Don't let sense get in the way of massive panic!!

That is exactly what is happening. Why would DH pump money into the club when the RFL meeting on Monday pretty much clarified that there will not be any promotion this year and it is likely to be a reduction in SL clubs and a new format?

The club are sitting tight and waiting for some firm direction before deciding to sign players and extend contracts.

People seem to also be forgetting that the production line is as strong as ever. Players in the side that nearly beat Wigan on Saturday are soon going to be replacing some of the expensive squad players in that list of OOC.

Your Birdie needs to fly in a different direction.

SKY are not bothered in the slightest on how the format is as long as there is some jeopardy scenario at the season's end which could be Promotion/Relegation or Play Off's either at the top end or between divisions.

The Clubs in SL pretty much all spoke of 10/10/10 and either another 10 or to merge the likes of Oldham/Swinton/Rochdale/Salford and keep only 3 divisions (basically don't care as long as they are in the SL) and the clubs outside of SL spent a lot of the time moaning about central funding and what will happen at the lower end of the Championship and League 1. That is fair enough considering most of them reside in that area of the structure.

Promotion/Relegation (one up one down) was offered for 2019 and was roundly rejected by most clubs.

One up one down does not satisfy the sky requirement though! It has happened in the past 4/5/6 weeks to go to the end of the season you know what’s happening already, there is no excitement in that.
Not a lot we can do about it though.

Of course it does. They want jeopardy and get that with the Top end play offs as well as the relegation battle and promotion race. If the RFL had any brains it would be doing two up two down from a 12 team league with one automatic promotion and then a 4 team play off like the Championship do. That is your Million pound game given the amount of funding given in Super League.

As I said the main feeling was against one up, one down in 2019 but SKY are taking the exact same risk now of Soccer or Union seasons all being wrapped up early in some aspects so would not have an issue with that format.

1 up 1 down 2 up 2 down would have to be through a play off situation, Sky would not accept it without that way of doing it. Straight league position would not work.
But like I say we can’t change it

SKY couldn't give a toss about the MPG. 6,900 Is the average attendance...50,000 people tuned in to watch it, fewer than watched South Africa v Australia in Union on the same platform......50,000????

The only question that matters is when will he stop feeling gilty about his catastrophic dummy spit in 2013 and cut us loose?

Sky don’t care about attendance, but sky do care about the MPG it is TV! A season that’s decided with 3/4 rounds to go is of no interest, so they want the mpg to generate interest.

The MPG attracted a TV audience of 50,000 last year......that's not interest, that's an embarrassment to our game and to them as a broadcaster. A Union match between 2 foreign countries out ranked it on the same day......the aviva premiership match on the same day got 3 times that.......jeopardy isn't bringing the fans back as we're heading for another drop in gates across the game......

The quoted viewing figure for MPG what did sky expect? What was the target? Might have been acceptable for them. As for the union getting higher figures, so what? Union has a bigger worldwide audience that’s what you would expect.
Sky want subscribers, they don’t care how many go through the turnstiles.

1. Sky get between 90k and 170k for regular sl games and then another 50k or so for Catalans games that they pick up. 50k people tuning in to watch the game that decides who is in the top tier the following year and who isn't would be expected to attract most of the 170k who tune into a regular game.......not forgetting that 360,000 watch the Grand Final.
2. South Africa playing Australia on SKY TV might be of interest to ANZACS and South Africans, but a domestic Union club game with nothing on the line other than points drew 3 times that audience.......nothing to do with "global" reach......Leicester v Exeter or Northampton v Quins was getting 30k when SKY showed the Aviva......that game got 157,000........domestic UK VIEWERS!
3. Nope. SKY want to sell advertisers airtime. They do this mainly through their Soccer football but have picked up other sports along the way...darts regularly out ranks us now...the MPG got 5k more than WWE at Midnight! They pay what they now apparently consider too much for our sport but in return they get TOTAL control of it......the MPG is a flop both as an event and as an attractive TV event.....Man City won the EPL with 5 weeks to spare....is Murdoch demanding they have a play-off system?

You are ranting again Dog!
Mpg is a flop in your opinion. It creates discussion in the press, it creates interest in the game.
Darts out rank us, let’s hope Barry Hearn gets involved with RL then.
Not sure if you noticed apart from CC RL is not shown on terrestrial TV.
Football does have a play off system for promotion.
As for league winners, football already have the audience, RL does not hence why the GF is better for our game in my opinion.

But dog, it’s getting dull now.
You have your opinion I have mine. Neither of us can change it so how about leaving it at that!

Not a chance. If you're tired of the debate then fine, don't bother but when you repeatedly spout opinion in the face of facts I'll respond!

1. It is a flop in terms of TV viewers and attendances...that's not an opinion, it's a reality. As for interest in the press, if it does, then why are we looking at fewer fans and even fewer viewers than for a regular season game?
2. Darts out ranking us is not a reason to get Hearn involved, but it is an underlining of the reality of where we currently sit.
3. So you didn't watch any of the England RL games on the BBC then? Nationally, RL at club level get's more FTA coverage than union....but that may change depending on how the C5 experiment goes.
4. Well spotted. Their system is viable because the best they have already replaced the 3 weakest sides in the top tier with the best 2 sides and then the best of the next four......SL doesn't have the system to remove the weakest automatically so it becomes more of a lottery, but again, 50k viewers and 7k fans isn't good.
5. Football is the national sport........ the SL Grand Final attracts 360,000 fans to tune in, so the question is why don't more than 13% of them bother with the MPG.....is that not proof that the MPG is of little interest to anyone other than fans of the 2 sides involved and the hard core RL enthusiasts?

The "sky won't let us" argument is a red herring thrown up by SL clubs jockeying for positions of power. Sure sky could say that's not what we paid for, so the RFL could invite other bidders to come in and replace them....SKY own the broadcast rights, not the sport itself....they can argue that they want the MPG but I suspect any legal eagle and a sport with backbone would tell SKY that they own the rights to broadcast games, not the structure of the sport.....but in doing so, the SL chairman would have to risk something other than just playing it safe.

I say again
But dog, it’s getting dull now.
You have your opinion I have mine. Neither of us can change it so how about leaving it at that!