Wrong as ever. The only club to vote against the current Sky deal were then Koukash-controlled Salford.

Super league need an independent commission asap that mirrors the Nrl.

Well your wrong which puts into doubt your credibility.

David Rogers reported on the signing of the current deal in RL & League express.

The first vote was 7-6 in favour with the [i"income starting to kick in within two weeks"[/i with an upront £300,000 payment for each club.

The upfront payment and the bigger TV deal as noted by Rogers was a "lifeline for some clubs" who were under tremendous financial pressure.

The clubs named as being closest to the edge were Bradford, Wakefield, London and Castleford. As guests Les Catalans did not vote.

After the first vote was lost, the clubs followed their protocol of making a final vote in which the losers were expected to give way to the winners and vote unanimously to show a united front to the press. It was THEN that Koucash refused hence the second vote was only near unanimous. The SL clubs were furious with Koucash for breaking protocol and not that long after Koucash gave an interview to the Yorkshire post urging Superleague to break from the RFL.

Koucash was cold shouldered for not following protocol either at the vote or on the unilateral outburst against the RFL and eventually he left the game.

The new deal pretty much puts the top SL clubs in the driving seat now, and we shall see how things pan out for 2022. The top SL clubs fell out with Gausch over recent years so things don't auger well for France 2022 at all, and we've already had a vote on the idea of 2022 being a 2x10 Superleague which saw SL defeated, but it's a possibility a second vote will be on it's way in the next 12 months.

But the bottom line here is that taking venture capital would have seen a change to the voting structure in favour of the big clubs, and the £750K may look like a "lot of money" but it is absolutely nothing compared to the £17,000,000 that the top SL clubs felt they were were denied from this last TV deal.....

In short, Elstone has been a waste of time and Steph’s been made to look the fool. Again.

Credibility?
On another thread another poster informed you of the clubs that voted against the venture capital offer.
I suggest you remind yourself.
Then have a look at how the other code are viewing their venture capitalist input.
Than you may have a modicum of credibility.

If Elstone was appointed to find some common ground between Club owners and develop that then it has indeed been a waste of time.

Looking back Superleague looking to go to 10 clubs may have been about power not practicabilities......

As for the "fools" ignore them.....

It looks like Elstone may have a bit more to do,as well as the broadcast deal,as it appears a new major sponsor for the sport may be required in a short period of time. https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ru ... onsorship/

It looks like Elstone may have a bit more to do,as well as the broadcast deal,as it appears a new major sponsor for the sport may be required in a short period of time. https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ru ... onsorship/

The bottom line is that the main task for Elstone, when he took the job, was to secure a decent broadcast deal.
Has he achieved this ?? If the leaks and expectations are correct, It doesn't seem great and remembering we are a few years down the track and the effect of inflation, albeit it's pretty low and the deal looks even worse.

I suppose that depends on the working environment at present to whether he has achieved or not.

It’s easy to make scapegoats in any business at the moment. Just some are still hiding and he isn’t.

The fact remains that he was brought in to secure the next TV deal and it's worth remembering that the initial leaks, regarding a much reduced deal, were prior to Covid taking effect.
As for scapegoat, if you only have one task and you dont do that task too well, you have failed.

Maybe it really is the best that the sport was ever going to achieve but, if this is the case, I think we are on our way up the proverbial creek, without a paddle.

I disagree. There is no way he could have foreseen COVID-19. I think he has dealt
with the situation very well. Was he slow in responding to the situation? Then no more than the prime minister.

I think we're at crossed purposes here.

Are you suggesting that Elstone has done a great job in securing, what is reported to be, a 25/30% drop in the TV deal (and this doesnt allow for 5 years of inflationary costs).
He showed his hand very early, when he outright supported Wigan, when they breached the cap and that was before any enquiry / investigation.

I agree that its extremely difficult running any organisation in the current climate and on non TV issues he's probably doing ok (aside from the Wigan case).
However, the point remains that his appointment was all about securing a decent deal to help move the sport forward.
Lets also remember that it wasn't Elsotne that secured the government funding to try and help the sport through the pandemic.

Just about every SL club chairman and every RL official and SL official has been slagged off rotten at some time for not building some sort of utopia.

Why hasn't the TV deal gone up? Why don't we have more quality players coming through? why have crowds dropped?

Why is everything not building and building and building and building (and building)????

It's probably because the Rugby League and the Superleague have not got together and interviewed the obvious candidates just waiting to be picked up from these message boards. There's one on the "other side" who says the problem is that the failed M62 clubs simply hold back any modern day attempt for glamorous international clubs across the world to set up and show us how it is all done.

He says time to pull the plug on the M62 clubs except Wigan and Leeds and put out 10 invites across the globe...................

Like it?

How do you know that SKY didn't want to make that a 50% drop?? How do you know that SKY may not have said to Elstone "Actually Robert, we can manage quite well without Rugby League on our schedules"

When Elstone took the job, tell me what cards he was dealt?? If you had done the Job description for his role would you have put[i"Must deliver year on year increases to SKY deal"[/i