In a sense we should be grateful that the second tier of our sport gets live TV coverage at all, without wanting the third tier as well! Only football, I think, enjoys that as well. Could you justify the extra expense in broadcasting a fourth live game every weekend, and one outside the top flight, which would attract more viewers to 'pay' for it?

Even more so than providing a range of sports to attract subscribers to their sports channels SKY need to provide things that are attractive enough for companies to spend their cash on advertising time. The audience for championship 1 games would likely not be of sufficient value to potential advertisers, certainly when weighed against the other sports events they can fill a time slot with. Thus the games at this level would likely not be of sufficient value to a broadcaster to make them want to show them. Profit margin (if any) after the cost of the broadcasts would be too small to bother with.

On the same subject (sort of) Craig Spence the Communications Manager for the RFL was on BBC Radio Manchester on thursday and was asked about whether a tv deal could be done to get Championship games on free to air tv to increase exposure. His answer suggested that the Championship games are shown on SKY only because they are available as part of a package along with the SL rights and that the competition is not appealing enough to broadcasters for them to buy the rights to it as a stand alone. If the championship is seen in this way by a broadcaster that is willing to pay for the rights to the RL league competitions then it is unlikely that any broadcaster would be willing to pay for rights to Championship 1 games for the reasons given in my first paragraph.

Football, Speedway and Tennis.

the poor 3rd tier rugby clubs get crushed by the mighty foot of duper league again.

The guy wants to have coverage of his team thats all

The Sky deal for the Championship also covers Championship 1 games.

Keighley played Dewsbury twice and I think Oldham and York had a game apiece too.

If I remember correctly the York tripled their normal crowd for their game so it's got to be worth it for the clubs.

Also isn't any Rugby League on TV good for our sport?

didn't sky start showing CC games because another station was interested in the first place?

Sort of makes what Graig Spence says look stupid.

Sky started showing them because the RFL negotiated it as part of the SKY SL deal.
Otherwise they'd have have had no interest, but the Championship fans won't tell you this.

I remember reading a few years back another station wanted to show some games, sky then came to the party and started showing a live game on Thursdays because they had the rights.

Eurosport were willing to show it if the RFL paid to have the show made, in reality, no chance. Thursday nights was negotiated into the 08/09 tv deal i think.

They will when they come on line , yes the Championship TV deal is part of the SL deal , the RFL approached another broadcaster to cover the Championships and were told they would have to pay , SKY then apparently offered to do the coverage for free , this also then brought the CO OP to the table with a £ 4,000 per match offer as part of the league sponsorship deal [ I am assuming that Northern Rail are matching this for the 2 play off games that are now covered ] , the deal is for coverage of the Championships [ both divisions ]

The issue is , how much do the clubs benifit from this coverage ? , bearing in mind that all clubs dont get covered and many clubs lose money on the coverage

Personnally unless there is an actual cash benifit I dont see many positives for the competition being on live TV , a better idea would be for a highlights show [ possibly on a monday night as the O/P suggested ] covering one game from each division , meaning that all clubs get featured during the season at home on a day when they can make best use of that coverage

Showing any live RL has got to be good hasnt it.
The Thursday night games seem to have considerably higher crowds and would CO OP have sponsored the comp without the coverage on SKY

Has it ? , why how do the clubs benifit ?

Do they ? , not if you take away the 200 family tickets the clubs are obliged to give out

Possibly not , but how much is that sponsorship worth ?

What you hope is that the impressive ratings for the Championship thus far allow a better hand at the next negotiating table. One week recently the Championship outrated the Guiness Premiership.
No, it isn't going to get a multi million pound deal but from small seeds grow bigger plants

The point of this subject is that if you are going to give up the ' live ' aspect of your sport , there must be some financial recompense , if there is not then you dont give it up , if as in Internationals you are able to sell over 75 % of your venues then it doesn't matter , the regular season matches should not be televised live