What do fan's want?

On one hand they moan about there being too many overseas players in our game and on the other hand moan about our International team not being good enough as a result of the key position's at many club's being filled by overseas players.

Overseas players and when I say overseas players, I mean those born outside the UK, should be limited to a maximum of four players per club.

I agree they have gone some way to help keep him here, but as you say he could make even more elsewhere. What would you do and how much does our game need him and his like? I understand it’s a lot of money, but there comes a point when they must decide on the way to go with our sport. Do we try to keep players like him, and the greater profile they give to the sport, or do we let them go to Oz or the dark side and let them reap the benefit. We soon will go from the back pages, to the bog pages if they don’t do something.

In an ideal world that would be the case, however until we start getting more kids interested and playing the game, we just don't have the talent pool in this country. Ok, for Wigan, we'd be fine as our youth system is one of, if not the best in the country, but for some teams their survival is based on imported players.

There's real merit in the youth player idea. Places like London will struggle but they'e a different animal altogether. However clubs need to know best how to nurture these kids and get them ready for SL. We're finally trying to get things sorted in Hull and it makes a fine change. I don't know about over in wigan but we have had great amateur teams that have a good tradition of bringing young kids through their ranks but we haven't managed to do that in past years. Wigan always have a good crop of local talent and the RFL need to look at the clubs who are good at it and roll it out amongst other clubs. However this may be too sensible for the RFL to try!

Wigan don't have anywhere near the numbers of young talented players that the city of Hull have.
Trouble is for Hull they had a hopeless management who mustn't have seen the potential all these young lads provide. To bring the best out of them they need good coaches at junior level.
Now they have new managment and if they give that aspect of their business the attention it needs and deserves then they might bring through quality young players in vast numbers. With Lineham and Crooks they appear to have made a very good start.
Wigan's problem is at the opposite end. We have vast numbers of young players but are struggling to keep our experienced men.

I know for a fact that they are hoping to invest heavily i the youth as peter gentle and adam pearson are looking towards making their own stars. Things like that need rolling out across the country though.

Isn't the difference Wigan did it without a wealthy financial backer back in the 90's? Whelan never ran the club as a profit making business once he took over later and just chucked money at it as and when required. Surely that is the model Scade1 was advocating not a club getting into debt to fund such players?

We need to get the sport in a position to compete for players monetarily. So when the likes of Sam do leave we are able to entice top Aussies here.

Now that is very easy to say but very hard to do obviously.

There are three things I can think of that would at least be a start.

Removing any restrictions on what a player can earn independently from being a star player like Sam so they don't count on the salary cap. Image rights and so on. Our salary cap strikes me as almost a throwback to the days of the RFU to enforcing amateurism in that respect!

Sack Nigel Woods and get someone in who recognises the problem rather than someone who thinks altering the league structure will save the game.

Seek to match TV revenues the likes of RU get off BT. In other words proper marketing.

It all boils down to simply getting more money into the game and into players pockets and its about time those running it recognised that and realise in pro sport that is what dictates where the quality players go.

We won't end up paying silly wages like soccer but I certainly don't have a problem with the levels of remuneration in RL being much higher than they are.

Really?

I'd have him ahead of Hanley at his age.

Do you think anybody is going to pay for BT to watch RU? Really? Recall ITV digital and Championship football? BT is a sinking ship before its set sail, RU are welcome to it

Isn't he about the age now that Hanley was when we signed him?
I've said for a while that if tomkins stays till the end of next year it will be the same length of time Hanley was with us and IMO if he produces the kind of performances he has done over the last 3/4 years in that time I'd say he will have given me as much pleasure and excitement to watch him as it was to watch Hanley.

In terms of his attack he is better than Hanley was at 24 imo.

Defence is weaker than Hanley.

Then again as you say he is about the same age as when Hanley signed for Wigan, and after that, when Hanley moved to 13, he kicked on imo.

