The Netball Super League just signed a record-breaking new deal with Sky last month, the biggest in the sport's history.
Sky are also in the process of winning rights to the Women's Super League (football) after out-bidding BT for the rights. Again, it'll be the biggest contract in that league's history.
Are netball and domestic women's football not minority tv sports? Why haven't they just accepted a decreased tv deal and bowed at the feet of Sky?
What relevance does that have with anything? Growing sports with far greater growth potential than Rugby League, to Sky.
Instead of pointing at others and stomping our feet, Rugby League needs to take a look at itself and where it wants to go instead of playing the victim and wanting the same as others, without doing anything to justify it. We’ve gone from being a key sport to Sky twenty-five years ago to being well behind others. Others innovate and change. We flit between two or three structures and wonder why things don’t change.
There’s no reason we should be getting any more money. That doesn’t mean I think we should get less but what value do we actually bring to Sky?
St Helens Rugby League Football Club
Would also add negotiations can include more than money alone; how the sport is presented, where it fits in the schedule and ownership of secondary rights are all important. At one point SKY effectively cemented their control of the game by monopolising their coverage/broadcasting rights. It was small minded and helped noone. This notwithstanding their outdated coverage; a horrendous look for the sport.
It feels as if SKY have capitalised not only on poor leadership who fail to properly sell the sport and ensure it is presented properly but also benefit massively from a weak administration which will give SKY anything to ensure they have their air cover to keep their position. Certainly Wood played this trick for years.
Last edited by eddiewaringsflatcap; 2nd March 2021 at 15:23.
Correct, you do know what you'll get with me. I call it as I see it, I can have a laugh at myself and I don't suffer fools. I fully accept my language can be industrial at times, I make no excuses for that, in fact I make no excuses for anything I post, if you disagree or it upsets you that's your problem, the last time I checked we did have at least some freedom of speech left no thanks to likes of yourself and if I have posted something OTT then admin have been quick to clip my wings, rightly so btw.
I've no idea what "you do you" means, I'm assuming it was typo caused by you fuming away.
You think the Netball Super League has the ability to attract 200,000 viewers on Sky and attract 10,000 attendances in various towns every weekend? How in any persons mind could netball be a greater priority for Sky than club rugby league?
Netball is a participation sport, and quite a popular one, but as a tv sport that will attract crowds and ratings it is a non-entity outside of Olympics or World Cups.
You mention that we've stalled as a sport, well agreed, hence the letter idea. But do you not give any of the blame to Sky's meddling in the sport? Does none of the blame fall on them for their dated coverage? I take it they're blameless and we're lucky to have them in your opinion. That's fine, but I strongly disagree.
That’s a well written response that isn’t wrapped in circular arguments or false premises. To be honest I’m struggling to see what DC’s point is (if there even is one). The posts have more than a whiff of SKY sycophancy; its almost as if a work experience or some help for a dissertation has rendered any sort of criticism of them off limits; who else cant see their coverage is so last century and the damage that their pervasive influence has done to the sport.
Last edited by eddiewaringsflatcap; 2nd March 2021 at 22:37. Reason: Auto correct - shitest innovation since clubcall
No issue in what you've written but, whilst I agree about the poor and dated production by Sky, and the really bad presenting/commentating, I maintain that the sport's biggest problem from a marketing and attractiveness to casual viewers perspective is the product on the pitch. The entertainment factor has been massively diminished, with drilled defences given way too much time to get set for the next tackle.
I acknowledge that attraction to any given sport is subjective, and there'll be a proportion of RL fans who prefer an attritional arm-wrestle ("Proper rugby, like in th'eld daaays") but it's a turn-off for casual viewers - and it's a major reduction in this viewing demographic that IMO accounts for the bulk of the drop in Sky's viewing figures over the past 15 or so years.
I also appreciate that it's difficult to include this criticism of the on-field product in the sort of letter you're compiling. But I do think it's not only the area where RL has the ability to effect improvements itself, but must be the bedrock for any subsequent improvements to the wider aspects you have addressed.
Because ultimately, we could have the slickest TV production with top quality commentating; run a great PR campaign that whips up huge interest in the sport, and have blue chips sniffing round as potential sponsors.
But if the product on the pitch is 3 or 4 wi*an players timing their entrance into a tackle and peeling off one by one, or a Wire player about to wrap up the first receiver just the ball reaches them and so stifle the attack (or every time play gets exciting with the opposition creating disarray in the Wire defence, a Wire player gets a phantom head injury to stop play), then the vast majority of viewers who tune in will quickly conclude "What is this boring crap?"
