So here we are a little over 2 days from the Challenge Cup Final, one of the oldest and most famous sporting competitions in the world, played at the countries National stadium, likely to be the highest attended sporting event in the Northern Hemisphere if not the world over this coming weekend and what have BBC Sport had as their headline story for Rugby League for the last 4 consecutive days! www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/ Richie Mathers Six Month Ban

So here we are a little over 2 days from the Challenge Cup Final, one of the oldest and most famous sporting competitions in the world, played at the countries National stadium, likely to be the highest attended sporting event in the Northern Hemisphere if not the world over this coming weekend and what have BBC Sport had as their headline story for Rugby League for the last 4 consecutive days! www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/ Richie Mathers Six Month Ban

Quote ="The Avenger"So here we are a little over 2 days from the Challenge Cup Final, one of the oldest and most famous sporting competitions in the world, played at the countries National stadium, likely to be the highest attended sporting event in the Northern Hemisphere if not the world over this coming weekend and what have BBC Sport had as their headline story for Rugby League for the last 4 consecutive days! www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/ Richie Mathers Six Month Ban'" They had a 2 minute preview on the SL show what more do you want

Quote ="The Avenger"So here we are a little over 2 days from the Challenge Cup Final, one of the oldest and most famous sporting competitions in the world, played at the countries National stadium, likely to be the highest attended sporting event in the Northern Hemisphere if not the world over this coming weekend and what have BBC Sport had as their headline story for Rugby League for the last 4 consecutive days! www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/ Richie Mathers Six Month Ban'" They had a 2 minute preview on the SL show what more do you want

Because the majority of people outside of Rugby League supporters couldn't care less about our game and the sooner the RFL realise this the better.

Apart from the millions of people that will probs tune in to watch. But nobody else cares. Yep, your right.

The vast majority couldn't care less about (say) women's football, but it doesn't stop it getting more and better coverage than league.

(Not that I'm knocking women's football which is certainly a Good Thing)

Yeah, the BBC hate RL so much that it pays out a lot of licence-payers money to show the Challenge Cup



Next you'll be saying the F.A hate RL even though it rents out it's national stadium to RL

So when the RFL "realise this", why does this make it better?

Explain...

They do the bare minimum and even then it's shoddy

RL fans in "paranoid as hell" shocker.

5 Live are running an hour special at 9pm tomorrow about the 120th anniversary of Rugby League, also with a preview of the CC Final. The game is being broadcast live on BBC, and on radio via 5 Live Sports Extra (5 Live have got commentary on those rentboys Chelsea).

Get the decent coverage & build up whilst you can folks, because in 2-3 years time, you'll have to listen to Eddie, Stevo, Stuart Cummings, Phil Clarke, Barry & Terry when Sky get the FULL rights to the Challenge Cup.

So the Mathers non story is a bigger news than the Challenge a Cup final is it?

If not then why run the Mathers story for 4 full days just ahead of the Wenbley final.

That's not paranoid fella that's a fact and it's not isolated is it?

I don't think it's a case of being 'paranoid as hell' at all.

Not too many people are complaining about the Beeb's coverage of, say, the CCF itself, which is fine, in my view (and certainly a big improvement on those clowns at Sky). It's the general importance with which the sport is treated, as evidenced by the BBC sport website concentrating on Mathers. Compare and contrast the attitude to, say, the last RLWC with the ridiculously over-hyped Six Nations, where taking an interest is virtually treated as a patriotic necessity for even the casual viewer.

All that said, I agree with you that the RFL would be crazy to allow the CC to go to Sky.

A player getting suspended over an alleged betting scandal isn't a 'non story'.

As to why it has been the lead story for four days, what has the sport done to generate newsworthy headlines? We've had a few press releases about ticket sales (and one could argue that a showpiece event should be sold out well before three days before a final) and we've had a press event for the final at Doncaster Racecourse (Doncaster, of course, being a renowned as a major national media hub) where players trot out the same platitudes and cliches year after year.

Believe it or not, the BBC is not Rugby League's PR agency. The fact that the Mathers story is still the lead article is a failure of all clubs (but particularly this week Hull KR and Leeds) and the RFL to actually provide the media with anything worth talking about.

They HAVE let the CC go to Sky. But that's the RFL for you. Sky probably just plucked a figure out of the air and the RFL have gone "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah".

Being back in the country since 5 years ago I was amazed the total lack of RL covg in the Nationals. It's literally one small paragraph most days. Not sure what the RL can do about it but geez it is pretty sad to see.