Interesting to see if Sam can do the same. Maybe it's Oz that will enable him to do so.

but the one thing Sam wont be able to do is to swap into the pack, and at the end of his career break try-scoring records as a forward. sam maybe versatile at 1 and 7, but Hanley was a legend in halves, centres and at loose forward.

Well unless you have missed the adverts they are advertising free soccer and RU if you get BT broadband. They have obviously chucked money at both soccer and RU in a bid to establish themselves as a true rival to Sky in the digital TV sphere. In many areas such as where I live they are the only real alternative to Sky for those sports as Virgin is not available. So at the moment I doubt the RU clubs care who watches it as the cash is on its way.

Long term it has to be worthwhile for BT to continue but for now they have paid the cash and RU has sold itself well. Meanwhile Nigel Woods ponders the merits of a league of three leagues of 8 v two of 10 etc.

Lineham's from Leeds and the Hull FC youth production line has effectively been Castleford. There must be something wrong with the amateur/youth structure and coaching in what is a proper rugby league city that they've produced so few SL players of note over the last decade.

"The cost of the Football League deal proved one too many a burden for ITV Digital, and it was placed into administration on 27 March 2002, after the League refused to accept a £130m pay cut in its £315m deal with the ITV Sport Channel. Most subscription channels ceased broadcasting on ITV Digital on 1 May 2002. The collapse on 30 June 2002 caused severe financial difficulties for lower-division football clubs who had budgeted for large incomes from the television contract. The Football League sued ITV Digital's parent companies, Carlton and Granada, claiming that the firms had breached their contract in failing to deliver the guaranteed income. And so, by the end of June 2002, the service ceased. The League lost the case, with the judge ruling that it had "failed to extract sufficient written guarantees". The League then filed a negligence claim against its lawyers for failing to press for a written guarantee at the time of the deal with ITV Digital. This time it was awarded a paltry £4 in damages of the £150m it was seeking" -- good old WikiP
Like I say RU can have BT, they will never be able to compete with SKY, ask Setanta & ESPN. RU using BT is a massive victory for Super league.

Sky would have monopolised football if it was allowed to, its not under current contractually regulations. That's why it has to share with other providers. That is the only reason why BT have got some football games. Sky will keep what it wants if it can. Basically if it can make money out of it then they will take it if they can. And no one TV provider can compete with them.

They could have taken the rights to RU but as they have found out the viewing figures are not that great much less than Super League games for domestic games. I agree with you Mash Butty its a big win for SL that RU has gone to a new channel that will be very much dependant on footbal for its subscriptions.

ESPN is a much bigger company than BT its run by Disney and they did not go for the right to RU or if it did it was not willing to pay as much as BT and that says something for you. BT are paying too much for the Union rights. The union clubs will be happy that they will get this money but BT will realise quickly they will not recoup the investment. They are as Dave says giving free sports package with broadband so they are already losing money on the deal. You can not take on the King and expect to survive as many broadcasters have found out to its costs take on SKY adn you lose. Only ESPN can live with them and that's due to its backing by Disney.

And lets remind everyone what Disney own - Marvel comics and all the film rights - Avengers, Spider-Man, IronMan etc, Pixar animations and STAR WARS. A massive company that said no thanks to RU....

"Sky is to offer free broadband to Sky Sports customers – a retaliatory move in response to BT offering BT Sport free to its own broadband users.Sign up to the deal and the new Sky Sports subscribers will receive one year's free unlimited broadband, with just the £14.50 line rental to pay each month. Customers can also choose to get six months of Sky Fibre Unlimited for free, a saving of £20 per month."
The War has started

The ESPN / Disney view is a misrepresentation of business priorities. Whilst the ESPN UK formed an arm of the ESPN / Disney business, there was never a commitment to take on Sky as it was an expansion market based on opportunism rather than a serious power play. Setanta's failure gift wrapped a footy package that Sky couldn't take and terrestrial couldn't afford, and they swooped on RU rights when Sky called the RFU's bluff. They got burned on the latter deal, which did not have the subscription draw expected and were already starting to cut their losses, by sacrificing other UK rights - NHL, NASCAR - before losing the footy package and RU.

