Saints announce increased losses for financial year 2023

[DaveO]

with the TV deal i dont think you can say we have a bad deal unless you know what if anything the other offers were. If no-one else wants to buy the product then Sky are well within their rights to offer as low as possible - they owe the sport nothing they are a business.

The lower levels of revenue for TV stemmed from when that idiot Nigel Wood was in charge.

He went cap in hand to Sky asking for a new TV deal before the old deal was due for renewal with the money paid early to bail out Bradford. Sky lowballed him from the previous deal and he accepted without consulting the SL club chairmen. It has been downhill ever since. Ian Lenagan was absolutely furious as he felt if the TV rights had gone out to tender the sport would have seen bids from the likes of BT Sport as well as Sky.

At the time this happened RL was much more marketable with several high profile RL players such as Sam Tomkins known to sports fans generally not just within RL circles. These days it would be "Bevan who?" if you said the game had a top class player running around in the sport and as a consequence it is going to be much harder for IMG to persuade Sky or anyone else to part with more cash . It was a complete missed opportunity all down to Wood.

[Mike]

with the TV deal i dont think you can say we have a bad deal unless you know what if anything the other offers were. If no-one else wants to buy the product then Sky are well within their rights to offer as low as possible - they owe the sport nothing they are a business.

The lower levels of revenue for TV stemmed from when that idiot Nigel Wood was in charge.

He went cap in hand to Sky asking for a new TV deal before the old deal was due for renewal with the money paid early to bail out Bradford. Sky lowballed him from the previous deal and he accepted without consulting the SL club chairmen. It has been downhill ever since. Ian Lenagan was absolutely furious as he felt if the TV rights had gone out to tender the sport would have seen bids from the likes of BT Sport as well as Sky.

At the time this happened RL was much more marketable with several high profile RL players such as Sam Tomkins known to sports fans generally not just within RL circles. These days it would be "Bevan who?" if you said the game had a top class player running around in the sport and as a consequence it is going to be much harder for IMG to persuade Sky or anyone else to part with more cash . It was a complete missed opportunity all down to Wood.

I think these are good examples of specific problems from the past leading to the position we're in now. Unfortunately IMO there is no magic wand solution to the game's current low income - it doesn't matter who's trying to wave it. What we need is a steady progression of standards in the game, marketing, fan engagement and outreach into new areas to grow the overall market size. For TV we need to be showing growing viewership in the right demographics that advertisers are interesting in and growth in our market reach to attract potential new subscribers. It won't happen overnight. I'm prepared to see what IMG is able to achieve in the next 5-10 years before making a judgement. Certainly this season has seen major changes to the TV deals with every game available, which brings us into line with other serious, mainstream sports. There are many factors in how this will affect the game, but so far I don't see it hitting crowd sizes in the grounds. Lets see how it goes.

In terms of franchises, I'm not 100% convinced that's the best way to deal with the semi-pro lower leagues, but we've tried it both ways and there's no silver bullet here. IMO what we need is a long period of a consistent system that very gradually modifies its criteria where appropriate. We can't go changing everything from year to year, evaluating this stuff takes multiple years.

[nathan_rugby]

Sky have shown they are willing to spend money if the demand and viewership is there.

At the end of the day Sky are a business, will act in their best interest and it isn’t upto them to grow the sport.

Any fingers being pointed should be at the RFL and Super League teams leadership/owners.

[Wigan_forever1985]

Sky have shown they are willing to spend money if the demand and viewership is there.

At the end of the day Sky are a business, will act in their best interest and it isn’t upto them to grow the sport.

Any fingers being pointed should be at the RFL and Super League teams leadership/owners.

I think while true the problem is Sky have a lot of the "big" sports in their portfolio including the biggest game on earth in football. So we are vying with probably boxing/darts/golf for the scraps behind the blue ribbon sports like football and F1.

I suppose the argument might be that with another deal we may be further up the chain - amazon are picking up football now, Netflix are dipping their toe into boxing with the gimmick Tyson fight, so there could be opportunities to be a bigger player in a smaller pond

I think to come back to Mike's point about the way forward and i know im like a broken record on this but the only way you can improve marketability of a sport is through the players, the game and the teams will not bring in new fans by the same measure.

DaveO summed it up perfectly ask anyone who isnt a rugby league fan who Bevan French is.

