So when the RFL "realise this", why does this make it better?

Explain...

RL fans in "paranoid as hell" shocker.

5 Live are running an hour special at 9pm tomorrow about the 120th anniversary of Rugby League, also with a preview of the CC Final. The game is being broadcast live on BBC, and on radio via 5 Live Sports Extra (5 Live have got commentary on those rentboys Chelsea).

Get the decent coverage & build up whilst you can folks, because in 2-3 years time, you'll have to listen to Eddie, Stevo, Stuart Cummings, Phil Clarke, Barry & Terry when Sky get the FULL rights to the Challenge Cup.

So the Mathers non story is a bigger news than the Challenge a Cup final is it?

If not then why run the Mathers story for 4 full days just ahead of the Wenbley final.

That's not paranoid fella that's a fact and it's not isolated is it?

I don't think it's a case of being 'paranoid as hell' at all.

Not too many people are complaining about the Beeb's coverage of, say, the CCF itself, which is fine, in my view (and certainly a big improvement on those clowns at Sky). It's the general importance with which the sport is treated, as evidenced by the BBC sport website concentrating on Mathers. Compare and contrast the attitude to, say, the last RLWC with the ridiculously over-hyped Six Nations, where taking an interest is virtually treated as a patriotic necessity for even the casual viewer.

All that said, I agree with you that the RFL would be crazy to allow the CC to go to Sky.

A player getting suspended over an alleged betting scandal isn't a 'non story'.

As to why it has been the lead story for four days, what has the sport done to generate newsworthy headlines? We've had a few press releases about ticket sales (and one could argue that a showpiece event should be sold out well before three days before a final) and we've had a press event for the final at Doncaster Racecourse (Doncaster, of course, being a renowned as a major national media hub) where players trot out the same platitudes and cliches year after year.

Believe it or not, the BBC is not Rugby League's PR agency. The fact that the Mathers story is still the lead article is a failure of all clubs (but particularly this week Hull KR and Leeds) and the RFL to actually provide the media with anything worth talking about.

They HAVE let the CC go to Sky. But that's the RFL for you. Sky probably just plucked a figure out of the air and the RFL have gone "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah".

Being back in the country since 5 years ago I was amazed the total lack of RL covg in the Nationals. It's literally one small paragraph most days. Not sure what the RL can do about it but geez it is pretty sad to see.

So a tournament played in 6 European countries in front of over a million spectators and being watched by upto 10 million viewers per game (check the BARB figures for Wales v England this year) is 'ridiculously over-hyped'? You are right, it's because the 6N is such a small tournament compared with the Challenge Cup A section of RL fans bleat continuously because RU gets more coverage, here's some news for you: it is a bigger sport geographically and financially so will get more coverage (including from the BBC), just as soccer gets more coverage than RU. The only difference is RU fans don't bellyache about it continuously.

You've just basically recycled what this and countless other threads have blindly said and its factually not true. If by 'bombard the screens' you mean RU is on TV a lot, that's because there are quite a few competitions worldwide both domestically and internationally, far more than RL, so it will get more coverage. As I said before, the bigger the sport the more coverage it gets. If RL doesn't get a lot of coverage it's not because of some worldwide conspiracy (RL isn't important enough for that), its because (brace yourself) not enough people like RL to go watch the game live or on TV. RU at club level gets roughly the same coverage as RL, as for its popularity its attendance figures have risen most years and its viewing figures have risen the last 2 years to overtake RLs (which have fallen). That's down to RL fans who have stopped attending and watching on TV, is that RUs/the medias fault too? And If there are more international RU matches on FTA TV then that means there's a demand for their sport (which is backed up by the viewing figures), and maybe the people who run soccer and RL should pull their fingers out eh?

What, the whole kit and caboodle, or just the early rounds (as this season)? Not so bothered about the early rounds being on Sky as long as the semis and Final are on BBC.

But if that's the thin end of the wedge...

I have just been to visit relatives in France. If you think the UK suffers from apathy you should have a look over the water. This is the time of year when we start to wonder which Elite teams will fail to make the first game of the season or which will fold part way through. I can never understand how, outside Catalan Dragons on Bein Sport, RL gets less national TV time than Pelota or even grass slope ski jumping. On some of the local channels there is reasonable coverage of local events like box car racing and I once spent a wet couple of hours watching Solex racing. What are we doing wrong?

And here you are once again blindly bleating on about the collective RL shoulder based chip whilst singularly failing to acknowledge that decades of institutional media and cultural bias in favour of RU have helped to create this situation. It's all well and good saying that RL doesn't deserve more coverage, but how about the fact that RU is worthy of significantly less than it gets. Game for game at domestic level roughly the same number of people care about both sports, but the coverage is hugely disproportionate in favour of the establishment game. You don't think that carries any significance?

You accuse others of being blinkered yet take no account of decades of RL being treated like a second class citizen, outlawed in the armed forces, ignored by the mainstream press regardless of popularity. A level playing field doesn't just happen after that sort of mistreatment, it requires decades of work. It's all well and good chastising the RL board, but the RFU and the establishment have, as a provable matter of fact, held RL back right around the world for a very long time, and to ignore that makes you look like an idiot.