So a tournament played in 6 European countries in front of over a million spectators and being watched by upto 10 million viewers per game (check the BARB figures for Wales v England this year) is 'ridiculously over-hyped'? You are right, it's because the 6N is such a small tournament compared with the Challenge Cup

A section of RL fans bleat continuously because RU gets more coverage, here's some news for you: it is a bigger sport geographically and financially so will get more coverage (including from the BBC), just as soccer gets more coverage than RU. The only difference is RU fans don't bellyache about it continuously.

Given a similar amount of national coverage in the media over decades as well as the massive build up to tournaments/matches and the actual live coverage which bombards the screens RL would fare far far better, it's hardly surprising the viewing figures/interest.
As for RU fans bellyaching, they get an inordinate amount of media coverage even at club level comparative to their sports actual popularity, more so even than soccer, there are more international union matches live on FTA than there are soccer, no wonder they don't have a reason to moan.

I don't give two fuicks about Rugby Union, why are you on here talking about that crap again!

You've just basically recycled what this and countless other threads have blindly said and its factually not true. If by 'bombard the screens' you mean RU is on TV a lot, that's because there are quite a few competitions worldwide both domestically and internationally, far more than RL, so it will get more coverage. As I said before, the bigger the sport the more coverage it gets. If RL doesn't get a lot of coverage it's not because of some worldwide conspiracy (RL isn't important enough for that), its because (brace yourself) not enough people like RL to go watch the game live or on TV. RU at club level gets roughly the same coverage as RL, as for its popularity its attendance figures have risen most years and its viewing figures have risen the last 2 years to overtake RLs (which have fallen). That's down to RL fans who have stopped attending and watching on TV, is that RUs/the medias fault too? And If there are more international RU matches on FTA TV then that means there's a demand for their sport (which is backed up by the viewing figures), and maybe the people who run soccer and RL should pull their fingers out eh?

What, the whole kit and caboodle, or just the early rounds (as this season)? Not so bothered about the early rounds being on Sky as long as the semis and Final are on BBC.

But if that's the thin end of the wedge...

I have just been to visit relatives in France. If you think the UK suffers from apathy you should have a look over the water. This is the time of year when we start to wonder which Elite teams will fail to make the first game of the season or which will fold part way through. I can never understand how, outside Catalan Dragons on Bein Sport, RL gets less national TV time than Pelota or even grass slope ski jumping. On some of the local channels there is reasonable coverage of local events like box car racing and I once spent a wet couple of hours watching Solex racing. What are we doing wrong?

And here you are once again blindly bleating on about the collective RL shoulder based chip whilst singularly failing to acknowledge that decades of institutional media and cultural bias in favour of RU have helped to create this situation. It's all well and good saying that RL doesn't deserve more coverage, but how about the fact that RU is worthy of significantly less than it gets. Game for game at domestic level roughly the same number of people care about both sports, but the coverage is hugely disproportionate in favour of the establishment game. You don't think that carries any significance?

You accuse others of being blinkered yet take no account of decades of RL being treated like a second class citizen, outlawed in the armed forces, ignored by the mainstream press regardless of popularity. A level playing field doesn't just happen after that sort of mistreatment, it requires decades of work. It's all well and good chastising the RL board, but the RFU and the establishment have, as a provable matter of fact, held RL back right around the world for a very long time, and to ignore that makes you look like an idiot.

and a cock!

Yet another recycled untruth, club RL does get the same coverage and press as club RU. Have you not been listening to BBC radio 5Live? (The same BBC that is part of the Establishment and ignores RL) I notice you didn't mention International RU and RL, I wonder why? You think that RU and RL should be considered as equals but they're not due to the international game and its wider geographical reach. Do you think RU and soccer should have the same coverage? Only an 'idiot' would think so, so only an 'idiot' would think RU and RL should have the same coverage. Outlawed from the armed forces? yeah, cos that's what stopped RL from global domination and would have made all the difference



I'd rather be a humble idiot than the self-pitying, bleating type that blames all my own failings and shortcomings on someone else.

The old Rugby Union restrictions aimed directly at RL have gone, by and large. But now RL falls into the trap set by the establishment. That of anything outside what the establishment deems to be "right" is either ignored or actively fought against with every weapon of the state, both public and private, that they can bring to bear.
Be it in politics, media, education, whatever. Hence the vitriol and lies directed at Jeremy Corbyn. Or the proliferation of public schoolboys in high positions. Or the criminalisation of as much of the working class as possible. Or, as an example of the vastly unequal system, the fact that London gets 24 times higher transport spending than the rest of the country.

I also guess it's just co-incidence that England Union are playing in the World Cup in the same city and on the exact same day, just 2 hours apart from the SL Grand Final.

And thick as two short planks, ignorance is no excuse

What a fool!