Re: News on the new television deal : Wed Feb 19, 2020 11:33 pm  

wrencat1873 wrote:

You would be left with an amateur sport, with all of the better players doing "other things".
During the 80's RL was plundering players with alarming regularity from RU, with them (Union) in no position to defend themselves.
If League went amateur, I would expect Union to seize it's chance and try to asset strip our sport completely.

It's not beyond possibility that they could "encourage" some of our top clubs to swap codes, leaving our game, although still breathing, in very poor shape indeed.

Having said that, you would expect that there will be a TV deal of sorts and it's down to our new supremo to earn his corn.

Interesting/worrying times ahead ?

Absolutely get that, and agree with everything you’ve said - the best case scenario is of course that we get the best possible deal financially and that the sport gets richer and more successful in time.

I guess my point is that I don’t find it worrying if that doesn’t happen. I’ll still enjoy the sport, we’ll still go as a family and create those memories. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Re: News on the new television deal : Thu Feb 20, 2020 7:57 am  

[quote="Beverley red"] 1. Interesting views in this post? But are we all missing the elephant in the room? Everyone is assuming that SKY or some other broadcaster is willing to pay. I hope I am wrong but apart from the few thousand devotees of the game is there an interest out there?

2. With the game being now fully professional only teams in large catchment ( big cities) areas can carry on. Even the Hull area is struggling with the local league even having a meeting to see if it is possible to run a competition this year. [quote]

1. Sky are willing to pay which is why a contract is being negotiated for 2022 onwards it's just that they won't pay the £200M this time. They paid that last time to see off BT sport that's how interested they were. Why post about SKY not being willing to pay when they have committed to paying - it's the amount they may pay that is the core of the debate.

2. All football sports, soccer, league and Union suffer badly from a massive drop in open age grass roots participation. These games do not get their players from the open age community games. They promote the games in schools and junior clubs and have kids signed up at 15 and 16. A superstar soccer player round here was signed age 12. There is no connection between amateur park RL and player production.

Re: News on the new television deal : Thu Feb 20, 2020 8:02 am  

Superted wrote:

Absolutely get that, and agree with everything you’ve said - the best case scenario is of course that we get the best possible deal financially and that the sport gets richer and more successful in time.

I guess my point is that I don’t find it worrying if that doesn’t happen. I’ll still enjoy the sport, we’ll still go as a family and create those memories. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.

It will exists in some format so you will get to play and watch it will just be a lesser format. We will become the Speedway of the 2020's if we don't get a decent deal. The game is hanging on by a thread today and going backwards. Remove the foundation money and the house crashes down.

Re: News on the new television deal : Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:11 am  

wire-quin wrote:

It will exists in some format so you will get to play and watch it will just be a lesser format. We will become the Speedway of the 2020's if we don't get a decent deal. The game is hanging on by a thread today and going backwards. Remove the foundation money and the house crashes down.

Good lord - someone who actually is aware of the Superleague foundations, well done. The point here is that SKY are not going to pay the additional monies they paid to the game in this current contract to ensure BT didn't take the game from SKY, yet the debate seems to be all about SKY pulling the plug. They aren't going to do that, nor are they going to cut the foundations that help supply the players. The point here is that if the deal is reduced to £150,000,000 or less which is highly likely then the Championship will get NOTHING.

The next point is that on the new deal the RFL will not be in charge of it. Lenegan will be in charge of it - the man who proposed the pro game should only be 20 clubs. If he manages to get that £150,000,000 he can share that across 10 English Superleague clubs (a tidy £3M a year for him, Carter, Fulton, Hudgell, Pearson, Moran, McManus, Davey, Caddick and Beaumont)

He can then invite another 10 clubs to make up Superleague 2 to enable Promotion and relegation to happen. That's 20 clubs he will have in his pocket. If he re-runs the vote they ran the other year to expand Superleague to 2x10 clubs and exclude the 17 other clubs leaving them with the RFL then this time they will have the votes.

