Re: Sky losing interest. : Mon Dec 29, 2014 3:32 pm  

Rugby Union Moonie wrote:

Blah Blah Blah

Re: Sky losing interest. : Mon Dec 29, 2014 4:20 pm  

William Eve wrote:

Rugby Union TV rights/exposure
BBC - Six Nations (live), Wales autumn internationals (live), England Autumn internationals (highlights), Scotland Autumn internationals (live)
BBC Wales - Guinness Pro12 (live)
BBC Scotland - Guinness Pro12 (live)
BBC Northern Ireland - Guinness Pro12 (All Ulster matches not covered by Sky Sports live)
BBC ALBA - Guinness Pro12 (live)
ITV - IRB Rugby World Cup 2015 (live + highlights)
ITV4 - Aviva Premiership (highlights), Anglo-Welsh Cup (highlights)
S4C - Wales internationals (live), European Rugby Champions Cup (highlights), Guinness Pro12 (live), Anglo-Welsh Cup (live), French Top 14 (highlights), Principality Premiership (live)
Sky Sports - IRB World Sevens, IRB Junior World Championships, Women's Rugby World Cup, British & Irish Lions Tours, England Autumn internationals (live), Ireland Autumn internationals (live), France Autumn internationals (live), Italy Autumn internationals (live), The Rugby Championship and SANZAR Tests (including tours to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa by England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France), European Rugby Champions Cup (live), European Rugby Challenge Cup (live), Guinness Pro12 (live), European Rugby Challenge Cup (live), Anglo-Welsh Cup (live), RFU Championship (live), French Top 14 (55 matches live), Live Super Rugby (Aus, NZ, SA), Currie Cup (live), ITM Cup (live)
BT Sport - European Rugby Champions Cup (live), European Rugby Challenge Cup (live), Aviva Premiership (live), Premiership Rugby Sevens Series (live)

Rugby League "ghettoised" TV rights/exposure after 2017
Sky Sports - Super League (live), Challenge Cup from 2018 (live - assuming they can be arsed), Afterthought Internationals from 2018.
BBC North - Regional weekly highlights with Tanya Arnold and a selection panel of limited intelligence monotone northern accents broadcast around midnight or even later.
Premier Sports - NRL, Origin (live, or rather 10 seconds behind a live internet feed on Bet365) and in less than standard definition on a par with the 1969 moon landing coverage in terms of picture quality. Only until 2017.

All it took was the offer of an immediate sweetener payment of £300k to each SL club (apart from Koukash's club) for them to all roll over to have their bellies tickled. TV deal done and dusted until 2021

Good luck to the increasingly marginalised sport of Rugby League as it retreats into the ghetto of Sky Sports coverage on a Thursday night and whatever other irrelevant time slot or red buttoned obscurity Sky may deem appropriate.

Well considering we don't have any top Welsh, Scottish or Irish teams then they'd be no interest in BBC Wales/Scotland/NI/Alba or S4C in wanting any RL which would leave us with the BBC main two channels. Even they can't get the live Autumn internationals of England RU even and for all the talk of Sky's scheduling of RL it pales compares to the shifting around of the CC to suit the BBC's wishes (something you've bemoaned about many times btw). The only reason football and International RU are on the main BBC channels and ITV is because those events have to be. If Sky were allowed to have those then the football and RU would gladly take their events to Sky or BT and leave no exposure to FTA channels.

ITV has very little interest in having sport on their main channel apart from the ones on the 'Crown Jewels' list. We might (if they were even interested which I doubt) get a midnight slot for a highlights programme much like the current BBC One......is that really worth it or great exposure?

You like to mention the Darts/Thursday night thing quite often. There's a sport which can be found on BBC and ITV4.....yet in reality they've done little for it exposure since the PDC and Sky blew it up big time. Another sport and one you're a fan of, cricket. It's dominated by Sky yet does absolutely fine.

That leaves BT Sport, well more people have Sky so people can't really argue exposure and then say we should go to BT.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Mon Dec 29, 2014 6:45 pm  

Has anyone seen the newest Sky Sports advert for 2015 featuring all the sports they show including RU, American Football, boxing, golf etc and closing with the tagline "more of the sport that matters"? The only notable absentee was RL.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Tue Dec 30, 2014 1:02 am  

headhunter wrote:

Has anyone seen the newest Sky Sports advert for 2015 featuring all the sports they show including RU, American Football, boxing, golf etc and closing with the tagline "more of the sport that matters"? The only notable absentee was RL.

I blame the editor of the daily express

Re: Sky losing interest. : Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:51 am  

William Eve wrote:

Trailing behind Premier League Darts on a Thursday night in terms of viewing figures will soon be as good as it gets for an increasingly marginalised and irrelevant sport.

Flogging exclusive rights of everything (SL, CC, afterthought internationals) to the ghetto of Sky TV from 2017 to 2021 ought to be sufficient enough to consign full time professional RL to several dustbins dotted alongside the M62.

Hopefully, the whole process shouldn't be too painful.

For your own mental wellbeing, please find another hobby. I have never seen a post from you that is not utterly negative. It cannot be healthy to dislike everything about your main interest. You must have hated the Four Nations.

There is one positive, I guess: only a few weeks until you get to cast your eye over the opening week attendances.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:55 am  

JB Down Under wrote:

well arent we all full of festive cheer! If I had a pound for everytime Ive heard RL is dying nonsense spouted I'd be able to buy Salford lol.

The irony is, I guess, is that someone did buy Salford, and is discovering that it's dying!

Re: Sky losing interest. : Tue Dec 30, 2014 1:58 pm  

Bring back Winter Rugby, Scrumdown highlights show on ITV & delayed "live" broadcasts of the 2nd half of CC games.

Those were the days!

Re: Sky losing interest. : Tue Dec 30, 2014 7:41 pm  

There is one reason for this, Jon Wilkin went around it a few weeks ago, the British weather, the elite talk about these things obviously, RL needs good weather, you only have to see most of the matches in Aus, only the very very best can play good football in poor conditions, like the Manly v Melbourne match in march 2014. But as Bill Harrigan says, "Each week you'll have one very good match, one very poor match but most will be somewhere in the middle.

As has bn said b4, RL suits indoor artificial pitches more than any other sport, and we need more of them down, why don't we contact David Rockefeller and ask him to pay for an 80,000 capacity (NOT all-seater) indoor stadium with a 4g pitch in Sheffield for us, to play the SL GF there and all internationals?

Re: Sky losing interest. : Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:38 pm  

headhunter wrote:

Has anyone seen the newest Sky Sports advert for 2015 featuring all the sports they show including RU, American Football, boxing, golf etc and closing with the tagline "more of the sport that matters"? The only notable absentee was RL.

In fact it actually said "More of the sports that matter", after listing Premier League, Champions League, Football League, Capitol One Cup, Formula 1, The Ashes, International Tests and ODIs, ICC World Cup, US Masters, Boxing, NFL and 'European Rugby'. This honestly seems like a deliberate snub and an intentional slap in the face to RL.

Re: Sky losing interest. : Wed Dec 31, 2014 12:42 am  

headhunter wrote:

In fact it actually said "More of the sports that matter", after listing Premier League, Champions League, Football League, Capitol One Cup, Formula 1, The Ashes, International Tests and ODIs, ICC World Cup, US Masters, Boxing, NFL and 'European Rugby'. This honestly seems like a deliberate snub and an intentional slap in the face to RL.

The level of paranoia on here is quite alarming