I am sure that us all true but I doubt £157m or whatever it is they are paying for RU over a few seasons is going to bankrupt BT. I can't remember how much they are paying for soccer but I am sure its a lot of money but given they are offering the matches for free to BT broadband customers its obviously not been bought to make money a via direct a subscription fee. In effect its a huge loss leader and I am sure they think a free service for soccer is going to tempt a lot of people to BT compared to forking out for a Sky Sports sub.

Whatever the market research that lies behind it the fact remains[i they have done it [/iand as part of the deal money is flowing to RU clubs.



How so? I can't see it making a blind bit of difference to RL directly. Sky have not suddenly turned around as a result of RU going to BT and said here is an extra few million to stay with us.

Are they going to come along and offer Sam a million quid to stay with Wigan so they can market the sport better?

In the meantime RU is richer and so can offer higher player wages. We on the other-hand console ourselves we got 6 figure sums for Hock and Mossop and they might come back when they are older.

Here is the real danger to RU.

They are paying too much for it that's obvious just look at the viewing figures SKY got for games. But they have the money and the players will now want a bigger share of the pot. What will happen i think is that BT will see its not generating enough advertisement revenue and subscribers and come the next deal with player contracts signed they will not have the same amount of money to pay with. Therefore there will be a shortfall in the clubs finances whilst the owners with bigger pockets can absorb it over half will struggle.

If ESPN and SKY are not willing to pay 150 million for the deal then its rather obvious its not a money maker. ESPN and SKY will make money out of anything they can and by not paying so much for RU rights its a bad deal for BT. If they got the 6 nations then yes its a very good deal but union domestically just like League does struggle it makes its money on the back of Internationals and that is tied up for now by SKY, BBC and S4C.

Well the RU clubs certainly see the extra money from BT as way to pay players a higher wage.

It may all go belly up in future but you could say that about the NRL and its current TV deal. The way the salary cap is going up there is down to making sure the players share in the games good fortune.

Both RU players here and RL players down under are benefiting directly from TV deals that have brought increased revenue to the sport. The fact it may be a problem for RU later doesn't alter the financial environment now.

I am sure if our players got as organised as their Aussie counterparts they would also want an increased salary cap if the RFL managed to wring more money out of Sky.

Would you deny them that in case at the end of the contract Sky decided not to renew?

Would be interesting to see if the RFL could call SKY's bluff.

I am going to make a guess that 12 months before the RFL contract with sky ends we start hearing rumblings of BT taking RL on-board. Wether we switch broadcaster or not the cap needs to increase and one way is to get rid of 2 sides from the Super League.

That would not hinder SKY at all they would get the same amount of games on just better quality.

The way soccer got billions out of Sky was via a blind auction. Sky thought they were at serious risk of losing soccer completely to Al Jazeera believe it or not. This forced them to over bid. Richard Scudamore who was in charge of the bidding played a blinder.

We need the same thing - competition for the sports broadcasting rights but not just a rumour.

Do we have someone with the same nous as Scudamore in the RFL who could get us into that position playing Sky and BT off against each other?



Well if you take that as adding two teams cap to the mix the cap is just over £1.8m now they rolled the special dispensations for long serving players etc into the main cap so that is £3.6m divided by 12. That is £300K per club extra. It would be a start but not enough really is it as it still leaves us way short of the competition. We need a big increase so some serious money is available.

But it's not two clubs is it. Bradford are currently not getting their Sky money, so it's actually only one payment saved.

But the salary cap did not get increased the money just went to the clubs and that's for 1 season only. Long term SL needs to get rid of the 2 worst on field and off field performing clubs.

Not going to quote your reply Dave0

Its so bloody simple if the RFL cut 2 club thats 300k. Should be you can play 1 marquee player what you like upto 500k per season. I am right in thinking that Sam is on approx 300k per season so if you add that to the 300k from cutting 2 SL clubs it would give 600k to us in extra cap space without the top earner on it. So you could divide the 600k around some of the better players in the squad.

Only issue you would get is the lesser clubs could not do this but its not the lesser clubs that are losing players to the NRL. I can see a tinkering in the cap in the next 2 years which might end up with something like i have mentioned.

Do we have the product that would play Sky and BT to bid off against each other?

Arguably not.

On the contrary.

Our sport is far better than the middle class/media supported sports such as cricket, tennis, golf and rugby union.

That is supported by the Superleague viewing figures.

Our viewing figures are probably even better than all the above boring dross put together.

Maybe it's a game of numbers ?

On the M62 corridor, I know personally many,many people, who subscribe only for RL.

We live in a populous area. These people pay SKY to watch RL.

Lancashire and Yorkshire are very populous areas of the country.

Advertisers pay to have their ads broadcast, Regional identity does not go amiss.

m.watoday.com.au/rugby-league/le ... 2opac.html

m.watoday.com.au/rugby-league/le ... 2opac.html

The Twittersphere seems to have exploded....

I'm not surprised if Twitter has exploded, this is disastrous if true. Well done Lenaghan in getting rid of possibly the greatest ever British player in my lifetime incl. Boston and Hanley.

Sam has just tweeted

@ samtomkins1 Plenty of rumours on here today...