Why not have a regular Sunday or Monday evening Championship 1 game televised on Sky?

Yea or how about showing the Yorkshire Unison Second Division

The question you should be asking is "why"? Why show a third tier RL game in front of a small crowd every week when they could be showing higher quality sport?

The Thursaday night live Championship slot has been a modest success so far, why not Championship 1? Sunday 6.30pm ko wouldn't have any major sports competiton on Sky. Why Not?

What High quality sport do they show on Sky Sports 2 or 3 Sunday or Monday night?

In a sense we should be grateful that the second tier of our sport gets live TV coverage at all, without wanting the third tier as well! Only football, I think, enjoys that as well. Could you justify the extra expense in broadcasting a fourth live game every weekend, and one outside the top flight, which would attract more viewers to 'pay' for it?

Even more so than providing a range of sports to attract subscribers to their sports channels SKY need to provide things that are attractive enough for companies to spend their cash on advertising time. The audience for championship 1 games would likely not be of sufficient value to potential advertisers, certainly when weighed against the other sports events they can fill a time slot with. Thus the games at this level would likely not be of sufficient value to a broadcaster to make them want to show them. Profit margin (if any) after the cost of the broadcasts would be too small to bother with.

On the same subject (sort of) Craig Spence the Communications Manager for the RFL was on BBC Radio Manchester on thursday and was asked about whether a tv deal could be done to get Championship games on free to air tv to increase exposure. His answer suggested that the Championship games are shown on SKY only because they are available as part of a package along with the SL rights and that the competition is not appealing enough to broadcasters for them to buy the rights to it as a stand alone. If the championship is seen in this way by a broadcaster that is willing to pay for the rights to the RL league competitions then it is unlikely that any broadcaster would be willing to pay for rights to Championship 1 games for the reasons given in my first paragraph.

Football, Speedway and Tennis.

Why not screen an extra Super League game? It would get more viewers?

the poor 3rd tier rugby clubs get crushed by the mighty foot of duper league again.

The guy wants to have coverage of his team thats all

The Sky deal for the Championship also covers Championship 1 games.

Keighley played Dewsbury twice and I think Oldham and York had a game apiece too.

If I remember correctly the York tripled their normal crowd for their game so it's got to be worth it for the clubs.

Also isn't any Rugby League on TV good for our sport?

didn't sky start showing CC games because another station was interested in the first place?

Sort of makes what Graig Spence says look stupid.

Sky started showing them because the RFL negotiated it as part of the SKY SL deal.
Otherwise they'd have have had no interest, but the Championship fans won't tell you this.

I remember reading a few years back another station wanted to show some games, sky then came to the party and started showing a live game on Thursdays because they had the rights.

Eurosport were willing to show it if the RFL paid to have the show made, in reality, no chance. Thursday nights was negotiated into the 08/09 tv deal i think.

:6z3ymof3 covering one game from each division , meaning that all clubs get featured during the season at home on a day when they can make best use of that coverage

Showing any live RL has got to be good hasnt it.
The Thursday night games seem to have considerably higher crowds and would CO OP have sponsored the comp without the coverage on SKY

Has it ? , why how do the clubs benifit ?

Do they ? , not if you take away the 200 family tickets the clubs are obliged to give out

Possibly not , but how much is that sponsorship worth ?

What you hope is that the impressive ratings for the Championship thus far allow a better hand at the next negotiating table. One week recently the Championship outrated the Guiness Premiership.
No, it isn't going to get a multi million pound deal but from small seeds grow bigger plants

The point of this subject is that if you are going to give up the ' live ' aspect of your sport , there must be some financial recompense , if there is not then you dont give it up , if as in Internationals you are able to sell over 75 % of your venues then it doesn't matter , the regular season matches should not be televised live

I would suggest that a magazine programme on a monday night showcasing 2 matches would pull in ratings just as good as a live thursday night game , it would have less impact on attendances , would show the championships in a better light as there would be more travelling support and also give a better fairer spread of coverage

Not a bad call actually, I quite like that.

Let's get the RFL lobbying Sky, it would be a tonic for the Championship 1 teams in terms of publicity and national exposure. With teams from Gateshead, London and South Wales it would probably also help de-bunk the myth or RL being just a northern game.

to put on a better matchday experience that when carfully edited and then broadcast a day later could help them in attracting new support , a thursday match in most cases kills away support giving a low key atmosphere to some games , you also get situations like last thursday when a combination of bad weather and poor lighting makes the game seem dour and dark , when ' derby ' matches are featured attendanices generally suffer as many ' big game ' home and away fans will either stay at home or go to the pub to watch instead of attending

Plus good editing can make most games seem exciting , even low scoring or one sided games , football only gave up live matches for serious money , and even now there is more recorded coverage of the lower leagues than live

For play off or knock out games then live is the best option , regular season needs more coverage without affecting paying fans

From the other thread about a possible reduction in SKY , highly unlikely , no money , then drop the thursday game , get back to focusing on getting fans through the doors