I'd be very happy with Hallas signing permanently. Agree with the comments about him being a grafter.

My point been if hallas has signed a two year deal, as well as Gibson and Smith somebody knows something we don't..

It would be pointless to sign them knowing in all probability we are going down next year..

There may be a glimmer of hope.

I don't see why. Have you seen Toronto Wolfpacks squad in League One?

To be fair if we are building a proper quality squad for straight promotion from c1 next year ala Toronto,

I'm on board with it..

I don't care what league we are in, if the intention to build and progress is there.

If we do go down the RFL has effectively wasted two years for us as a club, and starved us of money via central funding, making us more likely to fail.
Gotta love their progressive and constructive thinking.

Agree with that.

You're right - I doubt anyone at Red Hall understands the words "progressive" and "constructive".

There cant be many sports whose governing body has such a poor (if any) business model.

In fact it wont be long before American Football in the UK gets more media coverage and fans than the RFL.

The powers that be are slowly strangling our sport of its future - and I dont just mean the Bulls - 15+ years ago the Super League marketed itself very well - it could have challenged some less well followed sports.

But look at it now - how often is Super League (never mind Rugby League in general) mentioned on national tv? But upcoming sports (womens football, womens cricket, Tour de Yorkshire) now get more coverage. Good on them, and they will have a more solid business foundation due to the already established (and thriving) models of their male/french baselines but they are still marketing themselves. BKB (Bare Knuckle Boxing) could overtake RFL soon!

Some may argue that the RFL's decision to bring in Toronto is "expanding the game" but come on they tried that before and it didnt work - London Harlequins, Wales Celtic Crusaders, Gateshead, Paris St Germain, - yes Catalan are still in the SL but does their existence prove that RFL has "expanded" into France?

The RFL business model (if they have one) and their constant restructuring of the leagues/promotion/relegation is not working.

Just bulldoze Red Hall and replace the top brass with some real business men before its too late

I think Super league and the championship have been massively unersold financially to sky..

Bigger central funding pots would allow for more stability and growth.
Maybe compete with the NRL too!

I still don't think we will be relegated

Sky Sports‏ @SkySportRL 1m1 minute ago
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New US based investment group raises interest in Bradford Bulls following "early but advanced" talks with RFL and Super League Europe

We may think that, but to realise higher prices for TV rights we need more bidders to put the price up. Fact is there is no-one who can realistically bid enough to make Sky increase their offer.

Thats the second time you've fallen for a Fax fans twitter post. Honestly don't know how he has the will to keep on with the same joke a year on...

I agree. RFL should be coming up with a huge portfolio of evidence to market RL as the massively entertaining game that it is, turn it into a top presentation and getting somebody with a lot of charisma to present the case to BT Sports; getting them interested would give Sky some competition which would hopefully lead to a better deal for RL.

Can't see it happening!

Best chance is for England to somehow win the WC down-under and serious competition for RL coverage is born from that excitement.

Its like it was funny the first time and possibly the 2nd and 3rd but like you say, doing the same thing over and over I can only imagine him sitting there giggling to himself with each one.

Can you remember a couple of years ago the good Dr caused a bit of a storm when he said Super League was wrong to accept the Sky bid straight and also for so long, they should see if any other options could be found. I believe he said something like

"You don't marry the first bird you sleep with"

I think he's been proved right

Its not just the sky deal or the RFL thats the problem. The clubs have become so lazy and don't market or "speculate to accumulate". They take the sky money, put out a few tweets and thats it. The sport has gone backwards so much since the the boom years 96-to the mid 2000s. The crowds are falling and apart from Wigan and to an extent Leeds, the clubs do nothing to market their players. Remember how we marketed Robbie Paul? Every young kid in Bradford knew who he was and wanted to be him. People go on about getting players recognised outside the M62 corridor, but things have got so bad i think we're struggling to get players recognised IN the M62 corridor. To use an example, Tom Johnstone is one of the most exciting prospects in the game at the moment. His highlights reel would make for good viewing. But if i printed a picture and took it around Wakefield (bearing in mind he is also a HG player) i bet not even 50% of the Wakefield public wpuld recognise him. Thats just an example, all clubs are guilty of not marketing IMHO

Well, fair enough, that's pretty funny Roger, but the reality is there aren't any other birds willing to sleep with the RFL.