You've kind of done my answer for me in a way, because it cannot really be down to the governing body to dictate how teams play the games. That's a coaching and player issue, and I would imagine any question asked of the RFL would be met with that response. Of course, changes in the rules have contributed to the deterioration of certain aspects of the game IMO, so the people in charge have had an indirect role to play, but it's hard to prove.
I will slightly disagree with you about a boring product negating slick campaigning and broadcasting, because let's face it, millions watch international RU which for long parts is fairly dull. I would reckon half the people that watched the Calcutta Cup game didn't know some of the rules, and probably didn't think it was that thrilling, but the marketing and history behind it all sucks them in. You can have a game that fails to thrill every week but still has an audience for various reasons. Admittedly, keeping an audience is easier than growing one, and the Six Nations had an audience to begin with whilst we don't in any great numbers.
Fair point about clubs/coaches deciding how they want to play. I will, though, say that since organised sport was codified, coaches have been coming up with tactics that push the boundaries of the rules. We can all pretty much point to that 2008/9 period as the time when the game changed, as the authorities relaxed the requirement to clear the tackled player quickly, giving more latitude to lie-on. The impact was gradual and piecemeal, with some teams adopting the slowing-down of the PTB better than others (I remember us not being great at it). This latitude, of course, was then stretched further by Maguire and Brown and their wrestle tactics. How many times now in game do we see an disorganised defence? Hardly ever, yet it was a prominent feature up to that 2008/2009 period. And the game was much more exciting and entertaining for it. The catalyst for the bore-a-thon, attritional arm-wrestle was the relaxation of the quick PTB rule.
Some sports events become a cultural event. A lot of this is driven by the media, and it follows the same principles of fashion crazes or adulation for a pop group (whose music is utterly shite, but that's not the point - think Take That, West Life, Boyzone, One Direction, Spice Girls, etc). Without getting into the psychology of it all, we're only an evolutionary step up from pack animals and we retain a lot of those instincts that developed over millions of years. Being part of a collective; the mob-mentality is a strong pull.
I remember watching RU on telly as a kid in the late 70's/early 80's and even for the 5-Nations games, Twickers was never full (I played RU as a kid), and support for club rugby outside the odd traditional grudge match in the South West was counted in the hundreds. Yet the national media - the BBC and newspapers - would always have big features on the game, especially the international matches. This kept public interest, which ramped up with higher profile players like Will Carling and Rob Andrew in the 80's into the 90's, helped by the establishment of a league system, the end of shamateurism, and the emergence of the RU World Cup (plus that Swing Low sh*te, which every fecker and their dog seemed to know and love). The 5-, then 6-Nations games became events to be seen at and they began to invariably sell-out, which increased the demand even more. When England won the RUWC in 2003, it was 'an event'. People with no previous following of the sport suddenly became 'big fans', although they couldn't tell you anything but the most basic rules. There was a parade; tens of thousands lined the streets. I worked with people that a year earlier curled their lip at the thought of watching rugby, yet here they were excitedly telling me how great it all was.
The RU game was never going to retain all these people as proper fans, but it did cement the notion in the British (well, English) psyche that RU was a nationally important sport. And big RU games, especially internationals, are still 'events'; people don't go primarily to watch the intricacies of the game, they go so they can say they went and be part of that 'thing'.
Right, I've had another bash at this... It's too long for one post, so part one...
We are Rugby League fans, passionate and loyal towards our sport. Between us it would be hard to even begin to calculate how many games we have collectively been to, how many miles we have collectively travelled and how much money we have collectively spent following this great sport of ours.
The aim of this is not to simply air our grievances but to challenge the people in charge of our game to answer some fundamental questions about the state of Rugby League in 2021. This is our challenge to you, to take this letter in the spirit that it is intended and respond to it with answers or proposed solutions.
What are the main issues that have prompted us to write? We believe they can be grouped into two categories, Commercial presentation and profile, and Governance.
We have framed it this way in the hope that the questions we ask can be answered in relation to the other questions within the same category.
Issue 1 – Commercial presentation
Sponsorship and Marketing – we are concerned that the sport continues to struggle to attract top tier sponsorship for its major events. There have been confident words expressed by people in the game about the commercial viability of the sport, yet the people in charge of attracting sponsorship were responsible for the 2012 deal with a sponsor who didn’t pay any money, and their successors are responsible for reportedly only managing to obtain a deal in 2017 with the current sponsor for just over £1m a year (now extended to include the Challenge Cup). In contrast, the Rugby Union Premiership’s current deal is reportedly around £10m annually. This despite club Rugby League consistently attracting higher television audiences on a bigger broadcaster and despite Rugby League having a marquee end of season championship decider that is watched by a bigger audience.
