Plus extra games in the further rounds that the Beeb wouldn't have shown?

Plus, the muppets on sky might start taking the cup seriously and not promoting the SL as the only comp worth any salt.

The Guardian had long since reported that the BBC had intended to reduce coverage in rounds 4 and 5 from two matches per round to just one match per round.

So I'm unsure if sky are just picking up the lost games in Rounds 4 and 5 or whether 1 tie each per round is continuing for the quarters or semis.

The BBC area joke! They have been selling our great sport short year upon year with amateurish coverage and literally no publicity. I believe the challenge cup should be available on terrestrial TV but the BBC simply don't care about it and it's evident for all to see.

We can only hope!

This is the begining of the end for the challenge cup

This is bad news, we need as much RL on free to air as poss.

The free to air argument is a myth imo. They said the same about football and test cricket and they have done nothing but boom since sky got hold of them.

Attendances for the cup are poor unless the big clubs are paired in the later rounds. BBC coverage is poor an does little to promote the sport

Low attendance in early rounds of the cup is more to do with 1) the introduction of the Grand Final to decide who the champions are as there are now two showcase events rather than 1 for the SL clubs and their fans to look forward to. Attention that was focussed largely on the cup and the big day at Wembley is now split two ways. 2) The fact that SKY promote the SL and its Grand Final every week throughout the season and the BBC don't do that with the Challenge Cup. It is given less prestige by its, up until now, only broadcaster and in turn many fans will view it as having less importance. 3) The seeming reluctance of many fans to part with extra cash to attend games once they have parted with the money for their season ticket. (The problem predates the recession so it is not wholly due to reduced disposable income)

Many fans would it seems rather attend both finals as a neutral than follow their own team in the earlier rounds of both the cup and the playoffs. The big 'events' in any sport are the ones that get talked up and we now see many fans (both regular and casual) that would rather attend those talked about one off games to 'be there' and have little interest in how the teams competing got there or in seeing them earn their place. Hopefully SKY will promote the cup now they will broadcast it and will help to restore its level of prestige in the minds of supporters both old and new.

The "hope" was that once BBC Sport moved oop north, they'd be less parochial towards yawnion. Not seen much of that yet except there seems to be more references to "rugby union" instead of just "rugby" as if there was only one code. Albeit Rhino Riley appears to be the sole voice of the subject on Five.

Bring back the Floodlit Trophy I say

Obviously the point was having all the games on the BBC gives the greatest access so given some CC games are migrating to Sky there is less access than there was.

If Sky have come to the rescue and picked up games that otherwise would not have been shown that is better than nothing but we still have less access than before.

I don't want this to lead to Sky getting the CC as well as SL. I'd like the BBC to pull its finger out and improve their coverage instead.