Re: League Predictions : Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:27 am  

I dont think it will be a foregone conclusion at all.

As a Leigh fan, i think we will lose 3 or 4, Bradford the same.

Its going to be a cracker of a season and hopefully the Championship will get the coverage it deserves and at least one club getting promoted !

Re: League Predictions : Thu Jan 07, 2016 8:32 am  

Snowy wrote:

hopefully the Championship will get the coverage it deserves

It won't.

Re: League Predictions : Thu Jan 07, 2016 10:07 am  

Nothus wrote:

It won't.

Well, the Championship certainly can't get so lucky again as last season when the TV rights were given away to a company whose sole aims seem to have been to (a) pay clubs zilch for the rights and (b) simply prevent anyone else from screening Championship games.

You couldn't make it up. Even had they given away the rights free to someone else, clubs could at least have made the odd bob or two selling advertising etc. Which tw.at signed that deal, then?

Re: League Predictions : Thu Jan 07, 2016 10:20 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

Well, the Championship certainly can't get so lucky again as last season when the TV rights were given away to a company whose sole aims seem to have been to (a) pay clubs zilch for the rights and (b) simply prevent anyone else from screening Championship games.

You couldn't make it up. Even had they given away the rights free to someone else, clubs could at least have made the odd bob or two selling advertising etc. Which tw.at signed that deal, then?

What worries me with these things is that it's nothing new. Stupid stuff like this keeps happening. How do they never learn?

Re: League Predictions : Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:00 pm  

The trouble is, the RFL seems to be capable of running a single event or short tournament, however they seem to make poor decisions when it comes to the wider sport. The Championship clubs need to band together and work out some sort of deal with Sky regarding televising games

Re: League Predictions : Thu Jan 07, 2016 3:48 pm  

roofaldo2 wrote:

The trouble is, the RFL seems to be capable of running a single event or short tournament, however they seem to make poor decisions when it comes to the wider sport. The Championship clubs need to band together and work out some sort of deal with Sky regarding televising games

Perhaps not that great at single events. They continued the tradition of messing up a simple cup draw again today, by Dave Woods reading East Leeds out twice, and not reading Stanningley out at all. He mistakenly read East Leeds when Stanningley's number came out.

Re: League Predictions : Thu Jan 07, 2016 6:18 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

Well, the Championship certainly can't get so lucky again as last season when the TV rights were given away to a company whose sole aims seem to have been to (a) pay clubs zilch for the rights and (b) simply prevent anyone else from screening Championship games.

You couldn't make it up. Even had they given away the rights free to someone else, clubs could at least have made the odd bob or two selling advertising etc. Which tw.at signed that deal, then?

Probably the same one that signed the Sky deal before seeing if BT were interested. I'm not sure but I think that Premier Sports deal ran out at the end of game 23 last year so they were miffed that they couldn't show any of the Champ team's games in the 8's or the Blackpool jolly, hence spat their dummy out over showing any games last season but still kept the rights.

No idea if anybody has rights to show the Champ games this year, though as Sky showed the Blackpool games they may decide to show a few of the bigger games at totally stupid days and times that just p!ss all the fans off.

Re: League Predictions : Thu Jan 07, 2016 7:11 pm  

Norman Bates wrote:

Probably the same one that signed the Sky deal before seeing if BT were interested. I'm not sure but I think that Premier Sports deal ran out at the end of game 23 last year so they were miffed that they couldn't show any of the Champ team's games in the 8's or the Blackpool jolly, hence spat their dummy out over showing any games last season but still kept the rights.

No idea if anybody has rights to show the Champ games this year, though as Sky showed the Blackpool games they may decide to show a few of the bigger games at totally stupid days and times that just p!ss all the fans off.

Thought Sky has the rights to all the Championship games (until 2021 or something like that, it runs till the next SL contract runs out anyway) but didn't show any for some reason. Premier had the rights the year before but threw a strop and refused to show any as they weren't offered the chance to out bid sky. A bit daft as they weren't paying anything & sky now are, it just all goes into the RFL for central funding rather than being given to the teams when they're on as it is for the SL clubs.

Re: League Predictions : Thu Jan 07, 2016 8:08 pm  

the money that the championship clubs are getting as central funding is coming out of the money sky are paying for SL and the championship combined package. Don't know why people are saying championship clubs are getting no money from sky.
Its sky decision as to whether they choose to show any championship games or not. That said RFL basically threw the championship coverage into the SL deal for no extra money to keep sky sweet.

Re: League Predictions : Fri Jan 08, 2016 8:35 am  

Norman Bates wrote:

Probably the same one that signed the Sky deal before seeing if BT were interested. I'm not sure but I think that Premier Sports deal ran out at the end of game 23 last year so they were miffed that they couldn't show any of the Champ team's games in the 8's or the Blackpool jolly, hence spat their dummy out over showing any games last season but still kept the rights.

No idea if anybody has rights to show the Champ games this year, though as Sky showed the Blackpool games they may decide to show a few of the bigger games at totally stupid days and times that just p!ss all the fans off.

It was 2014 that Premier had the rights to the Championship but spat the dummy out and didn't show any because the RFL had agreed with Sky for 2015 without giving Premier a chance to compete.

Sky had rights throughout the 2015 season, but only chose to show most of the Bash and one game a week of the Middle 8s. I wouldn't expect that to change this season, as they don't seem interested. It's a shame that the RFL don't think to negotiate that if you have the rights for something, you have to show at least a game a week.