According to the League Express the TV deal will be pretty low compared to the existing deal and will almost certainly mean a lower Championship share.
This will force non SL clubs to look at crowd funding of some sort and place severe pressure on player contracts.
Will this seriously reduce player availability? Maybe this will deter older heads from accepting a drop to PT altogether? So we could lose player resources at both ends! Where is the game going?
Of course streaming such as the present situation may offer some income but will it be enough?
This will benefit clubs like Widnes, who are better supported. Teams like Oldham and Swinton won't be able to necessarily attract some of the players they have, as they won't have the central funding to lean on.
Not sure there'll be any world beaters who'll go to Widnes, but it would certainly have helped to add some depth and experience this year.
My major concern is that some of our, so far solid, support will drift with our performances atm. Urgent action or attitude change needed. Wembley Final might inject some enthusiasm and togetherness.
More widely, the game as a whole is at a pivot point imo. A drop in central funding will cause major problems for the lower leagues which could even see some go out of business. It won't make NRL signings easier in SL and could really hurt the 'Wakey' level clubs. Quite possible that some of the inflated 'backroom' staff personnel could be trimmed down and drop out of SL.
Martyn Sadler hints that non-SL should look elsewhere for funding if we become divorced from Sky and that might be an option. Don't know whether the Beeb would pay much tbh, they are under fire themselves! Streaming seems to be on the up but, again, how much would they pay?
We have grown complacent off the back of Sky money.
Some clubs will be a shadow of their former selves. Not saying they will disappear but more the case that they will be so poorly funded as to make a valid on field proposition impossible.
It's like a small lake in the African savanna - the SL clubs flopping over each other to remain in the deepest part.
The reality is RL just isn't popular enough to command the level of Sky funding we believe it should have.
15M lower, per year, than the existing deal.
Only 7.5M, per year, higher than the original deal was in 1995.
It won't stop until clubs stop paying journeymen Aussies an absolute fortune.
Force clubs to look for homegrown talent. Not sure what an academy costs to run, but it is probably similar to what some clubs pay an over the hill plodder a year!
No money in the game, but there is an insistence on getting people who can't hack it in the NRL on huge wages. How many genuine class Oz players have there been from abroad during SL that haven't been right at the end of their careers?
Not many. Jamie Lyon springs to mind. Sure there will be a couple of others (How well known was Pat Richards?).
The possibility of free to air games is interesting - it will generate much needed exposure to the game - depending upon the platform.
A short contract at least gives the game a bit of stability - which is much needed.
Also there appears to be an option for another broadcaster to pick up none first-choice games, so perhaps not the worst outcome possible as this will add additional funding.
It'll be interesting to see the scraps that will be handed down to the lower league. Begging bowls at the ready I suspect.
“Force clubs to look for homegrown talent. Not sure what an academy costs to run, but it is probably similar to what some clubs pay an over the hill plodder a year!”
Spot on about academies TS, they provide a place for young talent to develop and raise the profile of RL locally and hopefully increase the pool of players in schools and amateur clubs.
The proposed new deal may well result in a drastic reduction in funding for clubs like ours, but IMHO it illustrates the problem of having two governing bodies, SL and RFL.
Our game should be controlled solely by a re-jigged RFL who would negotiate any tv deals and have complete control over full time, part time and amateur clubs.
Central funding to financially support academies, together with local sponsorship, is the best way to expand the game.
The thing I always find strange is the clubs that seemingly like to chuck loads of money at lots of new, overpaid, overseas faces each season (Wire & Hull spring to mind!) never do as well as the teams that do bring through lots of youngsters (St's, Wigan & Leeds).
Whilst it's definitely not the only answer, surely it is a big part of why you would look to go this way?
Only downside is that it takes a while to work, but it's hardly worked out well the other way for the last however many years.
People have been saying the game in this country has been going backwards for a while now, this new deal has just proved it. A reported £10 to £15 million drop spread over 12 SL teams. For clubs without rich backers like Salford and Wakefield it's really bad news, they will have to dramatically cut the wage bill.
Other sports such as Football, cricket, Rugby Union and the NRL have seen big increases in TV income and salary caps. More players will join the NRL, the likes of your O'Loughlins, Roby, Peacock, Walmsley etc who stayed in this country. You could also get players going to 2nd division RU teams and still earning more money.
It seemed like SL was better when players like Sculthorpe, Farrell, Cunningham and Long played. You could think it's just rose tinted glasses looking back, but I think it was a better more exciting product then.
