i have an idea and it'll work because hey im not mad.

Here it is

1. Put Radio 5 live on or whatever BBC radio channel it's on.
2. Put GPS chips in all the players boots
3. Put an animation screen up on one of those obscure 301/2/3/4 channels they have or a computer with dots with numbers on.
4. Follow the action premier manager style.

No rights lost, bobs your uncle

I like that idea, delete your post and email me the details, we have to register this today to keep its exclusivity, do not talk about your idea even to your family until we have the Radio 5 Live rights in the bag.

My dad used to tell me how the Radio Times had a drawing of a football pitch on the back page, divided up into squares, each square having a letter and number so that when a player had the ball the radio commentator could tell you what imaginary square he was in, thus allowing you to follow the game perfectly adequately from the comfort of your armchair.

Your idea just brings this up to date a little.

GPS in the ball too...or you'll just see a line of 12 moving up/down and a cluster of the other side all bunched up in the middle. if its a salford game that it...

Back to square one …

All this banging on about getting the BBC to show a game, they are stuggling to scheduale the Superleague show at the moment with F1 and other things. Not long now till full digital switch over what will they do when they can't show it on BBC2 analogue.

if you want that idea MF it's yours, go for it, no seriously.
Now if i could just remove my tongue from my cheek...

Quote ="Maximus Decimus"500k isn't good for the Lions.'" 500k not good? football ony pulls in just over one million at times We have been no were near that with any international veiwing figures Stick all your super league heads in the sand if it makes you all feel good Simple truth is they are growing with there veiwing figures were we are dropping this year Now the arguement thrown in by franchise and expanding the game to new areas is sky will be happy bigger veiwing figures..truth is this year the numbers are falling So how do we ask for more money when they point and say your games figures are falling? www.barb.co.uk/report/weeklyTopProgrammes?

Quote ="Maximus Decimus"500k isn't good for the Lions.'" 500k not good? football ony pulls in just over one million at times We have been no were near that with any international veiwing figures Stick all your super league heads in the sand if it makes you all feel good Simple truth is they are growing with there veiwing figures were we are dropping this year Now the arguement thrown in by franchise and expanding the game to new areas is sky will be happy bigger veiwing figures..truth is this year the numbers are falling So how do we ask for more money when they point and say your games figures are falling? www.barb.co.uk/report/weeklyTopProgrammes?

We got nearly 450k for a test against Australia down under in 2006. That was with nothing like the level of media attention given.

Your average run of the mill Premier League game gets over 1 million. Even England RU games get about 750k. How is 500k good?

I think that may well be the way forward. Offer CC games that the BBC don't want to show to Sky.
Or why not have a SL package and a Championship package, with the finals and the NRC? That would be something that could be sold to another tv station, would be matches to chose from and Sky would not lose out much on that (atm they show Championship matches on thursday nights more as a favour than anything).

We have a championsip package (though not including the GF). sky show it because they offered more than the only other broadcaster to show interest*. Though admittedly they showed no interest before British Eurosport did.

* British Eurosport wanted toshow the the National Leagues, but only if the RFL payed the production costs. sky offered no money, but at least didn't want us to pay them. I think ( but I'm not sure) that the new TV packages do nclude a (small) fee for the championship.

And afaik we did offer the game to all broadcasters. The only ones who were interested were Sky (league games only) and the Beeb (Cup only). Both wanted the internationals, but Sky bid more (though the Beeb got one game as a consolation).

I'm not aware of anything to indicate the situation has changed in the pastyear at all. Or that it will be any different when the rights are next up for sale. Which rather destroys thewhole foundation of this thread.

Good post and pretty much accurate as far as im aware, i'm hoping the BBC will change their perspective in the near future, Rugby League seems to be building in a lot of areas and despite less coverage in the press, I find more and more people in places you wouldnt expect willing to have a chat about SL.
BBC's cup coverage has improved dramatically in the past 2 years imo and I think this may be telling us something.
On a slightly different note I don't think Sky are paying us anywhere near what we're worth to them.

They're paying exactly what we're worth to them. They aren't a charity.

I was talking more in what they earn from us.
We're sky's second highest earning I believe, we certainly aren't paid that.

We are (IIRC) the second most viewed domestic sport (not including international events - Test cricket and the like). Whether that makes us the second "highest earning" is a different matter.

the rights were sold as packages by a small company called img.

sky bought most of them, the bbc a few

and here we are

Its a complicated one this

it'd be good to get exposure by having a few games on terrestrial, but for it to make an impact it would have to be 'big' ties...but then SKY woulden't be happy with the biggest games of the sport they have propped up for over a decade going to another channel...

personally I think Setanta going under was bad news for RL, because i'd hoped that they'd create a bidding war with SKY...and that SKY would still win the rights, but at an inflated price.

NO it doesn't.

This thread is clearly about splitting SL rights up so they are more likely to receive bids from the BBC.

Constantly repeating that the BBC weren't interested in bidding for exclusive SL rights last time is not helpful.

The BBC were never interested in bidding for the exclusive rights to show the Football League, but soon became interested as soon as a pakcage caught their eye.

The BBC like to show things every now and then, not every single week.

Yes but if that happens, the RFL lose a lot of sky money due to the coverage no longer being exclusive.

How do you not see this?

Because it is clearly based on guesswork.

And a lot of people wrongly guessed the same about football rights.

And that my friend is the future of radio sports coverage!

And equally, there is a lot of guesswork in your assertions that:
a) there wouldn't be a loss of revenue
b) the BBC would still be interested, given that they don't broadcast what they currently have to a national audience
c) the BBC would offer a financial package to make up for a drop in Sky revenue
d) the BBC could actually justify paying for and broadcasting national Super League under it's public service charter
e) that such an arrangement wouldn't wind up the sports sole biggest investor.

You need to stop comparing RL with football. As far as television is concerned, they are completely different animals.

With all due respect, the interest and finances involved in football far outweight not just rugby league, but every other sport in the country.

Football and Rugby League are not the same at all. If I remember correctly I think the government had something to do with breaking Sky's monopoly on Premier League football.

It's not all guesswork. The last time we negotiated our deal, they came in with an offer that most people thought wasn't good enough for our sport. There were people on here saying we should refuse it, we should keep the internationals separate etc etc. Sky came back with a reduced offer for the same thing and we had to take it.

That tells you everything you need to know about what Sky want. We wanted internationals on terrestrial TV and they didn't. They won. We actually pay a company that gets a percentage of the deal to try and get as much money as they possibly can for RL and that is exactly what they do.

The EU, but the point stands.


The fact of the matter is that football rights attract competing bids from satellite and terrestrial broadcasters: there's a market for split packages, even without the European Commission's interventions. RL rights don't, and there isn't.

The evidence is that only two broadcasters are interested at all. And their interests don't compete except in the case of internationals.

which, given the decent viewing figures the game gets, is a sad indictement of the medias view of RL and our inability to change it.