northernbloke wrote:Still at a loss to see why this is such a shock
It's not a "shock"......it is a complete disgrace though as is your shrug of the shoulder reaction as opposed to your "'til the death" defense of all referees.
I kicked up such a fuss about the Catalan fiasco that I received an invite to the Parliamentary RL group as well as 3 personal invites from SL chairmen, all of whom I wrote to at the time. I felt it was unacceptable for SKY to move a fixture in France at a cost of Thousands of pounds to our small but loyal supporter base and as such felt that it should never happen again...to my knowledge, it hasn't. I also reiterated that such a fixture switch would never happen to a big club....it still hasn't.
London Broncos RL were blamed for this switch by the RFL, a claim that was quickly withdrawn.....I imagine such a mistake, if about a bigger club would come with a groveling apology.....
I don't "blame" SKY by the way.......I blame the RFL ad the new SL CEO, who both should be making it quite clear that RL is on the market and for sale in a couple of years and we are looking for a diverse broadcast partner or stable of partners who offer not just money, but also exposure.....SKY have served their purpose and thanks for the ride, but we really need to be more than a cheap "filler" for a broadcast partner who is losing market share across the board.....SKY reported a 12% drop in Sports viewers over the last 2 years. They either need to treat us as a valued product or lose us.....and before anyone says "nobody else wants us".....I'd counter that 350,000-500,000 viewers a week on a paid platform for 30 weeks a year will be of interest to someone but we need to learn how to sell it.