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.

Why make a point about split SL packages and then refer to 'evidence' based on exclusive bidding rights?

The 'evidence' is that only two broadcasters were interested in the two packages available, because one of them was the Challenge Cup. But, in reality, we have to accept that the Super League is the RFL's biggest asset, but the wat they currently sell it effectively counts everyone but Sky out.

Setanta showed an interest in showing Rugby League (NRL), but could not bid for the full package. Who is to say they wouldn't have bid for a smaller package of games if it became available?

Who is to say ESPN wouldn't in the future?

And, I genuinely believe that a package of 10 sunday SL games would interest the BBC, especially if it included Celtic and Harlequins. It's extra live sport for them, where they already have the presenters, commentators, and infrastructure. They could also incorporate the SL show into the coverage.

At the moment we have an auction with only one possible bidder.

Not just rugby league. How many other sports outside of football have broadcasters queuing up to bid?

And the question still remains as to why the BBC won't broadcast The Super League Show nationally and not hidden behind the red button!

Well we've got an international on the BBC coming up, which will provide plenty of exposure for the sport, and almost certainly will increase sponsorship etc. I don't think we lost.

Are you living in a fantasy world? Setanta not only bid for the full NRL package, they outbid Sky for it. And then went bust. (and chose not to take up all their rights, broadcasting fewer games than they were entitled to do. But that was their marketing decision).

Showing a small number of SL games would be brilliant for the BBC. They would be broadcasting live coverage of the premier tournament of a popular, traditional sport, which will allow access for millions who cannot afford Sky.

Easily justifiable, even without looking at viewing figures.

They also broadcast the Challenge Cup nationally, suggesting they treat live sports much better than a pathetic highlights package.

Ultimately, as I've said before, showing Friday and Saturday night Super League is in Sky's best interests, which is why they do it. The RFL is not a charity, and shouldn't be scared of them when planning to grow the game.

You might think that. There's no evidence that the BBC does. And quite a lot of evidence that it doesn't.

Is there any other sport shown on FTA where the Tv station has to provide its own coverage/camera crews etc? (Other than soccer which is just a beast unto itself). Isn't RL the number two TV audience sport in the country? If so then surely someone would want to go to the expense of showing it? Sky could be given a delayed replay of need be of the game similiar to what Ch9 do with Fox

Super League, along with many other sports, claim to be the second highest rating sport of Sky, but everyone is light years behind football. I imagine Sky have little to no interest in showing delayed coverage of a match already shown live on another broadcaster, certainly they have dropped Challenge Cup re-runs in recent years.

The real problem SL has is that it doesnt provide content to TV stations that they can market to a wide enough base.

Forget how good the game is, the way a TV company looks at things is they have say two games (Four hours of content) every week and that content comes from mostly a small area of Northern England.

The BBC and Sky dont care about teams in France, that has zero impact for them.

Outside of northern England you only have the Crusaders and Harlequins....and thats just not enough to really interest stations to take up the game and show it on a national basis.


You need a national competition if you want national coverage, and right now SL does not provide that.

Yeah, great game to watch, and people from all over England will have a look. But you need teams based around the country to really give a TV station a product it will show nationally.


When I was over in England I have to say, I was really impressed with the coverage League got. Granted I was in the Leeds/Machester/Durham/Hull areas, but Rugby League there got huge coverage in all forms of the media.

You need that across England, and to do that you need to expand the top grade. Until you do that, nothing else really matters.

If England-A were involved in the European Championship, could we sell that to the BBC? Or a Euro-Pacific cup?

Could we add to the current international calendar and try to sell those matches as a seperate package?