There are loads of streaming sites that you have to pay for that are a fraction of a Sky Sports subscription, have everything Sky Sports has plus a lot more besides (3pm football, PPV boxing, etc) and generally offer a much better quality of picture than free streaming sites.

Sky Sports current business model is going to prove unsustainable over the coming years anyway, as it is far too expensive (remember a huge percentage of Sky's money goes straight into the bank accounts of Premier League players) and doesn't offer the content that it should. I know this is an RL forum, but when you consider Premier League football has been Sky Sports biggest selling point since it started, it's ridiculous that you still can't watch every game your team (if you have one) plays. But you now can online.

I'm amazed Sky Sports has seemingly been recession proof over the last five years, and I don't doubt that they are very clever and will have long term plans to ensure they remain in business despite the rise of the streaming sites. This will inevitably result in lower prices though - they won't have much choice - and less money paid to all sporting bodies.

As for scare stories of this meaning the end of Super League, well RL existed for a century before Super League was formed and the game sold to Sky, so I'm sure it will continue. Do people honestly think towns/cities like Warrington, Wigan, St Helens, Bradford, Leeds and Hull will just pack it in and forget about rugby league? As if.

In short, no I don't have Sky Sports and I won't be subscribing again any time soon!

I think you are correct when you say that RL would still exist without Sky, but I suspect the outcome would be pretty unpalatable.

At the moment we receive something over £90 million for a 5 yr deal with Sky. That is approximately £1.2 million per SL club. I think the RFL body takes one share and another goes to the Championship, hence the 90 million is divided by 16.

So the question would be, how many SL clubs could afford to lose £1.2 million / yr ? (Lets not forget that last year the clubs were so hard up, they voted to get rid of half the youth age groups in order to save approx £100k). Without the funding, the clubs would be unable to pay player wages. Those players would look for employment elsewhere, some would leave the game altogether, the best might look to the NRL, others to the feeder clubs perhaps, others to Union. I would imagine SL would probably start to look like the Championship, and we would move back to semi - pro RL. With the loss of our best players, spectator numbers would drop, advertising deals would be harder to broker and fall in value. The profile of the game would fall and attract less interest. Fewer players would be attracted to the sport because of the low wages. Less money would be available from the RFL for grass root development and grants. The Championship clubs would lose their £100k per yr ( could Swinton with gates of a few hundred afford that ?) etc etc.

So yes, life would go on, and I would still watch Wire along with the other 4-5,000 'hard core' supporters, but the sport would have lost a huge amount. I can't stand Murdoch, but without an alternative sponsor, we need Sky.

Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but if Sky werent around paying for the broadcast rights, and these were being taken by some online steaming service instead, then SL's revenue would just come from a different source
. Separate discussion as to what that amount would be, and clearly rival, cheaper alternatives might be more appealing to the customer-but thn will they have the bidding power to get the broadcast deal ( which will likely go to the highest bidder)?

I'm a bit confused by people saying they are watching on-line steaming-I'm assuming this is on illegal sites?

Horses for courses, but I could live with that. Bear in mind it would have a financial impact across all sports if Sky were to withdraw or lower it's funding, so the grass wouldn't neccessarily be as green elsewhere (union) as doom and gloom RL merchants would like to pretend.

Football would be the hardest hit, but all it would ultimately mean would be the end of multi million pound wage packets and I don't think any average fan would be unhappy about that. I don't begrudge RL players what they earn because it's obviously significantly less, but the game was semi-pro for most clubs for a long time and players still played.

As I said, I don't expect Sky Sports to go bust or anything - I hate Murdoch and Sky but I'm not that naive - but I do expect it to be forced to change it's business model over the next few years which will inevitably mean less money.

Either way I won't be subscribing under it's current overpriced with limited coverage model for the forseeable future.



I assume so. PM me if you want links to four of them!

I have a Sky subscription because it's much easier and cheaper for me, living in Leeds and not having a car, to see most of our games (let me guess - not a true fan

). I don't think streaming is in any danger of taking Sky down though, even for RL, given that 324,000 viewers tuned in to the Grand Final. 70,000 watched SL Backchat that week too, apparently.

Streaming is only going to rise in popularity though. Sky Sports is very expensive. It might be okay if you're a 100% armchair sports fan, but if you pay to attend matches/events as well, then considering the high price of tickets (Premier League football is scandalous, but even Super League has risen a fair bit in the last few years) then for a lot of people something has to give. For me it was the Sky Sports subscription. The availability of streaming sites made the decision a whole lot easier though.

And when everyone does this, who is going to be actually pointing the camera at the action?
Streaming is just a poorer quality version of exactly the same thing. If enough people do make that move, then someone will just buy the on-line rights and charge you for them and put more effort into closing down streams.

there is no benefit to streaming other than you getting something for free when you should be paying for it. It would be no different to me arguing that shoplifting is only going to rise in popularity, but then buying things is relatively expensive.

Personally, I have a slightly wider interest in sport than many on here who seem to be limited to RL (and, at a push, football), so I think I actually get good value for the money I spend on my subscription - Also, as some have pointed out, the thought of sitting in front a PC, on my own, watching some pishpoor quality stream, fills me with utter dismay.

By all means, people should choose what to watch and whether to pay their subscription, but its silly to suggest that Sky's SPORTS (not just RL) coverage isn't worth the money.

When you go shopping you have a wide range of alternative options. If you want to buy a jumper for example you could go into Selfridges and see a Hugo Boss one but decide it's too expensive, so instead you'll go and look at Lacoste. You could then decide that's too expensive and look at Nike. Still too expensive? Marks & Spencer then. Not got the dough for that? Well go to Primark.

You can choose from a realm of different things depending on your tastes and budget. If you want to watch televised sport your options are limited to the existing cartel. Like it or not the choice isn't there. It is not the same as shoplifting.

