I'm sure the Leigh fans wont have to worry too much about fixture changes next season. It'll be the usual suspects on week in, week out.

I thought when Leeds failed to get in the top eight we would see a lot less of them - silly me.

It is a case of sky heaping more humiliation on Leeds by allowing a TV audience to witness them get turned over by a championship side.

Complaining about fans complaining for a valid reason!!

Will be a fun game to watch. Its not a dead rubber. Leeds wont want to lose to Leigh and Leigh are going for the unbeaten run.

They already have, we've beaten them twice, in front of the cameras

If for sake of argument 3,500 Leigh fans planned to travel to Leeds for this fixture & due to the fixture date change at very late notice suddenly only 1,500 travel, then Leeds Rhinos will be down 2,000 tickets or £40,000 at the £20 I paid & have now had to have refunded.
Add to this bar sales & possibly corporate revenue loss & suddenly Leeds could be down circa £60,000.

You might then ask, what is the compensation from Sky for this loss of revenue ? If in fact there is any compensation at all.

& what about the fans who have paid for hotels, train tickets & taken annual leave ?

I took annual leave & now can't get the day off, had already bought my ticket so have been inconvenienced & as my manager has shifted my work I am now left with a days holiday that is as much use as Tits on a fish & still can't watch the match as I am working Thursday night.

How can 9 days notice ever be deemed acceptable ?

Agree with this. I don't, in general, have too much problem with Sky choosing when the games are played. I wish they'd be better days and I get annoyed at Sky's complete lack of interest in RL ever since the TV deal was signed, but I get that we, as a sport, are virtually bankrupt in financial terms and need the Sky money.

However, 9 days notice is not just unacceptable, it's ridiculous and highlights the lack of interest almost verging on contempt shown to RL by Sky.
It shouldn't be allowed. A month should be the minimum term. Which still isn't a long time but would at least give some element of certainty.

Sky should be ashamed of themselves and the RFL should be demanding better treatment.

Well said, I know a few others who have gone out of there way to book time off work and booked match tickets, trains, hotels etc for this game.

Now they are inconvenienced, out of pocket and STILL won't be able to watch the match.

Not sure how a few Leigh fans being annoyed at this situation warrants a thread bashing 'moaning' Leigh fans?

The hundreds of thousands of pounds each club gets from Sky every year?

£1.825m in fact. I know what Gary Hetherington would rather have.

Sky are the game's primary sponsors and, whilst late changes like this are unfortunate, the financial benefits Rugby League gets from the TV deal vastly outweigh these downsides.

True, for £1.8m you may have to just suck it up and deal with it.

But for Championship teams it could be much more damaging.

Say if they move a big Batley home game with a large following expected to a Thursday night at 9 days notice, that could cost the club some serious money! They get no remuneration from SKY for their troubles as only SL home teams get the 15k compensation money when on TV.

For a club that has built their whole squad on 150k if they lose out on £15,000 (1000 less fans at circa £15 a ticket) then that is a huge hole financially for them to fill.

That is possibly worst case scenario but if SKY said that is what they wanted to do, would the RFL have the power (or inclination) to stop them?

The compensation for Leeds to have this game on Sky is £25K, the £1.8m is centrally distributed from the sky deal to all SL clubs. The selection of match compensation averages 25K from again a centrally pooled fund from SL clubs. Therefore Leeds are being compensated for 1000 travelling Leigh fans and Leeds Home fans, i know which Gary would have wanted compensation for 1000 fans or actually seeing upwards of 2500 on a Friday....

Spot on.
Of course they should choose which games they want to show but, there does need to be some consideration for the sport and for it's spectators.
spreading games over 4 days isn't helping with attendances and TV games in front of empty stadia dont help the spot and it doesn't look good on TV.

There has to be a sensible balance between the demands of Sky vs what is good for the sport.

I haven't seen much complaining from leigh fans. Besides they have more important things to think about than a dead rubber against lowly Leeds.

Attendance of 10,556 declared at Leigh yesterday , a good atmosphere , a highly competitive game thanks to an excellent Batley team performance , looking forward to seeing similar next year