Any growth in the sport has to be good for the game. This is incredible news for the NRL and a momentous moment for the Australian game. Whether the salary cap will actually increase by the amount quoted is something we will have to wait and see, but the salary cap [iwill [/isubstantially increase, which should mean players like Israel Falou and Sonny Bill Williams etc will be kept in rugby league. Keeping the top superstars in our game should strengthen our international product too.

As for Super league and the RFL this alarmingly demonstrates just how far we will have fallen behind the NRL. We all knew we were lagging behind, but this deal - compared to our expected mediocre deal - will show the reality of how far we are behind the NRL. Once the expected deal goes through in 2013 I suspect we'll continue to see a decline in the number of top quality Australian/Kiwis in our game. This isn't necessarily a disaster just as long as the number of imports drop and not the quality. If our clubs continue to bring in imports as normal - just of substantially less quality - then our game will look very poor. The RFL and every RL club must strive to develop their homegrown players and invest in the playing pool available to them. Otherwise we'll see a staggering decline in the quality of Super League.

I suspect that we will see more of the best English players join the NRL. On the one hand, if we have to lose some of our best British players I would much rather it be to the NRL than to Rugby Union. I think if more players do leave for the NRL then we may see a more significant improvement in our own national side. Perhaps people will feel more inclined to watch England RL in internationals because it will be one of the few times they'll get to see the crop of English talent. Our international game could significantly be strengthened, which would be huge for our own game here in the UK. On the other hand though, it means that our best British players can be poached very easily from the NRL, which could see a reduction in the quality of Super League if we don't invest in our youth systems throughout the game. I sincerely hope that for the criteria in the next bunch of licenses the main emphasis and pre-requisite is all on youth development. I don't see how expansion clubs like Harlequins and Crusaders are going to survive. In fact, I don't think Crusaders will be in existence in no more than ten years time.

The NRL have led the way in Rugby League and have demonstrated what a well run competition it truly is. It further proves that we really do have a fantastic product in rugby league that can sell very well. It's up to the RFL now to try to grow our game & aim to achieve what the NRL have done. The new sponsor of Super League and the TV deal will tell us everything we need to now about how our game is perceived here in this country.

Absolutely no way we can compete. Our next tv contract will be interesting but it won't increase by much. Rugby League is not as important to Sky Sports as it was say ten years ago because they now have more Premier League matches to show than back then and they also Live England Home Test Cricket coverage. The production standards from Sky are massively stale as well. Part of me can't help thinking that a breakaway to ESPN might do us good but I'm unsure.

Big bottom line is that the product of Super League has massively declined in the last 10 years. Forget the title and just compare 2000 season to 2010 and I think it's gone backwards massively.

What would be the benefits of moving to ESPN? Seems like a change for the sake of it, we certainly wouldnt be getting more rewards financially by such a move.

We need a new rfl,
the current people at the higher level are rubbish, gutless and lacking the go forward,
the main fella made his name in tennis, how is that good for the game of rugby!

Well that's why I'm unsure. But Sky's coverage is very poor at the moment. It's the same presenting and production team, pretty much, that started covering Rugby League back in the early 1990's and for me they are still stuck in the past. The lack of fresh ideas is clear for all to see.

Under the current economic conditions we will be lucky to get the same TV financial deal as last time.
Australia is not in a financial turndown, the UK is.
Their tv deal if realised will change evrything.

That article mentions 80 new jobs which I deduce means the players needed with 30 man squads and that doesn't take into account two new clubs. One has already been confirmed in Perth and another may well be in place for 2013. Which will be another 60 players.

There will now be player "vacancies" rather than the surplus which they ran and why we got so many quality NRL men over here. The SL clubs face a dilema with so many not producing quality younger players and needing to feed off the NRL plus SL clubs like us, Leeds and latterly Saints. Rather than us looking to the NRL our SL clubs will have a mighty job on their hands to keep our quality players here and in SL.
It will be interesting to see what the SL chairmen can come up with in the way of initiatives to take our club game forward here in the UK.
Their announcements for the future of the game here will be very interesing indeed.

It'd finally mean the end of me being made to choose between subscribing to watch either Super League or the NRL!

I thought the NRL was on Premier Sports?

It is. And 6 games next weekend!

Any news about it going to Virgin?

Not sure what you're getting at here. The coverage in terms of format ie chit chat from ex players / anchor man (Eddie) staistics, key player analysis etc ahead of games and half time replays of key moments etc etc is largely the same as the soccer coverage..unless I'm missing something?

Hopefully this will keep the overseas players overseas and we can get to a stage where we have a maximum of 3 overseas players whether they be from Australia NZ and anywhere else and gives our young lads a chance. On the negative you can see our best players being tempted by the NRL which may improve us at international level but we've got bigger fish to fry in our club game before we look at that IMO.

They always give the same answer that it's an issue at Virgin's end and that customers need to badger Virgin to put them on rather than badgering them to be put on Virgin.

It's not the same at all. The soccer coverage doesn't have 4-5 commentators all arguing with each other, they have 1 man who calls the action (and doesn't really give an opinion because that's not really his job - take note Eddie!) and then a match summariser (who speaks when he is supposed to). Then at half time on the soccer we get a fresh presenter and two fresh pundits who's opinions we haven't heard yet. Compare that to Super League and at half time we get Eddie (again!) and a studio pundit who has also probably been involved in the commentary so we also know his opinion already. Same with the Extra Time show they do on Fridays. Stevo and Phil Clarke are always on it, yet we already know what they think from the commentary, so in effect it is a waste of time.

Splitting studio from commentary would go a long way to refreshing up the coverage. How they go about things smacks back to an era when Eddie & Stevo did the lot on the old BSB Sport Channel in 1990 because the budget was so low they couldn't afford a seperate studio from commentary. That way of doing things for me is at least 5-7 years out of date now because in that time they've brought on board Phil Clarke (in a more predominant role to his old just odd comments off the touchline), Brian Carney, Barrie McDermott, Terry O'Connor and recently Jon Wells. No other sport transmits like that!

Let's assume that Wigan generate £15 of revenue per spectator on average per game - ticket/season ticket price, programmes, golden gamble, corporate/hospitality etc (but not food and drink sold at the ground, which IL has I think said goes to the stadium owner).

Assuming 14 home games at average attendance of 15,000, that's £15 x 14 x 15,000 = £3.15m.

Wigan's last set of filed accounts (for financial year ended 30 November 2009) show total turnover at £4.586m.

I would question why the turnover was so low, even with food and drink revenue not going to the club. When you think about sponsorship, merchandising, Wigan rugby events, SKY TV money etc the total figure looks too low. In the previous financial year total turnover was £3.9m, which is a very low figure indeed.

I wonder if the stadium owner gets a cut of gate receipts or some other share of revenue as well as the food and drink revenue. It may be that this is in return for lower rent under the agreement for the club to use the DW (which is fine, but would mean that just looking at Wigan's turnover to see how "big" the club is would be deceptive) but it needs some explanation from IL I think. Ultimately the question is if one of the best supported clubs makes a loss when it is salary capped and can't spend more than £1.65m on players, why is that happening?