Sky maybe after Rabo TV Deal, Ulster (or just awec) says NOO!

irishbucsfan

The problem with the whole thing is that the Championship is a RFU competition (I think). So you couldn't really just insert Welsh sides into it.

It would get really messy working out who is who. Because the Welsh regions are not the same as the English clubs, IE the English clubs are technically the same right down to National Level 8 or whatever. Welsh regions draw from Premiership clubs, who are the sides that are comparable to the likes of Bedford and Esher, but they are "promotable" right down to the Llangisnfinrtitodijfd Miners Sunday league team, which is much different and causes complications.

You could easilly arrive at a point where NG Dragons are in a PR Ltd Championship but are worse than one of the Welsh premiership sides! In fact I'd bet some Welsh premiership sides would love a shot at them right now!

[Jackass]

Podge_irl wrote: »

The Pro12 is doing everything except stagnating. The Welsh exodus is a big concern but the league is getting better, attendances are growing outside Wales and I think the league is becoming more important to the teams involved. It's by far the youngest of the leagues and so without history on their side they've had to work harder to grow it. Moving to pay TV is certainly not the way to do that. A small bit more money is not worth the league not being on RTÉ and BBC anymore.

I get where you're coming from about the trade off of money vs exposure, but I think there must be a compromise.

I understand your position that a casual fan isn't going to pay for sky to watch the P12 and therefore would be excluded.

The only reason I would push so hard for a deal to be done now is that there is an opportunity that may not come again. Sky are looking to fill a big rugby void, they have lost the AP, and their first preference to replace it is the P12. That would be massive exposure for the league, particularly in the UK, a lot of casual rugby fans would have sky sports for other reasons (football in the UK mostly) but I think the rugby being in sky is a lot more likely to get it on TVs in pubs as well as into the homes of people who otherwise wouldn't really watch it.

Also, the UK is the most important market to grow it in. Irish fan base is steadily increasing and we have very accesable grounds and lots of marketing for the provinces, but I would personally believe a casual fan who has sky sports is a lot more likely to watch rugby at home when the production quality and marketing mastery of sky is behind it, rather than stumbling accross TG4 and having Flannery stumbling with his Irish or on a channel broadcast in Welsh. I think only the established supporters would go through the misery of watching the terrible coverage of the league as it stands.

Granted, Ulster would probably be the worst hit, as they have prime time quality coverage as it is, but for the rest of us, I don't think we can do any worse than what we have at the moment, and in a round about way, I think Sky would make the league MORE accesable to sports fans and more attractive to watch, through their ability to market and hype the league and also through the great production value that crowd noise is included in games and every bit of atmosphere is picked up, unlike TG4 for example.

This is all before mentioning the increased cash in the league, the improved reputation and status of the league, the ability to pick up fans in England and find more fans in Scotland and Wales, and finally an organised, structured coverage of the league.

Regarding local TV fans, if RTE, BBC NI etc. could all have a prime time highlights package (saturday or sunday night and repeated Wednesday night or something) similar to how BBC's match of the day has survived the Sky take over of football, then it could still keep the majority of the fans included and MOST IMPOTANTLY (can't stress this enough) the packaging, marketing and production quality of the league would be first class for the first time, which will always always attract supporters.

It's up to the league to negotiate a deal, Sky are looking for a level of vengence on the AP for ditching them, and want to promote the P12 instead, lets grab this opportunity! As long as the negotiaters for the league are smart enough to keep it on terrestrial tv too, with highlights or delayed coverage.

awec

I actually wonder what would happen to schools and club rugby if there was a huge influx of cash into the game.

Would it move to the football model of players turning professional at a much younger age, and dropping out of school to enter the pro academies?

jamiedav2011

[Jackass] wrote: »

I get where you're coming from about the trade off of money vs exposure, but I think there must be a compromise.

I understand your position that a casual fan isn't going to pay for sky to watch the P12 and therefore would be excluded.

The only reason I would push so hard for a deal to be done now is that there is an opportunity that may not come again. Sky are looking to fill a big rugby void, they have lost the AP, and their first preference to replace it is the P12. That would be massive exposure for the league, particularly in the UK, a lot of casual rugby fans would have sky sports for other reasons (football in the UK mostly) but I think the rugby being in sky is a lot more likely to get it on TVs in pubs as well as into the homes of people who otherwise wouldn't really watch it.

