My kneejerk reaction to this was very negative. But I've had a good think about it and I reckon that all in all, it's a positive move by the RFL.

1) BBC reported offered next to nothing for it, by accepting this we devalue the sport further. Similar to the Stobart deal - poor.

2) More and more TV is going online these days, if the RFL want to dip the toe in the water - when would be a better time to do a test?

3) If we are going down the road of "give it to the BBC and spread the gospel" - No floating fan is watching sport at 10am in the morning, let alone die hard fans. On top of that , England vs Samoa is likely to be quite one sided and I dont see it being a great tool for converting the unbelievers tbh.

I reckon we should all just chip in the £3.50, back the RFL so they can show to other providers we have got some clout. Maybe this could be the first step on the road to breaking free of Sky's shackles?

I can't see anyone mention that you get it free if you buy magic weekend tickets.

Next to nothing plus 1-2million audience is worth far more than next to nothing and an audience of 10-20k.

As for more and more tv going on-line the one area that isn't happening as much is sport because it doesn't offer the same advantages as scripted tv to online broadcasters.

PPV just doesn't work for sports outside of boxing/mma. It didn't when then FA tried it, It didn't when the premier league tried it. It won't when we try it. Sport, especially live sport, lends itself to tv viewership. It's an event that lends itself to s large screen, has to be watched at a set time and can't be 'binge watched'.

The RFL would be far better looking at joining forces with the NRL and selling their Rugby League channel as a subscription via all platforms, Sky, BT, freeview, and on-line all over the world.

1-2m audience for RL at 10:00am? Not a prayer. Even the purists will have nagging kids and cars to wash at that time on a Saturday morning.

I know what you mean with sport being a lot slower to go online, but that's because the major broadcasters have got most sports by the balls and are paying almost all the player salaries. It is changing though - take this new deal the NFL have got with Amazon

[urlhttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-amazon-nfl-20170405-story.html[/url

$50m for 10 games



Obviously I am well aware that RL is not quite the NFL - but if this works, I think we could begin to see more and more of this kind of thing. I want to RFL to be in as strong a position as possible when it comes to negotiating.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/39564040

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/39564040

That's another point actually. What revenue can the RFL realistically expect from this? £60-75k? To make it an actually decent stream they'll have to take a full camera crew with all HD setups, commentators, pay for the bandwidth it's going to consume, maybe even a studio, insurance etc. The costs are going to be probably going to leave this with a tiny profit.

But that's a hugely different situation. There are other ways those games are being broadcast and Amazon prime is simply pay tv plus.it isn't a 1 off PPV event.

If we had a channel it can be sold to providers paying carriage fees to make it part of their bundle, it can be sold as a stand alone product to those who don't want to subscribe to a bundle, it can be sold on-line as a subscription. We can sell packages of games to different providers including fta. PPV is a short term cash grab that won't grab all that much money

Yeah I've been back and forth on this a bit since it got announced.

Obviously RL has to tread the fine line between devaluing it's International game, earning some coin and getting as many people watching as they can on terrestrial, obviously far easier said than done. Something I'd love to know is if the RFL have sounded out other channels like C4 & C5 to see if they maybe want to see if thers's a audience for them to make use of, and maybe if it's reasoanly successful it could be something that could be built on.

As for the BBC. RL has been on that channel for decades and hasn't exactly brought fans flocking to the game during that time. So I don't excatly buy the spead the game thing, although we do need to maintain a presense on free to air. Obviously they don't get week in week out SL games but still. BBC for ages had it too good for too long as far as being giving the Countries Premier Sporting Competitions. They should have learned by now they can't low ball sports if they hav a genunine interest. Ateotd with all the licencing fees they get, if they really wanted to fill a slot on BBC2 in a morning or wherever they wanted to put it they could of and got a 1 million viewers, who I'd guess would all be hardcore RL fans.

Saying that if there is a time to try something like this , why not give it a crack now and see how it all works from the logistics to how many people buy, if it falls flat on it's face, then we'll know and move on. Tbh apart from the big events like World Cup and 4 Nations, The RFL in most cases are damned if they do and damned if they don't imo.

Like others have said as RL fan, a 100% RL channel would be awesome. Where we get SL games, NRL games, Internations etc, the lot would be on, along with some great RL shows to completment it. Like others said , then give the public the chance to either buy a standalone channel, or make it part of the Sky Sports package. Anyway it makes too much sense, it'd never happen.

Guess it's a way to dip your toes into the water of a self-serving streaming network. Seems to be working well for WWE. Offer enough content and people will pay a monthly subscription for sure.