So what you are saying then, is that you also watch the girls beach volley ball AS WELL as RL ?

you do have alternatives, you have the BBC, ITV, all the FTA broadcasters, you have espn, you have premier sports, you have freeview. But the fact is none of those products are the product you want. You want sky sports but you dont want to pay for it. So you are stealing it.

When it comes to rugby league, Sky are actually providing that product, they are filming it, editing it, broadcasting it, they pay for all the people to do that, they pay the hundreds of thousands of pounds it costs to put on an Outside broadcast. You are stealing it.

You can try and justify it to yourself that its only lack of choice that means you steal from them, but i doubt you even believe it anymore than I do.

Shoplifting is taking something you have not right to because you haven't paid for it. So is what you're doing, however you try and justify it to yourself or others. And indirectly you're affecting the game you claim to support.

Yes I want to get a Warrington shirt but where's the choice there? They are only stocked in the club shop, its not like I could go and buy one from Marks & Sparks or Primark. I feel the club is exploiting its market power over me so I'm gonna go and nick one from the shop to address this market failure....

There is a subtle difference here.

If you steal a physical product (a shirt from the club shop), then the club have lost out. They have lost the £50 they would have got from the purchase of that product.
Even if you wouldn't have bought it, the physical shirt would have still been there for someone else to buy, until you stole it.

When you steal a service such a sky sports, Sky do not necessarily lose any money.
For example, the person using the streaming websites, might not pay for a sky subscription even if the streaming option wasn't available to him.
Also, when someone streams sky sports illegally, the service is still available for the customer who wants to pay for it.

I think this is why people who would never dream of stealing from a shop, think it is ok to stream sky sports, or download music and films etc.

A good point that has been made though, is that if streaming becomes better quality and more and more people do it, then that will eventually lead to people cancelling their Sky subscription and streaming instead.
If more and more people do this, then Sky will stop providing the service as they are not making any money from it.
Once this happens, it is impossible to stream a minority sport, as no one is at the venue with the cameras.

It is ok for premier league football, as this is shown live all over the world.
You can watch pretty much any premier league match whether it is on live on sky or not.
I'm a Tranmere Rovers fan though, and there is no online streaming available for that, because Tranmere games are not shown live on TV anywhere in the world. (except very rarely on sky)

It is the same with SL. Other than the live games on sky, SL isn't shown anywhere else on other networks, so unless Sky are filming it, it is impossible to stream.
You won't be able to stream this weekends Warrington game anywhere, as it is not being shown live anywhere.

The difference is so subtle that a court of law would say that both are illegal.

Of course, I could always try and put forward the moral argument that taking something to which you are not entitled is wrong.

I cancelled the lot recently.

Now pay only £4.99 month and get Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, News, and ESPN.

Granted I am restricted to watching it on the Ipad, but the quality is fine, better than an internet stream and consistent without interruptions.

"The difference is so subtle that a court of law would say that both are illegal."

Again though, there is a subtle difference.
You get caught stealing a physical product, and you are committing a criminal crime and would be taken before a criminal court.
You get caught stealing a service for your own use and without profit, and you are committing a civil crime and would be taken before a civil court.

I'm not defending it. I'm just pointing out why I believe such a high percentage of people in this country believe there is nothing wrong with streaming and downloading.

I actually agree with you and one or two other points above, and was being slightly facetious with my earlier musings. I won't download music illegally for example because I disagree with it. I download from iTunes even though I'm well aware a bit of searching would probably find me the same thing free elsewhere.

I despise Sky though.

I don't particularly like Sky either, but I'd rather pay them to get a good service than stream an illegal crap one, and obviously everyone can make their own decision. What I would like is more competition for watching RL, but nobody seems particularly interesting in my rantings about RL on tv

My missus suggested we cancel our Sky subscription. My 'sport' argument wasn't going far, my three year-old's insistence on Disney Junior won the day. Hurrah for multiroom

If you have an Apple TV can you watch it on the "big telly"?

"I actually agree with you and one or two other points above, and was being slightly facetious with my earlier musings. I won't download music illegally for example because I disagree with it. I download from iTunes even though I'm well aware a bit of searching would probably find me the same thing free elsewhere.

I despise Sky though."

It is an interesting point that has been raised though.
If I try to watch Rugby League or the NFL through a streaming site it never comes close to watching it via Sky in terms of quality etc, however with football, there are more and more ways to avoid Sky and maintain the quality.

You can subscribe to foreign sites that have the games live in high definition for a fraction of the price of Sky, and the illegal streaming sites are becoming better and better.

So if the football fans stop paying for Sky due to these alternatives, what happens to Sky?
Football is by far their biggest revenue, so surely their business model would no longer work as previously stated in this thread.

If that leads to cheaper subscriptions, it will ultimately lead to less money being given to sports, and I can guarantee that Rugby League will be hit before football.

Now I know lots of people would be happy once Sky are no longer involved in the sport, but no one else is going to put the kind of money into the sport than Sky do!

So you are ok with stealing TV coverage, merely because you 'despise' them? Hmm. You like Britney Spears though, so you will give her remuneration for her labour and creativity (I use the term lightly)?

You have tried to justify why you steal TV coverage twice, maybe, and those 'justifications' (some flawed argument about 'competition' and the fact you despise the owners) have been an interesting read.

Nope. It's an App made for the Iphone, but airplay is disabled.

Even though it's an iphone app, the Ipad can play it too, just in 'zoomed' mode. I find it fine personally. Actually means I can sit and watch whilst she watches crap on tv.

You should sign up for Sky, then when the rugby's on say you've got to watch it to justify the price you're paying. Then pass her the iPad...

Depends who wears the trousers I suppose