iL not happy with Red Hall and the new TV deal in an article in League a Express.

Wigan chairman Ian Lenagan questions Rugby Football League chairman Brian Barwick's decision to negotiate Super League's next television deal three years before its current package ends. The sport has announced a new five-year deal with Sky Sports worth around £200m, with the current £127m deal set to expire at the end of 2016.
Lenagan says: "I believe it is a dreadful commercial decision to be agreeing in 2014, with three years still to go on Super League's current deal, a new deal for Super League TV rights for the five future years at only a 30% increase and without going out to tender.
"Super League should have achieved considerably more than that from committing the next eight years or should have extended for two years only, leaving us then able to renegotiate for 2017-21 in what appears to be an increasingly competitive market in favour of sellers."

He also says that the clubs were given 24 hours to make a decision and he regrets agreeing to it.

And what if BT Sport goes bust and SKY get their monopoly back? Now is the time to do the deal when there is genuine competition.

I supported IL's stance earlier, but he's starting to sound like a child. It's a fantastic deal and a massive increase.

A bird in the hand and all that, especially in RL.

BT have got the champions league they will be around for a long while.

Shocking decision.

At least see how things play out abit over the next 18 months. To agree 5 years, 3 YEARS IN ADVANCE is ridiculous.

It once again smacks of the powers that be bending over. Sky decide to get in early and see how much they can get away with without being insulting.

Barely before they've had chance to even make the offer 'YES YES YES YES'

'That's them done and dusted for 8 years, too easy'.

200 million for 5 years of the top division in a pro sport is peanuts.

'what if BT go bust? good move' - Seriously, are you for real?

BT going bust!


Check out the turnover and profit of BT compared to sky.

Isn't BT sport is being run as a separate company? If so, if its not making money, the people in power may well choose to eventually fold it.

Didn't someone say something similar happened to Itv and Itv digital, who had right to Level 2 football at one point?

Get real we are a pro sport yes, but a sport in the regions watched by (in the main) low wage earners, who would pay big money to advertise to them I doubt that BT would play much more if any. As to whether its a good deal remains to be seen

Don't forget the £300k upfront "bribe" per team - no wonder some clubs jumped at the chance given the state of their finances. The more the deal is looked in detailed - the more the spin falls apart.

And who is responsible for that sad state of affairs?

A parochial and insular management team from the regions that doesn't care whether or not the top league has a club from cosmopolitan and prosperous London or Toulouse in it.

Toulouse, now there's an interesting place. Maybe football13 is just a bit too tough/rough for their palates, was speaking with an upper-middle class woman yesterday (some of my family are part of the "British" Establishment), I mentioned that the biggest show on Earth was on later (that's the Super Bowl), she said, that's a rough game, with basically no rules, obviously I just smiled and kept quiet, like a well brought up public school boy; but many of the decisions are obviously made by people in suites in posh/expensive London dining halls. Not until there's a form of a revolution will football13 be played in more areas of Europe.

The premier league are bringing forward the PL rights auction because they feel BT will find it harder to justify more outlay on sports once the markets see the amounts they are losing from their sports channels. They want to get in before the BT shareholders start to see the massive sums flowing out for PL and CL rights with so little coming in from subs. There will be a point in the next 2 to 3 years when BT have to justify their huge outlay with something other than slowing down the movement of broadband customers to Sky.

There is a good chance that Sky blow BT out of the water with ridiculous sums for the next round of PL rights and BT are stuck with paying big sums for ESPN level PL content plus their massive overpayment on CL rights.

I said BT Sport not BT. I doubt they're operating BT Sport under the same company. And they are spending a huge amount of money for soccer and union rights and at the moment I don't see them getting the return. It's a massive risk to wait another 2 years, the competition could easily be gone if the BT Sport business model fails.

A long contract doesn't mean they can honour it.

BT Sport isn't a separate business - it's part of BT Retail which is essentially the consumer facing bit of BT that includes, phone, broadband etc.

They aren't going anywhere soon.

Remember ITV digital? ITV didnt go bust, but they liquidated ITV digital and left the football championship clubs almost bankrupt!

BT could do the same with BT Sport

I am getting sick of Lenegan, criticises everything but never offers any solutions.

How many of these critics would be saying "the RFL should have accepted the offer straight away" if they'd taken it away for waiting too long.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

battle of the mustache in full flight.

Not sure i agree with IL on this because super league needs consistency and a safety but i can also see his point. What is the increase for each club and from when? also the 300k lump sum to all the clubs is a bit wrong, some clubs seriously need that money and will agree to anything for it.

Exactly. In 3 yrs if BT sport has folded and Sky offered us £100 million, there'd be chaos from the chairmen.

A bird in the hand and all that. Our sport is secure for at least 8 yrs and the biggest TV company is backing us and will love Union and BT to fail so will be doing everything they can to make that happen!

Hindsight might be something Mr Lenegan gets to use in a few years.

We know what we're going to get with Sky and they've offered more this year than ever before so i can see why Barwick jumped early.
BT did right by jumping into bed with Virgin and that could see them stick around for a while but only to those on the biggest package. I'd be interested in how many subscribers BT has when it turns a year old and also the viewing figures RU has compared to the figures they had under Sky.

I thought it'd be Hetherington that spat the biggest dummy out, turns out it's Pollards turn.

Seriously, he votes for a deal and then criticizes it.

He's starting to show some form here.

didn't he vote for the Stobart deal and then call it a terrible decision and lay all the blame at the RFL's door.

Maybe he should take care over the way he votes. He could have voted no.
I imagine the deal offered was time limited as SKY wanted to know where they stood with their whole portfolio.

Afterwards yes we could have got more, but how is to say BT would not have offered less.

Wigan once again wanting it always. As usual.

So just to be clear - he voted in favour of the deal? But he's now saying it's a dreadful decision?

Good one Eric.

Does this guy actually have any credibility amongst his peers?

Sounds like he's caught the Wigan bug, you know taking cheap shot