£10 A month from 100k is only £12m a year. Then there are the costs of production, marketing, the infrastructure needed to broadcast, lower sponsorship, etc.

I got my (standard?) reply from the RFL to the email I sent today.

They do mention in it that the they have a "long-term contract" with the BBC to screen the CC until 2020.

I wonder what will happen thereafter?

Why pay for it when you can steam it for free if you look in the right place.

I won't be paying for it out of principle. I already pay too much for Sky Sports and Premier Sports for RL, and my Licence Fee goes towards the BBC stuff. I'm sure the RFL see plenty of my cash.

I bet it would get a good sized audience on maybe BBC2 on a Saturday morning when the alternatives are Saturday Kitchen or Soccer AM, both of which are incredibly tired. Lots of casual viewers looking for something to watch, having breakfast or a brew before they head out for the day.

Another concern - who the hell outside of RL circles will ever know this game takes place? Oh I'm sure the RFL will be all over social media - but unless you follow them how will you hear about it? They could advertise but that isn't cheap. I'll be surprised if they get more than a few thousand watching.


Not sure about that - if it's not on a mainstream channel how will the streaming sites get hold of it?

Whatever, I'll probably be able to watch it on YouTube a few hours later anyway.

WWE don't exclusively put everything on their network. They still have their flagship shows on national television and will still get paid for that.

I'd still have CC games on the BBC and 2 SL games on Sky. They act as adverts for the rest of the product. They may not get as much from that deal as previously, but this is where you try to plug gaps with your own income.

So I'm reading the article about this on the rfl website and I come across a bit that says it is free for people with magic weekend tickets (as others have stated). I think this is great, I can watch it for free! Oh no wait, I read the next bit which says that it is only free to people who buy there tickets from the website between a certain time period and put a promo code in...

I bought my magic tickets from my club when they went on sale a while back so I could get a train ticket and hotel before they are all booked up. Basically I'm missing out on something because I am organised.

Conning gits...

SKY has it then so I believe unless it has changed

Does anyone think they can have a go at the likely Samoan line up? They have some talented players like Anthony Milford and Carlos Tuimavave, some monsters like Cas's Junior Moor and Jesé Sene-Lefao. Salfords Junior Sau. Super League old boys Mose Masoe and Sia Soliola.

In the last game they played, the only English based player in the squad was Denny Solomona.

Hopefully that's the case this time because other wise Cas could have 3 players turning out for either team! Roberts, Moors & Sene-Lefao for Samoa and Hardaker, Gale & take your pick of a few players for the 3rd for England.

Typical attitude of a backward thinking, flat cap, RL fan, who doesn't support the international game. Sadly a number of fans and clubs share this view.

Hardly. The England team have a 3 player cap to stop it being unfair on the club sides but then if Samoa call up English based players after not doing so for their last game could leave teams further in the lurch.

Any promo codes going round to stream this game at a discount yet?

Just in case you're not being ironic:

£3.49 is the early bird price, so expect price to rise 24 hrs before KO, and if you buy a Magic ticket you get a free viewing too (if you enter promo code).

If this is going to work on any level then both teams need to field their very best side. I might be inclined to tune in if I know full well that Samoa and England are at full strength. And for me that would be:

England

1. Zak Hardaker
2. Ryan Hall
3. Mark Percival
4. Kallum Watkins
5. Greg Eden
6. Gareth Widdop
7. Luke Gale
8. Chris Hill
9. Josh Hodgson
10. James Graham
11. Mike McMeekan
12. Elliott Whitehead
13. Sam Burgess

14. Daryl Clark
15. George Burgess
16. Scott Taylor
17. Sean O'Loughlin

I would be tempted to include Liam Farrell, Jermaine McGillvary or Ryan Atkins. But that would be my squad.

Samoa

1. Peter Mata'utia
2. Antonio Winterstein
3. Ricky Leutele
4. Joseph Leilua
5. David Nofoaluma
6. Anthony Milford
7. Fa'amanu Brown
8. Sam Kasiano
9. Kaysa Pritchard
10. Junior Paulo
11. Jesse Sene-Lefao
12. Frank Winterstein
13. Leeson Ah Mau

14. Pita Godinet
15. Junior Moors
16. Sam Tagataese
17. Sam Lisone

Could include Ben Roberts, Isaac Liu, Sia Soliola, Daniel Vidot, Mose Masoe. To me that looks like a decent game!

I like your Samoa team better than your England team!



But Godinet before Brown, surely?

They're talking about Leilua playing for Oz lately. Not that that seems to make any difference these days....

In fact, I'd go so far as to say, I reckon that (hypothetical) Samoa team would beat your (hypothetical) England team.