Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 1:15 pm  

Would anyone like to point me to a sport in the UK that has live coverage of its regular season on free to air TV?

The BBC has a handful of live FA Cup games a season in football. Otherwise, that's it. The Premier League, Football League, Conference and SPL are all on pay TV. Cricket's Championship, T20 and limited overs competitions are on pay TV. Rugby Union's Premiership and Pro 12 are on pay TV.

Free to air TV in the UK has absolutely zero interest in showing regular league games in any sport. Anyone expecting the RFL to magically find a FTA broadcaster to take live SL coverage is talking absolute nonsense.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 1:19 pm  

William Eve wrote:

Too late now I'm afraid.

Sky have exclusive rights to the lot from 2017. And they get to choose how much they are going to broadcast.

And we've already seen their attitude towards the CC in the last two seasons where they've purchased rights during the knockout rounds only to then not bother.

May as well kill off the CC after 2017 as nobody will be watching it apart from 50k Moonies on Sky Sports 4 on a Thursday afternoon or evening. And that's assuming Sky even bother with it.

As for internationals? Oh dear.

The sport will get exactly what it deserves for selling its soul for a quick and temporary monetary fix.

There'll be a huge price to be paid for limiting exposure to the ghetto of the handful of Sky subscribers who aren't watching soccer, cricket, union or darts instead.

Absolutely correct.

As the Challenge Cup is no longer a protected sporting event(s), it had to be sold somewhere but, it is indeed short sighted not to take a lower bid from FTA.
Having said that, with the new "every second counts" structure, expansion is out of the window so we may as well insulate ourselves further and enjoy life in our own shrinking bubble and in 10 years time, we can all complain that the game has shrunk even further.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 2:01 pm  

William Eve wrote:

And we've already seen their attitude towards the CC in the last two seasons where they've purchased rights during the knockout rounds only to then not bother.
May as well kill off the CC after 2017 as nobody will be watching it apart from 50k Moonies on Sky Sports 4 on a Thursday afternoon or evening. And that's assuming Sky even bother with it.

Complete rubbish and you know it. Sky didn't and won't bother until they have the final.

William Eve wrote:

As for internationals? Oh dear.

Go on then, tell us who's got TV rights for internationals in the next 5-10 years?

William Eve wrote:

The sport will get exactly what it deserves for selling its soul for a quick and temporary monetary fix.

What, being the 2nd or 3rd most watched weekly sport on the country's biggest sports channel?

Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 2:41 pm  

It could be worse, the Super League could be the Aviva Premiership on the ghetto, which is BT Sport William Eve.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 4:39 pm  

William Eve is spot on, the RFL were too hasty with their SKY deal. When you look at how many people in the UK physically sit down and watch Aviva rugby every week on TV, be it live or highlights, it easily beats Super Leagues figures because its shown on BT and ITV/ITV4.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 4:58 pm  

galliant wrote:

William Eve is spot on, the RFL were too hasty with their SKY deal. When you look at how many people in the UK physically sit down and watch Aviva rugby every week on TV, be it live or highlights, it easily beats Super Leagues figures because its shown on BT and ITV/ITV4.

The BT numbers for RU aren't nothing to write home about and anybody who thinks ITV would be interested in SL must be taking some pretty strong drugs. On Sky we get 2 live games (sometimes 3 with the Catalans home games) along with the shows like Boots n All. To lose that for one live game on ITV4 and a highlights show tucked away more obscure to find than the current BBC SL show would be daft.

Maybe the RFL could've gone chasing the dream of offers from other channels......and maybe when ITV, BBC turned around and said no thanks then Sky would've offered less with the knowledge that the RFL had no other good options.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 5:33 pm  

galliant wrote:

William Eve is spot on, the RFL were too hasty with their SKY deal. When you look at how many people in the UK physically sit down and watch Aviva rugby every week on TV, be it live or highlights, it easily beats Super Leagues figures because its shown on BT and ITV/ITV4.

Hi William

Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 5:51 pm  

ThePrinter wrote:

The BT numbers for RU aren't nothing to write home about and anybody who thinks ITV would be interested in SL must be taking some pretty strong drugs. On Sky we get 2 live games (sometimes 3 with the Catalans home games) along with the shows like Boots n All. To lose that for one live game on ITV4 and a highlights show tucked away more obscure to find than the current BBC SL show would be daft.

Maybe the RFL could've gone chasing the dream of offers from other channels......and maybe when ITV, BBC turned around and said no thanks then Sky would've offered less with the knowledge that the RFL had no other good options.

Although the game has probably got more in terms of hard cash from Sky, we now have all our eggs in 1 basket and IMO, we would have been better off with the CC shown on a terrestrial channel.

A couple of hundred thousand viewers on Sky is not exactly appealing to the masses.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 6:17 pm  

loiner81 wrote:

Hi William

Hi Richard

Re: Sky losing interest. : Sun Dec 28, 2014 6:33 pm  

JB Down Under wrote:

Getting SL on FTA TV should be one of the big goals of the RFL. As we have seen in union and soccer in Oz, consign yourself to Pay TV and your relevance drops 100%.

Didn't soccer grow crowds again last season to nrl levels?