Also, the UK is the most important market to grow it in. Irish fan base is steadily increasing and we have very accesable grounds and lots of marketing for the provinces, but I would personally believe a casual fan who has sky sports is a lot more likely to watch rugby at home when the production quality and marketing mastery of sky is behind it, rather than stumbling accross TG4 and having Flannery stumbling with his Irish or on a channel broadcast in Welsh. I think only the established supporters would go through the misery of watching the terrible coverage of the league as it stands.

Granted, Ulster would probably be the worst hit, as they have prime time quality coverage as it is, but for the rest of us, I don't think we can do any worse than what we have at the moment, and in a round about way, I think Sky would make the league MORE accesable to sports fans and more attractive to watch, through their ability to market and hype the league and also through the great production value that crowd noise is included in games and every bit of atmosphere is picked up, unlike TG4 for example.

This is all before mentioning the increased cash in the league, the improved reputation and status of the league, the ability to pick up fans in England and find more fans in Scotland and Wales, and finally an organised, structured coverage of the league.

Regarding local TV fans, if RTE, BBC NI etc. could all have a prime time highlights package (saturday or sunday night and repeated Wednesday night or something) similar to how BBC's match of the day has survived the Sky take over of football, then it could still keep the majority of the fans included and MOST IMPOTANTLY (can't stress this enough) the packaging, marketing and production quality of the league would be first class for the first time, which will always always attract supporters.

I just can't understand this type of thinking. You'd think Leinster or Munster were never shown on T.V. by the way some go on around here!
Look at how Sky do the AP, they generally show one game per week if you're lucky.
Now if they were to be exclusive holders and did something similar with the Rabo, imagine the uproar there'd be? Jesus currently when a scratch Leinster side playing an Italian team away are not shown on T.V. there's uproar.

The marketing, production values and general hype would be far and above anything available currently, but the sheer amount of coverage would likely be nowhere near.

.ak

In fairness Sky only show one AP match per week because they don't have the exclusive rights.

jamiedav2011

.ak wrote: »

In fairness Sky only show one AP match per week because they don't have the exclusive rights.

But with exclusive rights what would they show?
I mean ESPN show what, two AP games at most per weekend?

Compare it to the Prem League which Sky+ ESPN do have rights for, and which would be much more palatable to their core market.

You may get your club on T.V. in the league 7-8 times a season if it's a Liverpool or Man Utd, what would Connacht get?

irishbucsfan

Our sides are on tv more than most professional sports teams in the UK. Sky would reduce it for sure.

If TG4 offered an English alternative it would be better.

jamiedav2011

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Our sides are on tv more than most professional sports teams in the UK. Sky would reduce it for sure.

If TG4 offered an English alternative it would be better.

Take the Super League which would be an apt comparison. Think Sky have full rights for that, how many times would Leeds Rhinos be shown on T.V. in a season? Not more than Leinster that's for sure.

totallegend

Yeah, we're completely spoiled by the TV coverage of the Rabo, plus the fact that 99% of the time, Sky cover Leinster, Munster and Ulster HC games as the main feed (i.e. not via Red button).

Any change in the TV rights to the Rabo would definitely mean fewer live games.

rrpc

totallegend wrote: »

Yeah, we're completely spoiled by the TV coverage of the Rabo, plus the fact that 99% of the time, Sky cover Leinster, Munster and Ulster HC games as the main feed (i.e. not via Red button).

Any change in the TV rights to the Rabo would definitely mean fewer live games.

To be fair to Sky, they show every match in the Amlin and HEC live. There's a good chance they'd do the same with the Pro12.

Not every match in the Pro12 is shown by the current broadcasters. Connacht supporters have complained a lot about the lack of air time their games get.

awec

rrpc wrote: »

To be fair to Sky, they show every match in the Amlin and HEC live. There's a good chance they'd do the same with the Pro12.

Not every match in the Pro12 is shown by the current broadcasters. Connacht supporters have complained a lot about the lack of air time their games get.

The HEC is only on once every so often.

There is no way they would show 6 live Pro 12 games every weekend. They don't even show 6 live Premier League games and that's their biggest market!

irishbucsfan

rrpc wrote: »

There's a good chance they'd do the same with the Pro12.

