Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Tue Feb 10, 2015 5:22 pm  

Just been announced that sky have retained most packages for the 2017/2019 seasons. However a few changes are they have got Saturday lunchtimes instead of Saturday evenings. Also they have Friday night games, I think it is 10 per season to start off with.

Now we've all heard how RL is one of the most watched sports on sky which is believed to be one of the reasons why we moved to Thursday's when they acquired Saturday evening football. So assuming they won't show RL and premier league at the same time, we could lose some friday games? I'm a big fan of friday games, hopefully they move the thursday games back to Saturday evenings now, and also hopefully schedule most friday premier league games for the rugby off season, however having RL on Fridays mainly and the odd Thursday game wouldn't be too bad.

If we go back to permanent saturdays and majority fridays i would be pleased with that.

Thoughts?

Re: Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:03 pm  

BT got the Saturday evening games, so you'd expect Sky would want one of their highest rating sports/shows to be on for the 5.30 kick offs, which may just be us.

Re: Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:43 pm  

Peter Smith has tweeted that SL backchat was shelved because it cost £100,000 a season, or 54 seconds of a premier league match

Re: Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:44 pm  

I'm a hull fan and most of our games are on Fridays. I personally would like less Friday games because it is a push to get to games on time after work cos it takes me like an hour to get to ground so would definitely like more weekend games, I would reckon they would put more Saturday evening games on now they have a slot free so good news.

Re: Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:25 pm  

didnt saturday evening get the lowest ratings when we had that day before.

obviously going head to head vs BT is different then going head to head vs a rival sky sports channel. Still, I think it is a bit worrying to be honest!

interested to see what Sky do.

Re: Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:59 pm  

I've heard the Friday Premier League games will be played during the SL off season, so it probably won't have much bearing.

But knowing Sky, they will change their mind, put us in direct competition or shunt us off to a Wednesday or Sunday night.

Re: Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:01 am  

How it effects RL... How much of the ~£25/month that the Sky Sports package went towards Rugby League last year? How much of that is free to be used for Rugby League now with a massive increase of the football costs? I work full time, have young kids and very little free time for watching sports on TV. I'll go as far to say that the only reason that I pay for Sky Sports is to watch RL. Bundles make Sports and Films attractive, but with plenty of online options for films is it time for me to ditch Sky partially in protest at the way my subscription is being used: http://www.totalrl.com/ins-outs-super-l ... w-tv-deal/ £200m/8 years = £25m/year http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31357409 = £1.39bn/year You would think that the strategists at Sky and BT would consider that having more than one premier sport would be a good thing and invest in a few sports rather than just become a football channel.

How it effects RL... How much of the ~£25/month that the Sky Sports package went towards Rugby League last year? How much of that is free to be used for Rugby League now with a massive increase of the football costs? I work full time, have young kids and very little free time for watching sports on TV. I'll go as far to say that the only reason that I pay for Sky Sports is to watch RL. Bundles make Sports and Films attractive, but with plenty of online options for films is it time for me to ditch Sky partially in protest at the way my subscription is being used: http://www.totalrl.com/ins-outs-super-l ... w-tv-deal/ £200m/8 years = £25m/year http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31357409 = £1.39bn/year You would think that the strategists at Sky and BT would consider that having more than one premier sport would be a good thing and invest in a few sports rather than just become a football channel.

Re: Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:57 am  

take a few zero's out of it and its easier to comprehend.

If i've invested just shy of £1400 a year in something, the other thing i invested £2.50 a year in would definitely be a low consideration!

On another note, i imagine Super League makes sky considerably more £ per veiwer than football now, unless a billion people watch each premier league game

Re: Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Wed Feb 11, 2015 8:00 am  

The investment in football is utterly mind numbing and as a sport, Sky will always take priority over anything else.
RL will always be very much the poor relation.

Also, do we think that we got the best deal from Sky ?

[Durham Giant]

Re: Premier league rights, how it affects RL : Wed Feb 11, 2015 8:26 am  

When my Sky Subscription goes up by 60 % to cover the cost of the new football deal then I will be cancelling my SKY subscription.

What is very interesting is what Peter Scudamore said about attendances.

" We must have full grounds for matches because Advertisers don't want to be associated with empty stadia"

I would be interested to know what SL and the RFL are doing to address that.

It is not an issue for individual clubs but for the game as a whole.