under this deal do you know?'" The current deal is until the end of the 2021: https://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/ ... rship-deal

Quote: wrencat1873 "The current deal is until the end of the 2021As part of the new sponsorship, Super League and Betfred will continue to support the ‘Gamble Responsible’ campaign, which is currently promoted at Super League games. The partnership will continue to see over £25,000 donated to local charities as part of the Betfred Super League Man of Match initiative, where at each televised match, the player donates to a charity of their own choice. [/i https://www.rugby-league.com/article/54 ... aking-deal

Quote: wrencat1873 "The current deal is until the end of the 2021As part of the new sponsorship, Super League and Betfred will continue to support the ‘Gamble Responsible’ campaign, which is currently promoted at Super League games. The partnership will continue to see over £25,000 donated to local charities as part of the Betfred Super League Man of Match initiative, where at each televised match, the player donates to a charity of their own choice. [/i https://www.rugby-league.com/article/54 ... aking-deal

If you're referring to advertising revenue they aren't going to be losing much of that, and could well see it increase depending what they showed in place of RL.

I think SL needs to be concerned. I don’t think BT want SL and Sky can pretty much offer what they want as SuperLeague have nowhere else to go.

They will get a TV deal but at best I see it being the same as before but likely to be less. The product on the pitch is getting worse and many of the games on tv are played in empty stadiums so it’s not exactly a great look.

Yes I know the NRL has this issue but their actual product on the pitch isn’t declining.

Now of course it’s all about ratings so if the deal offered is less I guess one can assume the ratings are decreasing as well as Advertising revenue and Sky feel the value offered previously isn’t being met.

Would a Superleague network be an option? Personally I would say no as creating a network takes a lot of money and broadcast/Network expertise. I don’t think I could trust SL to be able to deliver such a platform which was actually decent as they would never recruit the know how to get such a platform started.

The knock on effect from any less money generated with the new tv deal is massive. Players are not paid enough as it is.

Whilst ratings are important, it's the revenue generated by those ratings that really counts.

Aye, maintaining all those different personas must be quite time consuming!!

Very much so but not sure how that can change. The audience demographic is affluent enough and the game needs a much larger reach to drive ad revenue for broadcasters.

Agreed, but let's not pretend that advertisers are falling over themselves to be seen around RL content - as the game's sponsorship portfolio shows. We offer Sky some of the cheapest demographics to advertise to. Sky is investing massive amounts in programmatic ad tech, and that isn't going to benefit RL.

Sky will pay big bucks for The Masters, Ryder Cup and F1 because the likes of Rolex and BMW want to be seen around that content and Sky can charge accordingly.

Not even those huge sporting events.

A standard Golf tournament which probably doesn't rate that highly will still see high end advertisers as that small audience still has money.

Remember the deal that was voted through by the chairmen though. Any reduction in Sky monies hits the championship and lower leagues before any of the SL clubs are out of pocket

It's not just Sky money. Presumably shirt sponsors will not pay as much if their name does not have a chance of being seen on telly.