Which is exactly why Gareth Walker went chasing Mark Sawyer to comment on the union deal that ring fenced an elite, and damnation to the rest - he was digging to see if sawyer was worried about his club's future if as is very very likely SL go the same way......Walker says this , he says "The hope is those at the top table, unlike in RU, can continue to see the value in the overall strength (37 clubs) of the professional RL game".

Re: News on the new television deal : Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:50 am  

Donnyman wrote:

Good lord - someone who actually is aware of the Superleague foundations, well done. The point here is that SKY are not going to pay the additional monies they paid to the game in this current contract to ensure BT didn't take the game from SKY, yet the debate seems to be all about SKY pulling the plug. They aren't going to do that, nor are they going to cut the foundations that help supply the players. The point here is that if the deal is reduced to £150,000,000 or less which is highly likely then the Championship will get NOTHING.

The next point is that on the new deal the RFL will not be in charge of it. Lenegan will be in charge of it - the man who proposed the pro game should only be 20 clubs. If he manages to get that £150,000,000 he can share that across 10 English Superleague clubs (a tidy £3M a year for him, Carter, Fulton, Hudgell, Pearson, Moran, McManus, Davey, Caddick and Beaumont)

He can then invite another 10 clubs to make up Superleague 2 to enable Promotion and relegation to happen. That's 20 clubs he will have in his pocket. If he re-runs the vote they ran the other year to expand Superleague to 2x10 clubs and exclude the 17 other clubs leaving them with the RFL then this time they will have the votes.

Which is exactly why Gareth Walker went chasing Mark Sawyer to comment on the union deal that ring fenced an elite, and damnation to the rest - he was digging to see if sawyer was worried about his club's future if as is very very likely SL go the same way......Walker says this , he says "The hope is those at the top table, unlike in RU, can continue to see the value in the overall strength (37 clubs) of the professional RL game".

Fundamentally, although clearly the games future will be massively affected by the TV deal, do you expect, that following the deal, there will be yet another change to the format ?
It's time that the sport actually had a plan for the future, instead of constantly tinkering with the format.
The 2 x 10 format would be a huge mistake and the repeat fixtures would damage interest in the game.

With the loop fixtures and cup/ play off games, clubs are already playing each other too often.
The next change in format and personally I dont think there should be another re jig, should be to increase the comp to 14 clubs and rid ourselves of the loop fixtures, which have never worked too well, either they skew the competition or just create too many repeats.

It's all about the money.
Although on your primary point, about SL having more control, I would suggest this is probably right.
Pretty much every other sport has the focus on the top flight, although most RL fans would like to see some of the Championship games if they could be shown and if SL was to largely go it alone, then maybe The Championship and League 1 clubs could arrange their own deal, albeit, they would be unlikely to get huge money,

Re: News on the new television deal : Sat Feb 22, 2020 12:06 am  

wrencat1873 wrote:

With the loop fixtures and cup/ play off games, clubs are already playing each other too often.

It's all about the money.

I note the cheap dig on another thread accusing me of getting my facts skewed. "Donny hasn't got his facts skewed again has he "


To say glibly clubs are already playing each other too often may be you getting your facts wrong.

You say it's all about the money.......

In 2004 Leeds played Bradford and got a 21,000 crowd

Then Bradford played Leeds and got a 23.000 crowd

Then Leeds played Bradford and got a 21,000 crowd

Then Leeds played Bradford in the play off and got a 21,000 crowd

Then the clubs got a 65.000 crowd for the Grand final.

So where does that leave your silly argument clubs play each other too much??

especially when You say it's all about the money? How much money did 151,000 tickets sold generate ££££££money wise

Where does that leave your silly thoughtless argument when the same fixture played 5 times generated an average crowd of 30,000 a game and a shedload of money??

