The Joy of Six

I must admit I’m never a fan of us following the NRL, I much prefer it when Super League are the innovators , developing ideas for other sports to follow.

I particularly dislike us copying the NRL over golden point . They might not understand a draw down under , the weather usually allows a test match to have a positive result down there , but sharing the spoils in games hasn’t exactly done the Premier League any harm , teams that are level after 80 hard minutes deserve to leave with something .

One way I’d love to follow them though is to stagger the 6 Super League games over a weekend , broadcaster all 6 games live on TV. We are at a point now where our sport only gets column inches when something bad happens , we have to increase the profile of our great game . The players in the NRL are superstars , mainly due to the exposure the game gets on TV in Australia .
We could tender the contract out like the Premier League do in batches , for example BBC may be interested in showing Thursday and Friday night games , Sky maybe a Saturday afternoon slot or a Super League Sunday of 3 back to back matches. I’m no broadcasting expert in to how this could be divided but surely there is a way . We may have to leave 3 o’clock blank on a Sunday to help crowds in the lower leagues , but could table hands around that .
We could offer games cheap to the terrestrial channels in the basis they put them on their main channel , ITV1 or BBC1 for example . Obviously not all games would justify that , the lower profile games could be made available on their vast array of online or digital channels .
The RFL could have a subscription app , offering in play extras , interviews etc and maybe one exclusive live game a week .
This may not be too popular at Sky and they may not want to get involved , but if we get it right they may not have a choice , plus there is always BT.
The sport has done well from Sky , but it’s not helping he profile and I don’t like the monopoly they have on our game .

To be honest we’re already half way there , this weekend 3 live games will be shown .
Step back to last week , we had 3 games kicking off at the same time on Sunday for me that’s a waste, games should be spread out to increase their exposure .

Our players should be superstars here , we have to address the player drain to Australia and they only way we can do that is to increase the profile of Super League.

Crowds may suffer initially if all games are shown live but crowds are down in general anyway , even at the clubs that are winning trophies . The increased profile would knock down to the Championship as maybe a new audience may want to go and see a game live for themselves . We can’t fix the 2nd tier though until we get the game right at the top , the exposure of the Championship in football increased dramatically with the increased exposure of the Premier League .

An added bonus would be we’d finally have a video ref at all Super League games , levelling up the playing field . It’s not right that we have inconsistency around this , the bulk of tries chalked off for obstruction in live games would have been given if the game wasn’t televised.

It’s time to do something radical to get our players the exposure , and rewards they deserve , let’s get them on the back pages and in the news fir what they can do on the field . 6 live games this weekend ? Yes , please.