The only options are well known broadcasters, so hardly hiding and waiting to be discovered by the RFL. The sale of broadcasting rights is a public auction and the others haven't made any successful bids as yet. The good doctor's idea is fine - maybe he should tell us who he has in mind?

I get what you're saying, but I think he was on about accepting on Sky's terms so quickly and the deal was for too long. Without checking I think the deal was for 6 or 7 year. Yes that's a bit of long term security but I'm sure if it was a 3 year deal Sky would of been offering another one in 3 years time. I think the Dr was saying it should be worth more money, not just accept it so quickly

I trust Marwan as a good businessman before anybody from the RFL. Look what a great deal they got for championship clubs

I'm pretty sure the last time the Sky deal was up for renewal, the RFL never even bothered to speak to any other potential bidders.
I mean, why not at least offer it to the likes of BT/Premier etc. and see what they have to say?

Shortly after the deal was announced, Premier Sports came out and said that they weren't even consulted or given a chance to bid. They were so vexed by it, they stopped bothering to cover the Championship which they still had rights for, since they were doing that at no profit in order to build their coverage for the future (or words to that effect). Once that future no longer existed through no fault of their own, they saw no point showing the Championship any more.

They probably wouldn't have competed with Sky. But to not even be given the chance after a couple of years of showing Championship rugby every week (god would we all love that back!), that was pretty shoddy treatment from the RFL.

If the Championship and lower leagues had some sort of TV deal, they could at least make some additional revenue from advertising.

Given the lack of monies in the game and the issues that have affected several clubs, then the RFL need to held to some account for being at least partially responsible for that

I think the idea of championship clubs having their own deal is one way round, but BT have never given any impression of being interested though Premier could beI guess.
In terms of a SL deal I doubt very much that Premier have the clout to outbid Sky and, as before, BT don't seem interested.

Whilst I agree with most of that, what I don't understand is why the RFL couldn't hammer out a deal with Premier.

Sure, during the negotiations, it will have been made difficult by the Super 8s. If Sky have SL rights and Premier have Championship rights, who shows Middle 8s? You'd have to work out a deal for both to show, with one having priority over match choice. But to just give Sky it all and totally neglect to ask the question "Are you actually going to show any Championship games other than a stupid festival weekend" is p!ss poor. Or they asked the question, were told no they're not showing it and didn't actually care. Either way, they totally shafted Championship teams for reasons already outlined regarding sponsorship and exposure.

Premier said they were interested in showing Championship. Sky clearly aren't. So how the rights end up with Sky could only fall down to money. But since Premier were never given the chance to bid, it's hard to use that as a reason when you don't know how much they could have bid.

Yeah, but with the middle 8's you've got 12 matches every weekend to pick from. Surely some sort of agreement could be reached. For example, Sky get the MPG and Premier get the Shield Final

I suppose, in this age where every company you deal with is, "our so-and-so partner", that Sky, with a much higher financial input would be the 'senior' partner and they probably got the rights on those grounds - it should, though, have been sorted out well in advance, after all, the eights were factored into the equation from the start and not something stuck in, in a rush, at the end.

I understand that Sky are changing the way their sports channels are arranged by having separate channels for different sports; two for soccer, for instance and one for rugby (including union). Not sure if this means we will only PAY for rugby, by selecting that channel, though I'd still have concerns they may still stick some games on another channel. It could also be that they may have more room for extra (championship?) games. At a guess though, I think they'd probably go for another couple of union magazine programmes if they found any spare capacity...

Or combine the two? - that would get the punters in.

Stick an octagon in middle of Odsal pitch.

There is so much potential for our sport to get on the bigger stage