Television coverage – we are of the opinion that the sport’s main television partner has too much influence over the game, and we do not believe that Rugby League is getting value for money from its main television deal. Rugby League is a mainstay of Sky’s weekend coverage for eight months a year, and the sport also provides Sky with important content in the summer months. Yet we believe that the finances involved in the Super League television contract do not resemble this.
If we estimate that the upcoming proposed Sky deal for Super League is around £30m per annum for around 80 games, that equates to no more than £375,000 per game. Some will say that Rugby League is a minority sport and is not in a position to haggle for anything better, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Sky are paying more per annum for the five-week long Hundred cricket competition (despite ten of those games, including the Final, also being live on the BBC), whilst their deal for The Open Championship equates to one weekend of golf costing them the same as half of a Super League season.
Whilst these examples would indicate that Super League is relatively unimportant to Sky, another explanation could be that Sky do value Rugby League, but never have to truly prove it financially because they are never forced into competition for the rights.
In addition, we also remain perplexed that Rugby League doesn’t have a nationally broadcast prime-time highlights show on a free-to-air channel. Why do fans who do not have pay-tv have to wait until late on Monday night for highlights of games? And why do fans outside of the North have to wait until Tuesday afternoon? Showing highlights of the big Thursday and Friday night games on a Monday night or Tuesday afternoon would be like football fans having to wait until Wednesday or Thursday to watch the weekends biggest games on Match of the Day. They wouldn’t stand for it, so why do we?
Branding – we believe that the branding of our sports main competition as Super League has had a detrimental effect on Rugby League’s abilities to retain a unique position in the UK sporting landscape. It has meant that the media and broadcasters now refer to our league competition (and therefore at times our sport) without using the word rugby, which has given Rugby Union a free pass is their attempts to colonise the name for their own benefits. And whilst Super League may have been a unique name for a competition in 1996 it is now also used by numerous sports such as Netball and women’s Football. We have ended up in a situation where our main competition now has a name which doesn’t contain the word rugby and is also no longer unique.
We have the following questions.
• Do you believe that rugby league is currently achieving its potential in terms of attracting sponsors into the game?
• Are you concerned that the sport is now reliant on a betting company for the sponsorship of both Super League and the Challenge Cup at a time when restrictions on such sponsorship may come into place in the near future?
• Do you believe that the television deals signed with Sky represent good value for money for the game?
• Do you believe that the sport has gone into television negotiations in a position of strength or in a position whereby it has simply acceded to Sky’s proposals? Has there been an open process to gauge interest in the Super League television rights elsewhere?
• Why are free-to-air highlights only shown in the small hours of Monday night in the North and then on Tuesday afternoons nationally?
• Do you still believe that the brand-name Super League is helping the sport to define itself as the premier Rugby League competition in the country?
• Has any consideration been made to changing the name to incorporate the word rugby?
Part 2...
Issue 2 – Structure
Competition structure – we believe that the constant changes in the structure of the league season have harmed the image and integrity of the sport. Since the move to a play-off system in 1998 we have had six different play-off formats. In addition, the removal and then re-introduction of promotion and relegation, the short-term policy of franchising and the four-year concept of the Super / Middle 8s has meant that the league has looked amateurish in its thinking. Changes made and publicised as being widely supported throughout the game have then be universally abandoned within a few years on several occasions. The decision in 2019 to revert to a 12-team competition with a top-5 play-off meant that we ended up back where we began in 1998. Two decades of short-term initiatives and ideas led us exactly nowhere.
Salary Cap - whilst the salary cap has been increased (in addition to the introduction of the marquee rule) in recent years, it has not prevented some of our best players from leaving for the NRL. Whilst we cannot compete financially with Australian Rugby League, there are clubs in our game who could spend more than they are currently permitted, which would enable us to retain some of our best talent and also increase the standards at the top of the game. We believe that the salary cap should be increased by a significant amount because we believe that it will be those at the top of the game that will drive the future success of the sport, and not those who have consistently failed to compete despite artificial barriers being placed to allow them to do so. Whilst some will see this as us promoting a system of 'haves' and 'have nots', we would argue that the decisions to incorporate both a relatively low salary cap and a play-off system have meant that every club has been a 'have' given that all clubs caps has been covered by the television deals and given that the bar set to reach the play-offs has allowed every club a chance at success. Yet despite this double attempt at achieving some artificial parity in our game, nearly every season we have ended up with the same end-result, with the same clubs at the top despite having hardly any financial advantage. We believe that the clubs at the bottom have had ample opportunities to close the gap, and that the clubs that consistently set the standards should be allowed to spend a bit more on retaining the elite players and increasing competition at the top of the game.