On the other hand, BT are a much more serious player in their core market. The tv rights aspect is a power play in the bigger struggle with Sky over the lucrative telephone / broadband market. They are smarter than ESPN and Setanta in understanding that they will never compete with Sky for tv subscriptions alone, despite having their own service (like Virgin Media), so are enticing Sky TV subscribers to their other services. Like it or not they are a serious player in a game much bigger than just tv and consequently RU are in no danger by taking their side.

I am sure that us all true but I doubt £157m or whatever it is they are paying for RU over a few seasons is going to bankrupt BT. I can't remember how much they are paying for soccer but I am sure its a lot of money but given they are offering the matches for free to BT broadband customers its obviously not been bought to make money a via direct a subscription fee. In effect its a huge loss leader and I am sure they think a free service for soccer is going to tempt a lot of people to BT compared to forking out for a Sky Sports sub.

Whatever the market research that lies behind it the fact remains[i they have done it [/iand as part of the deal money is flowing to RU clubs.



How so? I can't see it making a blind bit of difference to RL directly. Sky have not suddenly turned around as a result of RU going to BT and said here is an extra few million to stay with us.

Are they going to come along and offer Sam a million quid to stay with Wigan so they can market the sport better?

In the meantime RU is richer and so can offer higher player wages. We on the other-hand console ourselves we got 6 figure sums for Hock and Mossop and they might come back when they are older.

Here is the real danger to RU.

They are paying too much for it that's obvious just look at the viewing figures SKY got for games. But they have the money and the players will now want a bigger share of the pot. What will happen i think is that BT will see its not generating enough advertisement revenue and subscribers and come the next deal with player contracts signed they will not have the same amount of money to pay with. Therefore there will be a shortfall in the clubs finances whilst the owners with bigger pockets can absorb it over half will struggle.

If ESPN and SKY are not willing to pay 150 million for the deal then its rather obvious its not a money maker. ESPN and SKY will make money out of anything they can and by not paying so much for RU rights its a bad deal for BT. If they got the 6 nations then yes its a very good deal but union domestically just like League does struggle it makes its money on the back of Internationals and that is tied up for now by SKY, BBC and S4C.

Well the RU clubs certainly see the extra money from BT as way to pay players a higher wage.

It may all go belly up in future but you could say that about the NRL and its current TV deal. The way the salary cap is going up there is down to making sure the players share in the games good fortune.

Both RU players here and RL players down under are benefiting directly from TV deals that have brought increased revenue to the sport. The fact it may be a problem for RU later doesn't alter the financial environment now.

I am sure if our players got as organised as their Aussie counterparts they would also want an increased salary cap if the RFL managed to wring more money out of Sky.

Would you deny them that in case at the end of the contract Sky decided not to renew?

Would be interesting to see if the RFL could call SKY's bluff.

I am going to make a guess that 12 months before the RFL contract with sky ends we start hearing rumblings of BT taking RL on-board. Wether we switch broadcaster or not the cap needs to increase and one way is to get rid of 2 sides from the Super League.

That would not hinder SKY at all they would get the same amount of games on just better quality.

The way soccer got billions out of Sky was via a blind auction. Sky thought they were at serious risk of losing soccer completely to Al Jazeera believe it or not. This forced them to over bid. Richard Scudamore who was in charge of the bidding played a blinder.

We need the same thing - competition for the sports broadcasting rights but not just a rumour.

Do we have someone with the same nous as Scudamore in the RFL who could get us into that position playing Sky and BT off against each other?



Well if you take that as adding two teams cap to the mix the cap is just over £1.8m now they rolled the special dispensations for long serving players etc into the main cap so that is £3.6m divided by 12. That is £300K per club extra. It would be a start but not enough really is it as it still leaves us way short of the competition. We need a big increase so some serious money is available.