https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/ ... lf-cricket Anyone seen this? People were saying they didn't want to pay for football and this may sort that. No dates when it is planned though.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/ ... lf-cricket Anyone seen this? People were saying they didn't want to pay for football and this may sort that. No dates when it is planned though.

I think this will show that football in actual fact is way over valued and about time too.

It's all about SKY losing money in recent years anyway because of Kodi etc.. and all because of their ridiculous price hikes and the millions upon millions they spend to line footballers pockets. No sympathy from me and i hope they keep bleeding money till they go bust.

just get a streaming box then you only have to pay for internet



of hope they put rugby league on sky sports mix free to air channel then its happy days!

Absolutely



And Rugby League will more than likely be a sky sports 3 or 4 package... a tier down from football along with darts, golf and tennis kind of banding i would say.

The article suggests : "by having genre-themed sports channels each will effectively act as a “profit and loss” account for the popularity of each sport and therefore what the rights are really worth to Sky"

Could affect future negotiations esp if everyone's tuning in via Kodi

Looking forward to seeing more details of this, I haven't got sky mainly cos I would have to pay so much for the sports package so might be time to be getting it!

Reduced funding from sky will be a major issue, but the RFL need to be prepared to get a better deal come the contract discussions.
We have some very hard nosed business people running clubs and Woods and Co shouldn't be afraid to ask for help.
This will be a chance to loose Thursday night rugby and maybe speak with a second broadcaster. If you pay less your control will be less retrospectively.

Super League definitely needs to be looking at alternative deals for TV when the rights come around. Personally I think Sky are stuck 20 years in the past. Amazon are already looking at buying the rights to the IPL cricket apparently and if they or Google or any of the other tech firms look at buying Premier League rights, Sky can't compete and I think it will be end of them as a company.

It's easy to envisage buying a season pass to stream sports like they already have in the US, it would be great if something like that was available for Super League, a couple of live matches a week and access to recordings of all the other matches, I would certainly pay more for that than I would for Sky Sports.

Would be very interested in going back to sky IF it was going to be a lot cheaper just to watch Rugby League instead of the Nancy boys.

And as for Kodi its Mainly Android interface so cant see them able to do anything regarding stopping it,It would mean trying to stop ever phone and Tablet as well, Plus there's plenty of other programs that stream sky & other channels.



Up The Trin

That would be fantastic! I would be happy to pay for that.

People who use Kodi are parasites. Yes, enjoy your smugness, but it is theft and it's illegal.

Well, iv'e paid thousands and thousands of pounds into the SKY corporation coffers over the years to be hit year after year with big increases in my bill to the point i can't justify paying it anymore.

I don't feel one iota of guilt for pursuing other avenues, if Sky kept prices at reasonable levels i would very likely still be a customer but corporation greed has meant i and many others have gone down the 'parasite' route.

I don't use Kodi and I understand the argument about it being theft, but to muddy the moral waters - is theft from a thief that much of a crime? Rupert Murdoch is an industrial scale tax avoider and a sinister influence on society in general.

If you can't afford it, you don't have it. What you don't do is pinch it.

I've paid thousands of pounds to Tesco over the years, who are land-grabbers and commercial parasites, crushing small businesses and farmers. If I pinch a bottle of whiskey from Tesco that I'd rather not pay for, I'm a thief. That is what you are.

This is potential good news in the short term for the consumer as it should mean those wanting to watch / fund Skys obsession with football and paying over vast sum s for it are the ones paying for it.

In the medium term it remains to be seen how much pother sports (RL included) are subsidised by the football paying subscriber

if they stopped ripping people off with extortionate prices they would get more people signing up..and not droves leaving as at present.

certainly got them worried and people have taken different avenues... so in a way we may get a fair price in the end.

its not illegal.

New channels begin in august

might not be long before the drone racing league takes over

I suppose more games will be on the red button now with clashes with other sports, (Darts on Thursday for one). What are the odds the Grand Final will be pay per view.

More likely games will be played on different days (hopefully Friday to Sunday) rather than clashing with darts. Tv fixtures are dictated by sky remember, if a change in schedule suits them it will change.

Free to air is the only way to expand the game nationally, this has being proven time and time and time again in as many sports as you care to name.
This is currently one of the major set backs for RU in Australia.

Kodi is a bit dodgy to say the least but agree that Murdock is amongst the worst of the worst in terms of theft/not paying his dues.

I have been with sky from the beginning from when it was a square dish and I have had the sports since then and the only thing I watch on the sports channel is rugby league so I pay for the rest of the rubbish that I do not watch but if we have our own channel what would we have to watch on it

I'm in mid 20s and the only growth sport that I can think of in the past 10-15 years is darts which is on Sky. Am I forgetting anything?

Edit - UFC too.

The thing with Kodi is that it just doesn't work does it. You can technically 'watch' things on it, but it's instable, the frame rate and resolution if often terrible, the sound is terrible. It's not anything like the real thing, it's as bad if not worse than watching movies that have been taped in the cinema on a camcorder.

This publicity is just unbelievable. It's a paid advert by Sky. They've paid the journalists to write about the significant reductions, but there won't actually be any. Premier League football is going to be split across two football channels at £18 each. So to get BT Sports, and both Sky football channels you'd have to pay £59 just for that, plus £30 ish for the lowest package. Throw broadband and phone in and you are at £130 a month.

Rugby League will get screwed here too I feel. We'll be lumped into some 'boutique' channel with Kabbadi and Badminton and they'll use that to say the sport attracts less viewers than it used to.