Moving the goalposts – off the field, it appears that a great big line titled ‘required facilities and standards’ has been drawn on the Lancashire-Yorkshire border, with clubs to the west of the border being judged on the strictest criteria and the clubs to the east of the border escaping much of that same judgement. It appears that clubs in Lancashire met their ground obligations whilst those in Yorkshire (outside of Leeds) have faced barely any pressure to meet theirs. When 2009-11 Super League licenses were handed out, both Castleford and Wakefield were making financial projections based on moving to new stadiums, which neither have yet done well over a decade later. The warnings from the RFL at that time seemingly went nowhere, as did both clubs’ projections of moving to new grounds. Meanwhile St Helens and Salford (who were given similar warnings) met their obligations and moved to new improved grounds, at great expense. To the west of the Pennines the Super League era has seen the deaths of Central Park, Knowsley Road, Naughton Park and Wilderspool, as Lancashire’s main clubs either pre-empted or met demands to modernise. Yet in 2021 we still see grounds to the east of the Pennines like Belle Vue and Wheldon Road failing to provide more than basic facilities, especially for away fans. Why did we end up with threats and demands only applying to one set of clubs?
Meanwhile, on the field the constant rule changes have meant that things that were part-and-parcel of the game in one year where then removed the next, with no real explanation as to their benefits. Soundbites such as: “Super League always welcomes changes that add excitement for our fans and showcase the unique qualities of our players” mean nothing when fans haven’t actually been consulted in the process. A sport which constantly feels that it needs to reinvent itself is subconsciously telling the world that it doesn’t believe in itself.
We have the following questions.
• Why has the play-off format changed so often in little over two decades, when the initial top-five concept was not only the fairest but gave the greatest share of rewards to the most consistent sides over the regular season?
• Have the constant changes in the structure of the league season been influenced by television partners?
• Why are we not using the top-five system in 2021? The decision to revert to a top-six knock-out system in 2020 was understandable but was announced as a one-off. So why are we using it again in 2021 despite scheduling a 25-week regular season?
• Why are we allowing our best players to leave for the NRL when an increase in the salary cap would go some way to stopping it?
• Why were demands for ground improvements and increased standards not met by several Yorkshire clubs when all Lancashire clubs met their obligations? What measures are being taken to ensure that top-flight grounds in Yorkshire are on a par with grounds in Lancashire?
• Why are there constant rule changes to the sport?
I forgot to add in the following...
Governance of the game - we remain confused as to who or what organisation is in charge of taking the game forward. The much publicised RFL-Super League split in 2018 did not seem to resolve any issues, with the remit of advancing the commercial appeal of the sport having seemingly failed. The resignation of the Super League CEO on the eve of the 2021 season leads to questions being asked about his role, how much support he had from the clubs that appointed him, and whether the clubs are still committed to the split that they almost unanimously voted for not so long ago.
This bit might need beefing up a bit, let me know.
My timelines are drawing a bit more narrow now. Season starts on Fri 26, I want this done and dusted, posted, all the other stuff well before then. I don't want us to be dealing with this when Saints are playing games and we're more focused on cheering for the team. Ideally I'd want this done by the end of this week (Fri 12) so that I can get it posted to the relevant people this weekend with the hope of getting a response before the start of the season. I also think it should be emailed to various organisations such as RL Express, Daily Mirror etc. RL Express may ignore it as it may not chime with their 'RL is greater than ever' narrative but if they did want to print it in the letters page for the paper that comes out on Monday 22nd it'll need to be with them next week I reckon. So, the deadline is nearly on us.
As I've said before, I'm only sending this out if it has support. We've had over 11,000 views of this thread and around 250 responses. If 50 or more of the 250 responding agree to put their name to it I think it could have legs. If any of the 'guests' who have read the thread but aren't signed up members want to put their name to it please sign up and PM me. If we can't get 40-50 signatures then I probably don't think it should be sent. I really think it needs weight of numbers behind it. Edits, opinions, suggestions, additions etc, please let me know by the end of Wednesday, then after that I'll stick the final draft on here and I will ask for names via PM. By the end of the week I'll see if we've got enough numbers and I'll let you know.
Thanks all.
It reads well Gray, thanks for all the effort you've put into it.
I'd like to know "what the costs and benefits of the RL/SL split are expected to be?" as it seems like there are now 2 marketing, finance, management etc. teams which can't be cheap if they're trying to do it right. Also "how and when is the success or failure of the split going to be measured? I.e. What are the criteria" as there's never been a list of things they expect to achieve and when. It's all very rugby league of just doing something to give it a go and see what happens.
You've mentioned League Express further down and I think you should add 40/20 Magazine onto the list of recipients (if it isn't on already) as they've asked similar questions before on their podcast.
Genuinely great work though, thanks again.
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