OFCOM's proposal to force Sky to sell its channels to other outlets, such as TopUP TV and BT is scaring the living daylights out of the RFL. www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs ... rg/RFL.pdf From a league perspective, the RFL is bob on. We're screwed if the OFCOM proposals go ahead. As, are all the minority sports that get a decent deal at the moment, such as Union and Cricket. But from a subscriber's point of view, I would like to see Sky's charges fall. I'm paying a fortune to subsidise the Premier League which doesn't interest me. I suppose the Premier League subscribers are subsidising Rugby League which doesn't interest them. The question is which side gets the better of the deal. Could League gain enough subscribers for its own channel? I'll answer my own question. Not a snowball's chance in hell. The RFL are right to be scared. These proposals have to be stopped.

OFCOM's proposal to force Sky to sell its channels to other outlets, such as TopUP TV and BT is scaring the living daylights out of the RFL. www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs ... rg/RFL.pdf From a league perspective, the RFL is bob on. We're screwed if the OFCOM proposals go ahead. As, are all the minority sports that get a decent deal at the moment, such as Union and Cricket. But from a subscriber's point of view, I would like to see Sky's charges fall. I'm paying a fortune to subsidise the Premier League which doesn't interest me. I suppose the Premier League subscribers are subsidising Rugby League which doesn't interest them. The question is which side gets the better of the deal. Could League gain enough subscribers for its own channel? I'll answer my own question. Not a snowball's chance in hell. The RFL are right to be scared. These proposals have to be stopped.

I wish OFCOM every success, go get em boys.

That wont go ahead, sport england will probably step in and do something and claim they are damaging the grass roots of the sport.

Makes for good thinking thought, if sky for some reason did pull the money, where would we be?? Probably not in a good place....

It does make you realise that we were lucky that we didn't seek a deal with Setanta the last time round. Like you say, we'd have been in a real crisis. As it is, we have most of our financial eggs in the Sky basket.

As a sport we most certainly do. I think there is probably only about 5 clubs who could stay at the same level if the sky money was pulled.

It will create a level playing field that the best clubs will flourish in instead of this fantasyland sport we now have, please let it happen.

Without the Sky money Rugby League would no longer be a professional sport. Several of the teams in SL would go out of business completely including some of the big names and the entire sport would be forced to cut costs drastically. The NL would become even more irrelevant as they wouldn't get any money either.

The end of the Sky deal is pretty much doomsday.

I agree with your sentiment, but ofcom really do need to do something about the current operation of Sky in being both content and delivery provider and not operating under 'fair' terms. It's exactly the same as BT were forced to separate parts of their business and provide wholesale offerings to other operators at fixed prices (and the same prices they were then forced to charge other parts of BT). The resultant changes worked well in the Telecoms industry.

It's not out of the question for this to actually be beneficial to Sky in the long run, as it's trying to make their content available to a wider audience at a fair rate - which could result in them making more than they do now, and give them more money to invest in sports for example.

To be honest the whole letter reads to me like somebody who is 'concerned of acacia avenue' expressing his views on a company not being allowed to do something - the same company that pays his salary.

The RFL's main areas of concern about wholesale offerings dissuading new entrants to do things themselves actually had the opposite effect in Telecoms, it allowed companies to establish a foothold and brand by wholesaling, then developing and delivering the services themselves later. A more valid point is their fear of things being moved to Sky 3 or Sky Sports xtra to keep them from being wholesaled - now that I do agree on, and feel either all Sky's channels need to be available wholesale or non at all.

Maybe not!
I remember a conversation with a Hull FC director who put forward a diferent senario at the time of our move to summer. His theory was that if we had one live match & one recorded highlights programe per week shown on BBC sport the revenue value to sponsors would increase the clubs income from sponsorship & we would not need The sky money. He actualy sugested getting the BBC to take it for nothing as long as we got the same coverage as SKY give the super league as the number of potential viewers nation wide makes SKY viewing figures look tiny.
But It would take a brave man to try that.

why would they want to invest more money in sports?

