Do the Championship clubs receive any Sky TV money?

Of a fashion. I think the increased central funding for the teams in the 8s qualifiers comes from sky.

Of a fashion? The championship funding for the lowest placed club doubled, for the highest placed it was something like 10x what it was, percentage wise far greater than SL

The income from a new Tv contract purely for the lower tiers,given they would receive more media coverage could 10 fold what they get now.

So who would pay for the privilege? The cost of showing the sport correctly would be huge or do we do a cheap LCTV type coverage for the diehards willing to pay for it, how many paid for it last time on premier? Time to get real, Sky pay a lot of money for a few games in the 8's that only 4 clubs appear in, how many clubs can't muster 1000 home fans - who would want to show that

Exactly the demise is Sky. They don't pay for games in the mid 8's. Let SL stick with Sky.Let the others have their own choice or alternative.. BBC wouldn't say no.

Now you're getting it. This is just a small example of the financial opportunities that come when expansion is done the right way. Increased interest in the media & a better brand perception = broadcast opportunities, better sponsorship deals, more corporates etc. I imagine Beaumont will be looking at it like this too.

Then we have the financial impetus created with the Westerman deal, which made us way to Leigh/Cas.

The Championship on the face of it looks like it's going to be a cracker next year, plenty of competitive sides, and there'll be a lot of games well worth televising.

Completely agree

Looks as though the Toronto Wolfpack deal Eric Perez did with Premier Sports was a two year deal so the home and away matches for the 2018 season will be shown live like 2017.

Well I suspect that contract was drawn up on L1. Sky hold the rights for Championship.

Lets see what happens.

BBC reports that plans for a team from New York have been submitted to the RFL and hope to get the go-ahead in time to enter in 2019 at Championship level. They are confident of building a fan base of 10,000 in the first year.

Be interesting to see where the players come from, can see NRL players being drawn into this - obviously it's years before Canadians/Americans of suitable quality become available

Not really sure what the RFL are looking for here, but let's see where it goes

The way to look at this is that the RFL are providing the UK leagues as an incubator for the fledgling clubs in the US and Canada. Once they are grown in number, financial stability, player and fan base, they will be able to operate their own league successfully. Who knows how long this process will take - 3 years? 5? 10? If it doesn't work, we will be looking back with wry, knowing smiles but with no real harm done. But if it works, the upside for the sport is incredible. Where will it leave Leigh and (to be honest) half the current SL clubs? Hopefully getting a smaller piece of a much bigger pie. Could this be the one thing that the RFL actually get right? Time will tell.

Well, as this rumour gathers momentum, I think you could be right, given the horror stories from elsewhere.