Seems it's your facts that are skewed

Re: News on the new television deal : Sat Feb 22, 2020 12:37 am  

wrencat1873 wrote:

The 2 x 10 format would be a huge mistake and the repeat fixtures would damage interest in the game.

The next change in format should be to increase the comp to 14 clubs and rid ourselves of the loop fixtures.

Only last year Hull KR got 12,000 against Hull.

Hull got 20,000 against Hull KR.

then a boring unwanted loop fixture occurred and Hull KR got another 10,000 crowd against Hull.......

Last time there was 14 clubs in SL your club played Warrington at home only once. For this match they got 3,698 their worst crowd of the season?


Get your facts right before you start the snide comments.

Re: News on the new television deal : Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:46 am  

Donnyman wrote:

Where does that leave your silly thoughtless argument when the same fixture played 5 times generated an average crowd of 30,000 a game and a shedload of money??

Seems it's your facts that are skewed

Yeah, you did well there, selecting the 2 top sides in the comp, thet are 10 miles apart geographically.
Let them play in a 2 club league in some kind of West Yorkshire series

Do you actually know ANYONE who is in favour of the loop fixtures and I mean ANYONE ??

Have you looked at Salford v Huddersfield - I'll let you pull the numbers out and come back with just what they did for the game.

Of course the top two clubs will always generate decent crowds, no matter how often they play but, that isnt the same argument as the loop fixtures, is it ?

As for silly thoughtless arguments. Try expanding the game into new territory and then pulling the rug from under those that have invested millions, that sounds fantastic.

Completely killing the game in France sounds like another insightful idea

Re: News on the new television deal : Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:31 pm  

wrencat1873 wrote:

Do you actually know ANYONE who is in favour of the loop fixtures and I mean ANYONE ??

Of course the top two clubs will always generate decent crowds, no matter how often they play but, that isnt the same argument as the loop fixtures, is it ?

Of course it's the same argument.

Yes, fans will always turn out for derby games a third or even fourth time, Wigan.v.Saints.....Hull.v.HKR.....Cas.v.Wakefield....Leeds.v.Bradford.......Wire.v.Widnes and they aren't all "the top two clubs" are they??? All you have to do is look these things up and work to the REAL facts.

IPSO FACTO M62 RL fans do not want to see North American clubs replacing English clubs and breaking up the derby traditions and relegating their clubs for phoney teams.

Your club Wakefield go down and New York go up, how will that go down when Cas/Wakey is no longer on the fixture list??

Don't you think fans in Leeds AND Bradford want rid of Toronto and Bradford back in Superleague?? Challenge cup games are badly attended nowadays but guess what - Bradford played Leeds before 10,000 fans last season ...neither were "top" two clubs, Leeds were close to the foot of the Superleague and Bradford weren't even in it

Yet you want to call me "Crazy"? How is name calling and silly emojees any sort of an argument??

You tell me how we get rid of the loop fixtures without serious consequences

Over to you.......

Re: News on the new television deal : Sun Feb 23, 2020 3:03 pm  

wrencat1873 wrote:

As for silly thoughtless arguments. Try expanding the game into new territory and then pulling the rug from under those that have invested millions, that sounds fantastic.

Neither the RFL nor Superleague "tried to expand into new territory". Perez and Argylle were the ones who asked if they could try to expand the game to Canada and bring us Canadian Players and TV deals. It was Nigel Wood who said they could try it in the Championships.

At no point did TWP ever ask Superleague if they would mind TWP coming into Superleague, as it was they got promoted and SL did not stand in their way.

But it's clear that TWP haven't expanded anything at all apart from a massive debt and a court case against them to pay up more debts. Perez promised Canadian TV deals and Canadian players and McDermott was forced in an interview to admit they would not deliver either. But nobody pulled the rug on them did they they have the rest of this year and next year to find those players and TV deals.

You had a cheap dig at me, and you got your reward. Stop digging a big hole mate, join me in hoping Wakey don't end up below TWP in the final analysis.