Back in the days when the BBC showed RL regularly on Grandstand, I bet the game as a whole, and the CC in particular, were far more in the "national consciousness" than they are now.

I was watching an episode of "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads" the other day, which dates back to the 70s, and Terry was running through the afternoon's events, which included the inevitable horse racing, plus Warrington v St. Helens, all on Grandstand. At that time, regardless of your opinion of whether he was good for the image of our game, eveyone knew who Eddie Waring was, and it wasn't because of It's A Knockout.

At that time, I was a football fan and not an RL fan (I got "converted" many years later), but I was very much aware of RL as a game, and often used to watch it, because it was part of the Saturday afternoon sports ritual.

These days, without an established regular sporting slot, and without a regular dose of RL, most of the country has forgotten about it.

Agreed. Not least because illegal streams are likely to become much more common in the future, meaning that the current model of subscription tv is unlikely to endure in the medium term.

.. and we have already seen an england football match broadcast over this medium (legally!)

Which demonstrates how ill-thought this plan actually is.

Away World Cup qualifiers are part of the list. Those rights are held by the respective national FA's.

The Ukrainian FA made it patently clear that they can sell the rights to the Ukraine v England game to whoever they wish and that there was nothing that the BBC, the English FA and the DCMS could do about it. If the Ukrainian FA decide that they don't want to do a deal with the BBC, or that they will only do one on their terms, what happens then?

On that basis, this report is setting the BBC up to be held to ransom by the respective FAs. Something that isn't in the best interests of the broadcasters or licence payers.

Yep, lets scrap a competition which gets 70,000+ attendees for the final, because Rugby League gets that all the time, just look at that huge crowd for England vs Aus at the weekend.

One thing RL desperately needs above all else is some way to keep it in the public eye, Sky TV doesn't really do much for that as it is mostly preaching to the converted, the Challenge Cup certainly does because like everything else shown on terrestrial, you are talking an audience in the millions rather in the hundreds of thousands.

Another thing is that the whole thing about TGG, that is, the family atmosphere, the wonderful behavior of the fans, the ability of the players to knock lumps off each other then shake hands and smile when the whistle blows, this is the sort of thing that we should want the country and the world to know about, we are proud of it but what's the use if it is just our secret, it's a rare chance for folks that know nothing much at all about our game, to see and experience, even if only on the telly. the publicity must be worth millions.

And the CC Final being on a Saturday afternoon broadcast to the nation does give the Final, and on the back of that the game itself, a push up in status.

And last of all the Final is without any doubt a tradition now, and keeping it in the protected list means that a rugby league event is viewed as being of national importance. Whereas knocking it off means it is no longer seen as anything much.

I reckon we ought to try to get the recommendation rejected. Only a decent amount of public opinion can do that and if there isn't any objection then it will probably just be rubberstamped despite the protests of the RFL on the basis that nobody gives a sh?t.

There are a couple of petitions been started against the decision and if you agree then it'll only take a minute to sign uphttps://petitions.number10.gov.uk/RLChallengeCup/rl

Bump.
Well said that man, everyone should sign this

It really does.

Also IMHO (although I am not saying that the arguments for and against weren't complex) the RFL's decision to allow a switch of the Final from it's hallowed May spot to later in the year sent out the wrong signals about how importantly the RFL itself perceives the comp., and may have had a lot to do with the recommendation.

But still the day of the Final is our one true day of national TV exposure, and what a fantastic press it invariably gives us.

Even media that might want to, can't ignore a packed Wembley Stadium.