Have the RFL ever offered a rights package to freindly internationals to anyone? outside of the World Cup and 4Nations its never clear who or where England will be playing. Why would the BBC or any broadcaster be willing to commit money to such an erratic, disorganised schedule? In contrast I bet the BBC know in detail when and where England RU will be playing for the next couple of years and can bid for rights packages accordingly.

They do have rights to some internationals, including the world cup at the end of this year and in 2021. They dont have the rights to this game for the same reason sky dont. The game itself wasnt confirmed when they sold the last set of rights.

The daily star is reporting that that the BBC did bid but the RFL rejected it.

As for the RFL handing it over to the BBC for free. That would be a very silly thing to do.

Maybe the BBC bid was really low. Can't see why else the RFL would turn it down

Just received an email about this. £3.49 is the "early bird price", so I'm guessing £5 later on. Can't see many fans paying for this.

So the RFL are set to charge £3.50 for people to stream the England/Samoa with it being free for those who brought Magic weekend tickets. What's everyone's thoughts (i can guess)

My views:-

Obviously the RFL think an SL fan supporting England is more valuable than a championship fan with Summerbash ticket holders being omitted from a free ticket.

Any RL fan considering paying for the stream (and i can't imagine they will be many to start with) will most likely be going to the magic weekend anyway so the amount of people paying will earn the RFL a bus fare.

I can understand them maybe using this fixture to experiment other options than the BBC who probably criminally underpay for RL rights. Them walking away from the BBC rather than just bending over for them might force them into paying more money for the rights. I think i read somewhere they paid £40millon for the 6 nations rights. Knock a couple of zeros of the figure and you'll probably get in the region what they pay for RL. While the 6 nations is bigger than RL, they won't get a million times more viewers than us. I would hope they maybe went to ITV or Channel 4 before using this crazy streaming idea.

It will be fine RL is a massive sport and doesn't need any exposure particularly at International level which is thriving.

Loads will buy it, excellent idea by the RFL.

I have emailed the RFL to make my feelings very clear on this subject! What a way to alienate their already dwindling fan base!

Its decisions like this which validate my position that supporting my club (Cas) will always come before supporting the national team, which it should'nt.

So are people moaning about the price of this? Or just the practice in general?
Anyone moaning at having to pay £3 to watch a game of RL needs to give their head a shake.

One journo is reporting that one of the broadcasters bid less than £10k for the rights to show this game. I can see where the rfl are coming from when broadcasters are taking the p!ss out of our sport with ridiculous offers like that.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. So dumb, it deserves to be boycotted. I spend plenty of my hard-earned on watching rugby league, but I wouldn't pay a penny for this. We can't afford to encourage such idiocy. It won't bring the game to any but the core support, and they will make precious little out of them, and serve them right.

If broadcasters are indeed 'taking the ' then I'm afraid the RFL have only themselves to blame. I have little doubt that they would have made more from a FTA broadcaster than they will from this doomed exercise.


As for giving my head a shake, I spend plenty on watching RL; until recently I was living down south and travelling to Wigan games regularly throughout the season, with hotel bills and travelling costs it wasn't cheap. So I'll take no lectures on being a skinflint, but I wouldn't stream this if it was £1.99; we can't afford to encourage such idiocy.

Of course it's not the price, hardly anyone's d about 3 quid but on top of SKY, TV license, Premier Sports plus broadband and line rental, it's a bit of a kick in the face to have to pay to watch a friendly that are usually broadcast on BBC.

Last week we talked about how paid sports TV packages have no future, this week we don't want RFL stream matches (which people said were the future), but want the rights to be given away for nothing. One thing is certain, no matter what they do, RFL will always do the wrong thing.

If its part of a focused, attempt to look into alternative revenue streams and way of doing things, great. If its one man streaming from his Nokia and the quality of production is bad it'll be a disaster.

A possible alternative would have been to stream the match via Facebook/ Youtube directly FOC.