It is massively more. And it's only for their premiership. Not internationals, not Heineken cup, (correction - not in first year), etc.

I accept all the usual bleating about the disadvantages we face in getting deals comparable to RU, but a) this is nothing to do with Internationals, and b) we need to learn something instead of making excuses.

They can only sell what they're given to sell. RFL can't say "we hired IMG, so now we take no blame for anything". If that's all you have to do, then my mum might as well run the RFL, all she needs is the list of sub-contractors and a telephone.

It's £27m a year for SL, Championships & Challenge Cup compared to £38m a year for Aviva Premiership & Heineken Cup. Hardly an earth shattering difference, especially given the difference in costs.
And you're right it's nothing to do with internationals, as Internationals aren't included in either deal.

Factor in the playing and coaching squads of 20 Championship clubs, and you have evened it up

The TV money SL clubs recieve is enough to cover competitive squad in SL imo (1.32mil - 1.69 mil are the figures used on this thread) £1.5mil would be the average. Gate receipts, shirt sponsor, kit manufacturer, other sponsors, corporate money, grants and merchandise should be enough to cover staff wages and all other day to day cost imo as long as your chairman/CEO knows what he is doing so why clubs are reported to be on the edge of bankruptcy is beyond me.

It does make you wonder, doesnt it?

A simple formula would be to only spend 90% of your previous years income, any surplus could then be spent on marketing your club to increase turnover and therefore potential increase in spending

It shouldnt be hard should it

, then again my club made a profit when playing in SL

Said just about all I wanted to say myself. They've got 38 Premier League football matches and now a load of rugby union. Football will get some to sign-up for the service. Not sure BT will attract enough with club union games to make it worthwhile.

I say this not a an RL fan, but no sport other than Premier League football will get the masses subscribing to pay for that and any ancillary deals. 38 games a year is nowhere near enough to do that.

Rugby Union is massive in the UK - or at least the perception is. They call it "Rugby" on telly but they always mean Union.

League is a small northern sport which has a big final on the BBC once a year - Eddie Waring used to commentate on it, as well as It's a knockout.

They call it rugby in Oz as well, they call games they care about Footy or Cricket. So let em av it, we'll be Footy or League!

OK first point on this is that the criticism of the RFL of our deal is harsh. We signed ours a year ago. BT won't bidding for sports then, so the RFL were restricted in asking for larger payments. BT are new on the game and are a HUGE company, they have just as much money to throw at sports as SKY, they will be investing a lot money and will be prepared to lose a lot of money at first to get customers signed up. They need marquee sports to get people signed up and will pay over the odds for it. Also what happens when two people want something? They start bidding for it, meaning the RFU could keep putting the asking price up. RFL didn't have this.

Second point, now BT look big players, that will put the RFL in a good position when the next contract comes up for renewal as SKY know how big SL is to them and now they have genuine competition, out contract will increase.

And in a move that we'd expect from our own RFL, there's now a dispute with the ERC about the BT deal and the validity of screening the Heiniken Cup matches which have been previously contracted under a seperate arrangement.

Nearly every club is running at a 250-500k deficit so clearly it is not enough.

What is the money going on?

Does anybody have any indicators or figures that could show the income/expenditure of an average SL club? KR, Cas, Salford, Wakey etc.

Im only guessing but I would have thought the top 5 clubs in SL would all be operating at a profit!

I'm sure the owners of Wigan, Wire & Saints would love to have an operational net profit, Saints owe in IRO £6m for their shiny stadium alone.
If clubs were able to operate profitably on gate, sponsorship, merchandising & TV money they wouldn't need backers now would they?

The description of RL vs Union given by littlerich is exactly the perception anybody south of the M62 would give. We've a new Welsh guy at work, who was shocked when I said the statement that 'nobody cares about league' ought to be changed to 'nobody cares south of the M62', and the reverse can be applied when it comes to union based on the fact that there is one premiership club in England north of Leicester.

That's what RL has to battle, and we can compare crowd figures and TV audiences until the cows come home.

I'd pay somebody on a success fee basis to get us more sponsorship and better TV deals - i.e. keep a decent % of anything you earn over agreed targets, but with next to zero for failing to hit targets. A trained monkey could probably get close to the existing deal if we go to market again. A really clever operator would be doing exactly what somebody else suggested - start talking to all the alternative bidders well before the current deal is up - and make damn sure Sky know it too.

The Stobart deal and others suggest that the RFL has historically left these things way too late. If you do you end up with all the power on the wrong side of the table.

I wonder if they are currently negotiating a new title sponsorship deal with numerous bidders, as we speak...

The RU deal includes the "get out from what we committted to" phrase of "worth up to £152M". Checked the BBC report and that bit wasn't included but it's in other reports. I assume BT have clauses for paying less if they fail to attract a given level of subscribers.

I do wonder what the potential effects to RL will be in all of this. Sky generally pay as little as they can whilst still being able to show a quality product. In my opinion Sky currently pay RL what it deems sufficient to have a quality full time competition. Anything less than this and RL probably could not sustain a 12 or 14 club full time competition and the product for Sky would be poorer and less attractive. Even as it is most clubs are on the breadline. If it was just about paying as little as possible Sky could have paid just £50 million over 5 years for RL but the product would be awful, ratings poor and it wouldnt really be a seller for Sky. As far as I am away they dont have any competition for the RL rights and certainly dont need to pay anywhere near as much as they need to. However they do because Super League as it stands gets good ratings and is a great sport to supplement its main seller in Football.

This all brings me to the point of is it possible that Sky could upgrade the existing contract or offer substantially more in the next TV deal so that RL doesnt lose players and become poor, or perhaps that should be poorer, relations to RU. I think with the Sam Tomkins roles at Sky as a interview and pundit, appearances on Soccer AM etc that they do see it as important keeping the best players in the game. It is simply not in Sky's interest for Super League to end up like a glorified Championship which will not be an attractive filler and will not get the ratings/subscriptions needed.

Would be good to see another one or two games screened. Really the SL only needs an extra 10mill a year for clubs to be in much better financial positions.

What International RL are they/have they shown in 2012?

Aussie v Kiwi twice and the exiles games is all I can think of......500k a game is a bit steep, especially when the exiles games only attracted 100k viewers....that's a fiver for each viewer

thats exactly,to the letter,what goes through my head...


TV money pays for a good majority,if not all in some cases,of a clubs biggest cost.....how are some clubs getting it so wrong??

We are not talking about one or two clubs, we are talking ten to twelve clubs losing significant money. That would suggest the financial situation goes well beyond the inability of a couple of clubs to run themselves sustainably.

There's the so-called "Triangular Series" later this year, between England, France, and some lads not good enough to play for England, but whose granny was called Mrs Jones.

Great opportunity to go to 2 SL divisions of 10, starting one slightly earlier - Boxing day - to provide 11 month season with annual international comp.
This would allow the promoted side an extra few weeks to prepare for life above, an extra £5m PA from sky would make this work very well

That made me LOL