Devastating news as RFL reportedly unable to secure Championship TV deal

The RFL have struck a number of decisive TV deals for the 2024 season but it seems their run of deals has been stopped dead into its tracks.

Their run of impressive TV deals at a time when the sport desperately needed them began on Grand Final night last year as the RFL announced a historic deal with Sky Sports.

Last year, the TV deals the RFL held going into the season were almost universally expiring.

The vitally important deal with Sky Sports was expiring as was the deal with Channel 4 which also provided Super League coverage.

Meanwhile, the coverage of the Championship was down to Viaplay – previously Premier Sports – and their deal also expired and they also confirmed way ahead of time that they would be pulling their coverage at the end of the season.

This left a lot of questions going into 2024 and the RFL were quick to answer some of these questions but not others.

RFL unable to convince clubs to agree broadcasting deal

The RFL agreed a massive deal with Sky Sports on Grand Final day last year. This was a ground breaking deal because it was the first that would secure coverage of every Super League game during the season.

The deal was worth slightly less than the previous deal but was still worth around £20 million and was a major boost for the sport.

This was followed up by more guaranteed coverage of the sport with the RFL and Super League announcing the beginning of the brand new and ground breaking streaming service Super League +.

The big news kept on coming for coverage of the sport with the RFL revealed they had agreed a deal with BBC to cover the Betfred Super League for the very first time.

They are set to show fixtures on Saturday evenings such as their coverage of the Round One clash between Castleford Tigers and Super League Champions the Wigan Warriors.

But their run of big results in terms of coverage has sadly ended there with The Game Caller revealing that there will be no TV coverage of the Championship.

Five clubs opposed the deal the RFL brought to clubs on Thursday according to The Game Caller perhaps due to the fact that the offer was reportedly 10 times less than the value from last year.