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 That way of doing things for me is at least 5-7 years out of date now because in that time they've brought on board Phil Clarke (in a more predominant role to his old just odd comments off the touchline), Brian Carney, Barrie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?

Whilst I understand that the purse strings are tight, some of the RFL's decisions since the Super League began have been mind boggling. If the finances are run the same way, then I'm not optimistic about their management of the game and it's moving forward.

Cant disagree with a lot of this..compartmentalising the pundits / commentators and giving them specific roles and slots within the programmes would help tidy things up, and stop the repetition. The arguing between them is also cringe worthy at times - Clarky especially (who is usually right) often digs his heals in and can be really condescending to the others with different opionions. The coverage in general though is of a very high standard and costs SKY a fortune to set up (twice)each week.

FWIW I spent some time with the sky team at a live broadcast and got shown around - it is an amazing setup. There are 80+ people involved for up to 3 days for each game, with hotel costs etc for crew memebers, thay have a travelling canteen to feed the army of staff, and hire a £10m truck for the production of each show - NOT CHEAP!

Whilst the pundits have many critics - we shouldnt dis the support of the broadcaster (it would be hard / impossible to replicate with an alternative channel).

I think it's companies house.
Woody woody will know just send him a pm.

10% I believe, which IL stated was a fantastic deal compared to the outlay we would have as ground owners.

I published a lot of the info in October on here - haven't got time to find the link but have a look at threads I started then.

Quote: Wigan/Leeds Andy "I published a lot of the info in October on here - haven't got time to find the link but have a look at threads I started then.'" viewtopic.php?f=28&t=474086

Quote: Wigan/Leeds Andy "I published a lot of the info in October on here - haven't got time to find the link but have a look at threads I started then.'" viewtopic.php?f=28&t=474086

It's companies house, they have a service called WebCheck, you can just pay online with a credit/debit card, the fees are quite cheap.