I also have no idea what is going on.

I think people are worrying unnecessarily here. There is no way the RFL would let rugby league sign a deal worth an obscene amount of money with Sky or any other TV presenter because they know rugby league is about the game rather than the money, they have always kept the ambitions suitably modest.

This is essentially a non topic full of 'what if' hypotheses and I am amazed it has prompted such a big response. It is particularly sad when normally rational people start abusing each other over it.

With regard to RD, although I sometimes have difficulty understanding the point he is making, on the whole I enjoy his contributions. In particular I enjoy his rumour mongering and the responses it elicits. I certainly would not like to see him, or any of the contributors, withdraw from the forum.

I wonder if there would be enough revenue generated if RL ignored Sky and set up their owned subscription based streaming network instead (bit like the NFL and WWE networks) ?

Hence for £10 a month you get a couple of live streamed games per week, plus interviews, past games etc.

My primary use of Sky Sports is for RL & WWE so I'd cancel my Sky Sports sub if RL had another viable altenative too.

Interesting point about Sky. They pay £15M for the games and each club gets £1M per season. With playoff games etc that equates to about £66,000 per home game. Or about an extra 3,000 spectators on the gate. On our figures we have probably lost an average of 2,000 spectators per home game from our heights of 2012.

I'd worry that with an obscene amount of money they could lower the ticket prices to a level like the bundersliga, cheap full stadiums, no disposable income for RL tickets.

Not much of a worry as the clubs in this country try to squeeze you for every last drip

Can we have one of those top of the page polls please, to see whether we all support a Rubber Duckie withdrawal, or not?? .....

Banter apart, I know that I have had some run ins with RD and although we can't always agree he's a Wire through and through when all said and done and I hope there are no hard feelings....he just needs to smell the custard now and again

Absolutely right. I've agreed with quite a few things he's said. At least he's always prepared to give it a go and put his head above the parapet. Long may he rumour!

JE SUIS RUBBER DUCKIE .........

It would appear that I've wound up the duck, recently , He's even sent me private messages, but it's stopped !!!!.....he doesn't write, he doesn't call sniff

Yes, he does post some conkers on here (don't we all), but he's a Wire....he'll do me

Vive le duck

Back on thread.
There'll be no soccer backlash.
It's growing even more popular, hence Sky upping their stake.

Thanks all especially wireone