In terms of the Championship I think some players who love the game will play amateur. Many more will be lost to the game as its a hard sport, so may not play it if not being paid. The risk of injury and having time off from the day job is always there. It could see a reduction in the number of semi pro teams, no league 1 so just SL, Championship and then the NCL premier division. The Championship clubs may well become feeder clubs for wealthy SL clubs as a way of bringing through youngsters, with the SL sides lending resources. We are seeing this already. The top youngsters from the teams like Saints and Wigan will be prone to be poached by the NRL and RU although I have noticed as the standard has dropped in SL the interest in these players seems to have dropped.
“Force clubs to look for homegrown talent. Not sure what an academy costs to run, but it is probably similar to what some clubs pay an over the hill plodder a year!”
Spot on about academies TS, they provide a place for young talent to develop and raise the profile of RL locally and hopefully increase the pool of players in schools and amateur clubs. The proposed new deal may well result in a drastic reduction in funding for clubs like ours, but IMHO it illustrates the problem of having two governing bodies, SL and RFL. Our game should be controlled solely by a re-jigged RFL who would negotiate any tv deals and have complete control over full time, part time and amateur clubs. Central funding to financially support academies, together with local sponsorship, is the best way to expand the game.
Certainly your argument about total control is a good one imo. The game has become fragmented and there is no overall view of how the game can progress as a game. Reductions will hit many clubs as we probably all can anticipate, both FT and PT and if that isn't addressed competitions will become more obviously between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. This is already biting with clubs like Wakey and Salford and in the Championship.
The NRL clubs plainly have an abundance of funds that allows their big clubs to run first grade and lower grade at a high level. We are not so lucky as the SL sides eat up as much as they can get their hands on and seem to resent any other part of the game surviving at all in anything like a pro sport. The only other funding source, the well-heeled fan, is in short supply.
Nice garden blooms often die from the roots upwards and RL might do the same!
Where does the Championship fit into this new deal? Nowhere I suspect.
Is SL a different game, with the competition only looking after themselves? How can a part-time Championship club promoted to SL ever be able to compete in the first season. It was difficult before with the level of funding. It will almost be impossible now.
SL clearly represent the SL clubs, but actually who do the RFL represent? They seem to me to be hanging on to the shirt tails of SL and leaving the rest of the game behind. There is now talk of the BBC showing low end SL games picking up Sky crumbs, but no suggestion of showing any high end Championship games. Why not? Why not an RFL approach to the BBC to show the Championship games, instead of seeking to support SL clubs.
Who is representing the likes of Widnes, Swinton, Hunslet, Bradford, North Wales Crusaders and all those clubs outside SL, in these negotiations?
What the game needs is an RFL body capable of looking after the interests of the whole of RL, not just a few clubs currently on the top of the small pile that is RL. It may be too late to enable the game to recover from its long term decline, but we need someone with the vision and dedication to at least try, otherwise those few remaining fans in the traditional RL areas like Widnes will simply continue to drift away from the game.
Personally, I believe that the game should revert back to its roots at amateur and semi pro level and try to build again from there, with clubs being close to the heart of the community. Clubs like Widnes should forget the "other" game that is SL and concentrate on rebuilding links with the local community through schools, community groups and amateur clubs.
I must admit that I find it harder and harder to feel enthusiastic about the GB game these days. Clubslike ours are not seen as part of the game by our worthy game managers. They seem to have no real appreciation of the concept of the game as a whole but are totally focused on the cash cow SL.
In its conception the SL gave a chance to reorganise the game but the top management saw it as a cash injection for the top layer, which it has remained. The top clubs were bankrupt then and it saved them, but they've simply inflated their establishments for their own ends.
The game will exterminate itself over time imo. We can only do what we can as supporters to look after WV , witbout any help from outside.
The less money we get from on high the less power the RFL have to control the PT clubs. In the end you could see the Championship clubs walking away and reverting back to the original Norther Union system.
Of course there is s further option, that envisaged at the start of SL with mergers of Championship clubs and their SL neighbours!!! Lindsay's dream!
A variant of that would be association between SL and Championhship, with us becoming Wire's second string, giving them player development etc and us financial support.
I could never become a Wire supporter, but if its a choice between having the Vikings or not I'd take association!
It says in today’s paper that Sky fought off stiff competition from BT to secure a new contract to cover SL matches.
It doesn’t sound very stiff, if they only paid half the money of the last contract .