There is?

rrpc

irishbucsfan wrote: »

There is?

Yes.

They are competing with an existing broadcasting set up, so at the least they'd have to match the current coverage. Sponsors would hardly agree to reduced coverage since they wouldn't be benefiting from the money.

.ak

Yeah I'd only be happy with Sky taking over if they promised to show as many/thereabouts of the current games that are televised.

awec

.ak wrote: »

Yeah I'd only be happy with Sky taking over if they promised to show as many/thereabouts of the current games that are televised.

And if they promise to show Ulster every weekend.

jamiedav2011

rrpc wrote: »

Yes.

They are competing with an existing broadcasting set up, so at the least they'd have to match the current coverage. Sponsors would hardly agree to reduced coverage since they wouldn't be benefiting from the money.

There's absolutely no chance of that happening! Where's the precedent?

its_phil

I would imagine Sky Italia will be negotiating their own deal just to cover the Italian teams.

So that would most likely mean that Sky UK will be picking up a feed from their Italian counterparts. This could probably mean that Sky UK will be able to put games on Italian soil on the red button like they currently do with their Super XV coverage.

So I'd imagine on an average weekend:

1 game on Friday night. 7:30PM

Sky only shows Championship football, PGA Tour and sometimes a Super League game at these times on Friday evening. That is one free channel.

2 games on Saturday back-to-back. 5:30PM and 8:00PM

Saturday could be trickier with Championship, x2/3 La Liga and PGA Tour. But the early game could be put on Sky Sports red button like the Super XV. The last game should be okay for a normal channel slot.

1 game on Sunday. 4PM

The AP slot is that time IIRC.

One of the games in Italy could be then be put on the red button at whatever time another Rabo TV game is on.

4/6 and sometimes 5/6 on weekend games is pretty close to the situation we have right now.

Macy0161

[Jackass] wrote: »

Regarding local TV fans, if RTE, BBC NI etc. could all have a prime time highlights package (saturday or sunday night and repeated Wednesday night or something) similar to how BBC's match of the day has survived the Sky take over of football, then it could still keep the majority of the fans included and MOST IMPOTANTLY (can't stress this enough) the packaging, marketing and production quality of the league would be first class for the first time, which will always always attract supporters.

It's a pretty big "if" that terrestrial stations would interested in highlights (let alone prime time), or do a good job. RTE didn't seem that pushed, and were ultimately outbid for European highlights, so why would they be any more bothered by Pro 12 highlights? Match of the Day was established long before any live league football was on TV.

awec

Sky Sports Red button coverage is awful. Not available to watch online, not available to anyone who doesn't have a Sky subscription (i.e. no UPC customers).

Sky Sports Xtra coverage would be better, at least you can watch that via Sky Go. I guess they're bound to have room on the Xtra schedule for games?

totallegend

awec wrote: »

Sky Sports Red button coverage is awful. Not available to watch online, not available to anyone who doesn't have a Sky subscription (i.e. no UPC customers).

Sky Sports Xtra coverage would be better, at least you can watch that via Sky Go. I guess they're bound to have room on the Xtra schedule for games?

I don't think the Sky issue would be availability on the schedule (especially now that the schedule is decided based on the demands of the broadcasters) but sending an outside broadcast unit to Limerick or Glasgow must be a shocking expense; there's simply no way they'd do it for more than one or two games a weekend because the audiences wouldn't justify it.

molloyjh

awec wrote: »

Sky Sports Red button coverage is awful. Not available to watch online, not available to anyone who doesn't have a Sky subscription (i.e. no UPC customers).

Sky Sports Xtra coverage would be better, at least you can watch that via Sky Go. I guess they're bound to have room on the Xtra schedule for games?

Yeah the Red button is limited. The Event Centre is pretty good. Again you need a subscription for that though.

.ak

totallegend wrote: »

I don't think the Sky issue would be availability on the schedule (especially now that the schedule is decided based on the demands of the broadcasters) but sending an outside broadcast unit to Limerick or Glasgow must be a shocking expense; there's simply no way they'd do it for more than one or two games a weekend because the audiences wouldn't justify it.

They wouldn't send anyone, they'd use a third party, like the one they (and RTE) use in the RDS/lansdowne for HEC games.

its_phil

awec wrote: »

Sky Sports Red button coverage is awful. Not available to watch online, not available to anyone who doesn't have a Sky subscription (i.e. no UPC customers).

