The RFL appointed Tony Sutton as their Chief Executive Officer late last year as he took over from departing CEO Ralph Rimmer and Sutton has had plenty on his plate since then with the introduction of IMG to rugby league, however one pressing issue that hasn’t been solved yet is the future of the sport on television.
Currently there is no TV deal for the future with the current contract with broadcasters Sky Sports set to expire and that lack of stability going forward is of huge concern to the sport, particularly given that we’re actually six and a half months away from the 2024 season starting.
Recently the sport was also dealt a blow with confirmation that Viaplay Sports, formerly Premier Sports, had pulled out of their coverage of rugby league meaning that their deal for the Championship would cease to exist.
These are al pressing issues for fans of the sport and also those involved in the sport given that the TV revenue can make up a healthy percentage of each team’s funding, that then obviously goes to paying players.
Put simply – without a television deal the sport could cease to exist, which is something that former Great Britain legend and ex Sky Sports’ commentator Mike ‘Stevo’ Stephenson echoed on his ‘Eddie and Stevo’ podcast.
“If we don’t get a television contract, do they go back to 1995 and be part-time?”, his co-host Eddie Hemmings asked.
Stevo responded: “I think we’d have to. Some of these players contracts the majority of it comes from television revenue, yet here we are fighting amongst ourselves about which is the way forward.”
We’ve now had a major update from Tony Sutton who was speaking to BBC Sport Manchester in a live radio broadcast that saw him answer the questions of fans.
Sutton explained: “In terms of the TV deal, again, the game is working pretty hard to try and create a bit of competition in that market.
“I think that there will be some decisions made on that within the coming weeks, I think probably within a month, there should be some news and some update on that.”
Sutton was then questioned about if the sport had been neglected by broadcasters, given the high value of entertainment that it brings relative to some other sports.
“I don’t think it’s been neglected at all,” Sutton responded.
“I think if you look at, and if I take broadcasting in the widest sense, if you look at that now, obviously long term arrangements with Sky.
“As we’ve talked about the Challenge Cup, there’s a long-term partnership there with the BBC on free-to-air. But also, and we’ve talked about this a couple of times, and I think these have been positive developments, the Channel 4 games have been very, very positive.
“The relationship with Viaplay for the Championship has seen a wider broadcast footprint for the game.
“Us ourselves on Our League, on our own streaming app and platform, we’ve probably, especially as you mentioned, through the pandemic, bought as many games through that platform as we’ve ever seen.
“So there’s a pretty large piece of work underway in terms of making the sport more digital and the streaming of games is a big step towards that, but I think one we’re on wider and more broadcast platforms than we’ve been for a long time.”