For me this is a realistic change we can make through the salary cap in allowing players to earn money through their image rights, that would encourage them to get out there more and encourage sponsorship money for those who do

I dont know if people remember but there was a program on BBC many moons ago called "Rugby League Raw" which was championship or league 1 i forget but it was behind the scenes. Something like that tarted up for Netflix/Youtube/Amazon might get some interest. There's never a season without controversy in Superleague so why not cash in on the drama of people like Hardaker etc.

The other point and i know this is a non starter but the removal of fighting and the removal of the physical aspect of the game also doesnt help the cause, people dont like sports where the ref's have too much of a say

[moto748]

The other point and i know this is a non starter but the removal of fighting and the removal of the physical aspect of the game also doesnt help the cause, people dont like sports where the ref's have too much of a say

I dunno about that. In rugby union, the ref blows his whistle every 10-15 seconds or so, and yet the viewing public seem remarkably tolerant of these continual stoppages. There are a lot less stoppages in league than union, and probably in football too.

[the pieman]

The other point and i know this is a non starter but the removal of fighting and the removal of the physical aspect of the game also doesnt help the cause, people dont like sports where the ref's have too much of a say

I dunno about that. In rugby union, the ref blows his whistle every 10-15 seconds or so, and yet the viewing public seem remarkably tolerant of these continual stoppages. There are a lot less stoppages in league than union, and probably in football too.

there was a comparison done a few years back between various sports. I cant remember the exact details but RL was something like 60+ minutes in play, RU significantly less and football 45 - 50 minutes

we have a fantastic product on display but run by amateurs (RFL) and some clubs who dont want to progress.

[the pieman]

i've just googled for latest stats

RL 63 minutes
RU 44 minutes
football 55 minutes in prem league and this drops as you go down the leagues

[Wigan_forever1985]

The other point and i know this is a non starter but the removal of fighting and the removal of the physical aspect of the game also doesnt help the cause, people dont like sports where the ref's have too much of a say

I dunno about that. In rugby union, the ref blows his whistle every 10-15 seconds or so, and yet the viewing public seem remarkably tolerant of these continual stoppages. There are a lot less stoppages in league than union, and probably in football too.

But that's Union USP isn't it the "tactical" nature of the game, they market the stops in play as part of the tactics so someone watching it is watching for that aspect (or at least they pretend to)

Rugby league's USP was always more along the brutality of the sport but 1 by 1 these aspects that made Rugby League stand out are disappearing.

Shoulder charges, bit of biff etc were synonymous with rugby league now we are at the stage were play acting (drinkwater last week) is becoming a thing, i never thought id see pretending to be injured part of the game but the overbearing ref aspect is now rewarding this behaviour

[Mike]

The other point and i know this is a non starter but the removal of fighting and the removal of the physical aspect of the game also doesnt help the cause, people dont like sports where the ref's have too much of a say

I dunno about that. In rugby union, the ref blows his whistle every 10-15 seconds or so, and yet the viewing public seem remarkably tolerant of these continual stoppages. There are a lot less stoppages in league than union, and probably in football too.

I think the argument that cutting down on high tackles and fighting is hurting the game is wrong personally. The game is absolutely brutal, and very professional. I watched the 1989 Widnes v Wigan championsip decider last week, and much though we like to think about those teams as being all time greats, the physical nature of that match was nothing like the hits you see every other set in today's SL. A non-RL sports fan seeing the game for the first time is often amazed at the brutality of the sport. You don't need illegal play to be a successful sport.

My problem with discussions like this is that they degenerate into discussions on who to blame and who is rubbish/amatuer/doing our game down - which is easy. Much harder to make suggestions of what we should be doing, because that's hard and a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to achieve more success and this is where we are. One suggestion here that I like is the removal of player image rights from the salary cap. I agree that we should be developing personalities that the wider public start to be familar with, and the current salary cap is a big restriction on that. What's the point of playing in Vegas, getting some wider media coverage from that and then preventing the players from raising their profiles on the back of that? That's something I'd change.

[josie andrews]

One suggestion here that I like is the removal of player image rights from the salary cap. I agree that we should be developing personalities that the wider public start to be familar with, and the current salary cap is a big restriction on that. What's the point of playing in Vegas, getting some wider media coverage from that and then preventing the players from raising their profiles on the back of that? That's something I'd change.

I’ve said this for years. The RFL decided that money earned from player image had to be included on the salary cap.

The main & last player I remember who got image rights is Paul Sculthorpe who used to advertise Gillette.