Sky Sports Xtra coverage would be better, at least you can watch that via Sky Go. I guess they're bound to have room on the Xtra schedule for games?

At least I'll be able to understand it!

[Jackass]

So does this boil down to a quality vs quantity debate?

Also, if fans are drawn in but some games aren't televised, would that increase attendance? I think it could be argued either way, but worth noting also.

P_1

totallegend wrote: »

I don't think the Sky issue would be availability on the schedule (especially now that the schedule is decided based on the demands of the broadcasters) but sending an outside broadcast unit to Limerick or Glasgow must be a shocking expense; there's simply no way they'd do it for more than one or two games a weekend because the audiences wouldn't justify it.

They do it for all sorts of strange and unusual places in Scotland and Northern Ireland for the football to be fair.

rrpc

jamiedav2011 wrote: »

There's absolutely no chance of that happening! Where's the precedent?

It's not about precedent, it's a business decision for the league. If the league were to accept reduced coverage, the product would not be as enticing to sponsors seeing as there's a real possibility that audience figures could be down coupled with the reduced coverage.

Sky would therefore have to come up with enough money to cover that shortfall plus an extra dollop to get them past the line of the existing deal. To pay for that they'd need increased advertising which would necessitate increased coverage.

As far as precedent goes, the F1 deal saw Sky provide an extra fully dedicated F1 channel which not only shows the races and qualifying, but also practice sessions and endless repeats of Grand Prix and other related articles. That deal was obviously predicated on improved coverage to beat the competition. Even so, there is still F1 coverage on other channels.

justsomebloke

Ok alot of people are ignoring the elephant in the room here and that is the Aviva BT deal.

The BT deal is going to change rugby for EVERYONE. In one fail swoop the English salary cap is going to be gone and with the money floating around the premiership, all of a sudden chances are we are going to have a bidding war between the English and French clubs to bring in the best players.

All of a sudden it isn't going to be the just the 'world' class players getting the big money in France. All of a sudden lesser players are going to be offered bigger contracts and all of a sudden it will become very tempting for Pro12 players to jump ship to the Premiership. Especially the welsh and Scottish who clubs don't have tax incentives to try and keep them but this will probably have a major impact on us as well with Sexton just being the tip of the iceberg.

So where will that leave the Rabo. Well it will leave it pretty much left between a rock and a hard place. Irish rugby especially is built on European success. Let's not kid ourselves here, if you aren't winning alot of Irish fans will stop coming through the gates. If our ability to to compete at that level is effected by the BT deal it will have a negative impact on the provinces.

So where does that leave us in relation to the Sky deal. Well unfortunately it might leave us screwed. If Sky are offering a more substantial amount of cash compared to current providers we may not have an option, even if it does mean we lose a lot of the televised games that we get at the moment.

So is there ANY silver lining? Actually there is. The Rabo are actually in a surprisingly strong position in the contract negotiations with Sky but only if Sky end up with exclusive European Rugby coverage. Sky are going to reeling from the loss of the Premiership as it now leaves them empty of any European club rugby to help entice rugby fans to keep the SS subs. With only HEC rugby alot of people will drop their subs as they will see it as a very expensive way to watch only a few games of Rugby a year. They need another brand of rugby and more importantly they need it to be POPULAR. This is where the rabo have the upper hand. Rather then looking for more money from the deal the Rabo could try and force Sky to up the profile of the Rabo make it big. Force them to use the events centre for it.

Yes some people will say that this may take the sport in a different direction then they would prefer it to go but unfortunately I think that ideal is now dead in the water with the BT deal as that will change the face of Rugby more then any other one event will have done before.

irishbucsfan

Is the salary cap going to be gone? I thought PRL were quite proud of it!

Teferi

Yeah, the bit about the salary cap is new to me.

justsomebloke

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Is the salary cap going to be gone? I thought PRL were quite proud of it!

There has been no mention of it but logic dictates that it will have to go. BT aren't going to want to spend that amount of money on a League where the clubs can't financially compete to get the best players in. They will want it to be 'the best' club competition in the world and the salary cap will just get in the way of that.

Yes the PRL may want to keep it but it will only be kept in name, chances are loopholes will start appearing every where to help clubs get around it