It does not auger well for a possible new Sky deal when I read that the game did not register in the top 100 sporting events on satellite TV. The SL show piece Grand final attracted an audience of 450000 and the 4 nations final only 371000! Not only that neither the Challenge cup final or the 4 nations final made it into the top 100 sports programmes on terrestial TV. Much as I love the game I fear that at best there will be no more money on the table when the rights are renewed with the worst case scenario being a decrease.
Thoughts anyone?

How many of the top 100 were Association football?

I'm surprised that CC didn't make the terrestrial top 100 - are there even 100 live sporting events on terrestrial now? Wimbledon, the 6 nations, FA Cup, The odd interenational football match, Champions league, erm... snooker, darts...

I would like to see the figure minus the Football games TBH to see how we compare to the 'lesser' sports.

That said it doesnt bode well for when the Rugby League sit down to negotiate the next contracts does it? That said I always thought the Challenge Cup was one of the higher terrestrial sport viewing figures of the year!

The guy being interviewd also said the the BBC's coverage of live games was 20% of the total Rugby League viewership for the entire year despite only showing a handfull of games !.

maybe this is the reason why rovers want to reduce SL so they get a bigger or same slice of the sky money ,i wonder if they would have said that 4 years ago ,and they should to be careful they could be one of the teams axed

Theres always 1 that lowers the thread

As far as Sky goes the GF was the 58th most popular not including football.The 4 nations was 92nd! There is so little live football on terrestial so it would look worse!

there were only 12 teams in SL 4 years ago and we still got in. New to the game are you?

yer you did get in, but that was by promotion ,unfortunatly its now based on the state of your clubs infrastructure and financial postion whether you stay in, i dont agree with that but its fact ,to cut the SL back to 12 teams may gain all the clubs left more TV money, but somone will be left disappointed and that somone will be a club, with a grade c licence ,with HKR been one of those clubs id have thought they would want to keep SL at 14 teams ,but i guess needs must , i myself would like to see 16 teams in SL i hate playing teams more than just home and away.The NRL have at least 16 so i dont see a problem with too many games tbh ,i would drop celtic and bring in Halifax ,Widnes and Leigh ,with the exstra games it would bring in more gate money and with those teams a healthy away following ,making up for lost TV money

I dont understand this.

Sky Sports Rugby averages between 100k and 350k, which is good going (and the 2nd best on sky with domestic sports). So two games a week is 40 games, and say everyone averaged 200k thats still 8million views. Of which 20% is 1.6million, which would defo break the top 100. And thats with less then average attendance and only 40 games for my maths sake.