RFL struck a five year deal with Sky for the 2012-2016 Seasons when they were the only game in town. Now BT, Premier Sports, ESPN, French TV companies (and even the BBC wanting to hang onto a bit of sport) are now in a bidding war for sports rights.

This long term deal now appears very poor news. I think it was vital to re-negotiate the overall TV deal before 2017, and they would only get away with this was after a radical format change. Not a surprise we have one and that the change is unanimous, but with a lot of wrangling in the background about what it might be.

There might be as much as £1-2M a year per club extra from a new deal, pretty attractive to most SuperLeague clubs who lose £1-2M.

I'm not gonna keep arguing the toss, but London RL did not begin and end with Mr Hughes.

It might end with him though.

Nah, when Fulham finally ended, fewer fans than we have now kept going with London Crusaders, if we have to, we'll do it again.

Theres also the Skolars and a reasonable amateur scene, which there wasn't in '91, so no it really won't end when Hughes pulls the plug.

Good audio description of the new set-up from Ralph Rimmer, RFL COO.

rlhttps://audioboo.fm/boos/1865006-rfl-give-more-details-on-superleague-restructurerl

Not mentioned by Rimmer but I assume this rejig will see the demise of the stupid `Club Call` farce in the playoffs.

Not convinced that fans will flock to the playoffs as anticipated....as we all know RL fans (northerners) are not keen on anything that they have to pay extra for over and above their ST (membership scheme in our case).