This is wrong for me.

How can a competition buy a club that's competing in said competition.
This is like the Premier League buying let's say.................Liverpool/Arsenal or any other club in the Premier League, it just isn't right at all.

If this happens the integrity of Rugby League in this country will be non existent imo.

I wonder if the RFL hadn't bought Odsal would this be happening? I think the RFL are concerned that if Bradford went bust then they would be stuck with a ground with nobody to play in it and that would be embarrasing.

We don't know the terms of the Sky contract, but our legal guys will have crawled all over it before it was signed. I would be very surprised if they did not have a 'get out clause' for a club going into administration and hence reducing the size of the league. That would surely be a basic precaution.

I would think it more likely that the agreement allows Sky to pick and schedule any game from the league that they wish. One team dropping out will hardly make any difference; each team in a league of 13 will play 24 matches, so that is still a hell of a lot of games to chose from in total.

By far the most important aspect of the agreement will be the TV viewing audience as this dictates the price that Sky can demand from advertisers. As we already know, viewing audiences have risen 30-40 % this year, so I doubt Bradford dropping out of SL will affect this much.

It's true that viewing figures have gone up, but 2 weeks less of the season (24 weeks instead of 26) means 4 fewer games, plus the Magic Weekend's 7 games gone too. Losing 11 games out of 66 is a massive drop in viewers across the season - better to keep to 14 and get a 40% increase in the rights revenue than drop to 13 and only get a 26% increase*


* 100% + 40% extra Sky money = 140%, add 140/13 = 11% as Bradford's former share split 13 ways = 151%, then multiply by 5/6 for the drop in games

I agree with you entirely, and I'm not suggesting that the RFL would seek to influence referees, or that referees would ever be less than impartial.
However, we all know how many biased and blinkered fans there are, at all clubs, and my point is that if they feel like they are being cheated (even though they would be mistaken) it might make them feel less inclined to attend future games.
It's a matter of perception, that's all.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... ord_Bulls/ The plot thickens.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... ord_Bulls/ The plot thickens.