Quote ="bewareshadows"The OP asked 2 questions, the 2nd question;
And what would happen if they decided not to bother with Rugby League any more? and decided against renewing the deal.
This is open to interpretation, what would happen is not confined to RL. I just thought I would give the reverse side of the arguement as it's all very speculative anyway.
I was going to make the point about repeats, SLSM, CC games etc but it's already been done for me.
A massive hole I suppose would depend on your definition of massive. If someone put a hole in my body the size of RL in the SKY sport schedule, then I would equate it to being about the size of a fist or a foot. Not anywhere near 50% of my body, but a big enough hole for me to call it a massive hole. Which would cause some pain and require money to be spent to fix it.
Stretching the metaphor???
Anyway SKY are not going to pull out of RL, what RL lacks is a competitor with SKY sports & a competition that the public can latch onto which is free to air.
For me RU success is the twin prongs of money from SKY and the 6 nations. The 6 nations is an annual event, if you don't watch RU it's easy to latch onto anyway as it just requires a beer, a patriotic duty to sing the national anthem badly and some concept of cheering when a point is added to the total.
RL lacks these ease of access to newcomers, if you live in Norwich, you click on the TV and the challenge cup is on, where is the tie in, you are not local to any of the teams, there is one of the teams is out, so you won't see them for 12 months and the other team may not be on for another 4 - 10 weeks, if at all.
You can just enjoy sport, but for people to become regular watchers or supporters, they need some link into the sport, other than a one off match every 12 months.'"
Just to pick up on your last point.
Plenty of people enjoy watching sport on tv, that they have no intention of watching live in person.
For a start, American Football & Baseball, Aussie Rules etc
The armchair viewer just wants to be entertained and sometimes just a picture and some noise seems to be enough (most forms of reality TV would back up this arguement)
People like Claire Balding can do this for our sport.
Even though she may not be the most knowledgable, her enthusiasm more than makes up for it and i'm sure that, for people who are casual viewers, she is far more preferable that Ray French or Jonathaon Davies.
