Just watched news and it looks like the challenge cup may lose its status within the so called crown jewels that mean certain events have to be shown on tv and not on sky etc. I hope the rfl challenge this and not be swayed by their paymasters Sky. Not everyone as access to them and do their best to allow the majority of rugby league to watch on terrestrial tv, sadly I do not believe they have the interests of fans at heart.

Read in a news report a couple of weeks ago the RFL only knew about this at the minute as the report was being finalised but did indeed object.

It would be a great shame not to be able to see the only great working class sport left on free to air tv.

A sky monopoly of the sport would leave us at their mercy.

We are already at there mercy.
You take away the SKY money and the game would be over.

Sky have done a fantastic job. There coverage is great.

Just watch a BBC game to see the difference.
They treat it like a game of union. The camera work and angles are crap.
As for Ray French, he is rubbish cant keep up with the game and keeps getting players mixed up.

At least Sky know what they are doing.
They took the gamble and put money into our game. Love them or hate them we have a lot to thanks them for.

Couldn't have put it any better!!

The post was highlighting the fact that rugby league has been damaged because it is deemed to be not as important as other sports. The fact that sky have done a good job is not the issue really the majority do not have access to sky. This is 1 reason some events have been guaranteed free to air.

How has the sport been damaged by SKY?

Terrestrial tv has the CC.

Terrestrial tv would not show two games a week.
Terrestrial tv would not have shown any NL games.

Whilst I agree sky money is good for the game, Rugby League is never going to grow unless it is seen by the maximum possible audience.

This is why losing the CC to sky would be detrimental to our game.

I'd like to see a tv deal along the line of what the Football League have got with BBC where they show the odd game that Sky don't cover live on a weekend.

Surely, the best approach would be to email Ben Bradshaw at:

[urlhttp://www.benbradshaw.co.uk/[/url

That abject failure of a football journalist and former FA executive (David Davies) has not only proposed protecting 5 football competitions out of a total of 12 'Crown Jewel' events but, apart from proposing the delisting the Challenge Cup, he's also proposed that the Winter Olympics be delisted!

I wonder how many people watch a CC game on tele and think, i wonder where my local team is, after watching that i might just go and watch a game.

It's not just about attendances at games or revenue streams.

What about kids taking up the sport?

It's a well known fact they're more likely to take up a sport if it's on tv more often.

If you want to watch rugby league on Sky you pay for it,choice is you'res,you pay to watch BBC like it or not.

How many games a year are on because of the CC.

At a guess maybe 8.

Do you really think that is enough?

I don't, which is why I said they should try and restructure the tv deal so that games sky don't cover live can be shown on regular tv.

However 8 games is better than none at all.

If the game has any ambition to grow to say where union is at the moment we need as many people to be able to see our great game.

Had last night's game been on bbc last night we'd have won a load more fans because some of the play from both sides last night was unbelievable.

What is more important to getting people down to watch games, is having a winning team.
If England could beat the Aussies, it would be much better than just having the CC on tele.

Until Shenton got KO'd (which upset the balance of the team) I thought we were the better side to be honest. If England play their hearts out more often people will come.

The one thing we do admire in this country is our teams playing their hearts out win or lose and we definitely hate arrogant winners.

That was a pretty young side we put out and for an hour the did exceptionally well against arguably the most potent back division that the game has ever seen. There's reason for optimism