Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse after the London debacle but Wigan away now a Thursday and all the play off games through to OT. Complete joke.

Nothing on our OS that I can see. Thought I was seeing things at half time

Rugby League fans aren't important so quit yer whining, grab yourself a Sky Sports subscription and STFU. A filler is required during the Premier League Darts off-season anyhow.

Regards,
Super League (bending over for Sky since 1996).

Sad but true

Makes me laugh how Eddie makes out they are doing us a favour

Less traffic on the M62 on a Thursday night. Friday still free for pub duties. Win win.

M62 has been drastically better in recent weeks!

Rubbish idea. Going to play right into skys hands though as more folk sack off going to the game and sit at home and watch it.

Filler indeed.

If the people at the RFL are not in serious talks with BT Sport or other broacasters they need their bumps reading.

Good point, the rugby union brigade seem to be spreading the union games between different broadcasters.
I presume it's to the highest bidder.

No different to any other sport bar none. Even the Football League play-offs are midweek games.

Sky will do whatever gets ratings and why shouldn't they? They paid for it.

"Don't you just love your midweek rugby league ?"

It might not please everyone but if sky pay for it they can pretty much do what they want with it, I would imagine that without the sky money a lot of clubs would be even further in the s*** than they already are.

Premier league monday night football has been on sky for about 20 years

I'm not irked by them messing fixtures around. My issue is they don't pay enough for it. We get peanuts compared to other sports and I understand we're the second highest viewed sport on Sky. They don't pay anywhere near enough.

Furthermore, they don't promote it at all. Watch your "summer of Soprts" advert on Sky. Plenty of F1, golf, cricket. Not one mention of Super League.

We are completely undervalued by Sky.

This is, of course, more of a criticism of those running the game than Sky. If we're happy to bend over and take it then, of course, they are going to give it to us.

Much of that comes down to the events RL has to sell to Sky's audiences. Those 'Summer of Sport' ads are pretty much exclusive to 'major' events - the Ashes, Lions Tour, US Open, etc. RL has three 'major' events - one is in October and the other two aren't on Sky. Other than the Premier League, which is a different animal entirely, Sky doesn't massively promote regular season games for any sport - it doesn't need to.

Sky will only get their hand in their pocket when Super League / RL is a sought-after product. That means getting the standard right and getting the right audience to watch it. We're talking about the type of audiences that companies that sell expensive products want to talk to - not the sort of audience that gets y about paying £17 to see a play-off semi-final because they spent all of their money on cheap aftershave and online bingo.

I've no idea what sky pay the RFL or what the super league is worth to sky

It sounds like sky are getting very good value from RL and it's the RFL undervaluing it if anyone is, given the stobart deal that doesn't surprise me in the slightest

Including the Stobart deal the RFL hasn't brought in one penny of Sponsorship for SL naming rights for two years.

Absolutely spot on.

The fact that the RFL are continually changing the goalposts, does i'm sure make it a harder product to sell. Changing from P&R to franchising and then back again in an unknown format would not give any potential sponsors comfort that the product is worth investing in. Additionally the lack of clarity and support for representative fixtures does help either.

Until the sport addresses its short term emphasis and develops long term plans that it will follow to develop the sport it will be difficult to encourage anyone else to invest I the sport

amen.

Hey, I'll have you know that the Foxy Bingo Coin Toss is,

err,

well,

a bit embarrassing actually.

I hope it's making the league a lot of money. Although I suspect they only contribute the 50p piece they use for the event itself.... It was originally planned to do it with a 2p piece, but the commercial gurus at Red Hall drive a pretty hard bargain you know.

Carry on.

What next - Floodlight rugby league on a Wednesday, County Championship mid week also!!

Its the players who are potentially going to suffer more than the fans. Who'll be the first team to suffer a Monday -> Thursday turnaround?

could be potentially turned to a good news story. If handled right.

Personall, if i was the RFL id see if Sky were interested in renegotiating the rights for the next two years now. If the new slot for SL is to be Thursday, that’s fine, get guarantees that it will be on every Thursday and the RFL need to set about owning the lead in to the weekend. If they want Monday night RL during the summer, that’s fine, but don’t move it from the slots we own, sell an extra 12 games.

I get the feeling the good ol' rugby league public are having a traditional moan just for the sake of it here.

Personally I got home from work on Monday and remembered that Saints vs Wigan was on live in the next hour, that was a bloody brilliant treat as a neutral on a glum weekday. For the neutrals and getting people into the game it is brilliant, as lets face it what else is on Tv on a Thursday? Audiences will be on the up and its upto the RFL to capitalise on that.

I planned on going to Wigan vs Leeds and now that it has moved to Thursday I still plan on doing so. What is the difference between 8pm on a Thursday and 8pm on a Friday? So what if I have 2 hours less sleep on the Thursday night and have to go into work a little tired on the Friday, is it really the end of the world?? If you're the home side too then moaning about it is a joke. If you're one that cant possibly make the game, then boohoo watch it on tv and stop acting like a spoilt brat.

The only problem is if a team has a Sunday game then a Thursday game, that isn't very fair but look at the brighter side to it that they'll have a long turn around to recover.

For rounds 22-24, Sky are contractually obliged to give just 18 days notice of changes. For Rounds 25-26, that becomes 11 days and for Round 27 it's midnight following the completion of Round 26.

The clubs affected are consulted and have the right to say no. If you don't like it, I would suggest you direct some of your vitriol at our esteemed Chief Exec for lacking the cojones to take a stand.