The problem is, built into the price Sky pay is a premium for their content to be exclusive, this is how they get subscriptions, if they lose this exclusivity of this content, then they wont pay that premium and as such the value of the rights will drop

But that would only apply to the clubs featured , so the big clubs , the ones on the TV all the time would grow strong , but the rest would suffer badly

Just as when Wigan were the only club who could afford to go full time & dam near killed the game off? We are still not recovered from the damage that period did to our game. HKR are just recovering from that time we lost our ground & went bust trying to get back to the top Widness have been through similar experiances. Bad as it is now it is preferable to the farce we had in the 1980's

We dont have much to lose anyway , so the loss of SKY would have little to no effect on the clubs outside SL , personally I doubt the value of the TV coverage that we currently get

The RFL have to be in charge of the alocation of games on a fair basis & gate revenues would have to be shared out from a central pot. Also the salary cap has to stay.

You're looking at it purely from Sky as one entity (content+delivery company) what ofcom are proposing would still allow Sky to be an exclusive content provider, just make them offer the content to other delivery providers at a fixed fair cost (it would still be Sky branded content).

BT had to do exactly the same thing in reverse - it owned at the time the only delivery platform (and still the largest by far until we see how LTE takes off in this country next year), and was forced to wholesale the delivery to other content providers. It's just the other side of the same coin and the way competition laws work.

but you may not need a Sky subscription to access, which is the issue

if i dont need to pay to subscribe to Sky to watch RL, why would i still pay Sky to watch RL?

I think the RFL make some good points in that report. Sky are accused of a monopoly but they took the risks years ago when the rights were cheap. They invested in football and rugby league massively and made them the sports they are today. It's not there fault competitors have over spent and collapsed. First ITV Digital then Setanta. I can't see how Sky can be blamed for the collapse of Setanta. They both clearly over spent on football and it failed massively.

Without Sky our sport would have collapsed completly. We'd have gone back to how it was in the late 70s/early 80s with 4,000 crowds being regular at places like Central Park and Knowsley Road with league games probably only being covered on a regional basis. Without Sky Wigan would have gone under as well in the late 90s and they probably wouldn't have been the only club.

Having said that Sky have always been crafty in giving themselves an edge. For a long time they denied Sky Sports Xtra to Cable viewers and put Football League and Champions League games on that channel so they missed out. I remember a Wigan v Saints derby was aired on that channel in 2002 which left Cable viewers missing out. They only got that channel in the end because Sky's new edge is exclusive HD.

What OFCOM should look it is that the consumer can't just buy Sky Sports from Sky. You have to buy a load of basically repeat channels as well.

The championship would go amateur and most of the SL would be semi pro.
Leeds, Wire, Wigan and Hull would probably be alright off the top of my head but costs would be cut massively.

This has to be stopped.
As soon as sky rights go, our sky in our house go, same for a lot of people i reckon

You will still pay for it, they're not proposing that it will be free to air - Sky will still get the money, but via wholesale rather than direct subscriber.

You don't need to pay to subscribe to Sky to watch RL at the moment, if you live in the right area you can pay to Virgin instead for the same channel - currently Virgin get dicked by Sky in the amount they are charged.

Touche.

This is very true, and could possibly happen with the threat of Sky being forced to wholesale the channels.

One thing is for sure, Sky won't magically change anything unless they feel their under pressure to do something or be legislated against.

I just have a problem with the whole idea of taking from those who have earned their place in the market and giving it to those who haven't. As the RFL point out, all they are trying to do is punish the proactive and creative media company in favour of those that aren't investing and aren't producing anything.

Sky is successful because Sky has the best channels. They were put there by Sky investing money into it. IMO it's unfair to give two bob media companies better access to something for less money just because they haven't got the skills to be there in the first place.

This is the reason I've never been with Virgin. All the best channels have the word Sky in front of them. Sky Sports, Sky Sports News, Sky News, Sky One, Sky Movies. Why should I pay Virgin to watch them, what have they done to earn the money? Balls all. Are OFCOM suggesting the likes of Virgin, BT, ESPN etc don't have the money to compete?

NO , why would losing nothing revenue wise affect the Championships , what exactly do you think we currently get ?

I'm not saying it would be a good thing and unlike Maurice i dont want it to happen , but it wouldn't make a ripple in the finances of non SL clubs

Again the lines are blurring between Content production and Content delivery - the media world has increasingly and will continue to move towards separation of the two, Sky themselves actively want to do this, their strategy is not to keep the content exclusive to their delivery platform, rather to control and squeeze the most out of all the other delivery providers - that's why OFCOM have started to look at it.

As of this, your best year regards to media awareness, you receive 70k a pop if i read correctly.
You've already had to reduce your salary caps, 2 clubs have gone bust with oldham and gateshead to follow, you had a few pro clubs but now they've also gone semi pro due to money problems. no..everythings fine and dandy