A good move for promotion of the game, but bad news for crowds at matches. 4 vg reasons for NOT attending matches now. No Jeopardy, as IMG will decide who is getting relegated. A team could win every match and go down and another team could lose every match and stay up. Teams will not be allowed to field their strongest team every week. The new tackle rule will mean the game will become like tough rugby or 50 penalties each half, and no longer worth watching. 4 Every match shown, so why have all the hassle of travelling to games. I expect crowds next season to be down massively on last season.

SL matches on BBC.

stuey

A good move for promotion of the game, but bad news for crowds at matches.

4 vg reasons for NOT attending matches now.

No Jeopardy, as IMG will decide who is getting relegated. A team could win every match and go down and another team could lose every match and stay up.
Teams will not be allowed to field their strongest team every week.
The new tackle rule will mean the game will become like tough rugby or 50 penalties each half, and no longer worth watching.
4 Every match shown, so why have all the hassle of travelling to games.

I expect crowds next season to be down massively on last season.

pirate

stuey
The attraction of Jonathon Davies and Brian Noble would be incentive enough for me to get off my arse and go to the game

RaoulDuke

Less and Less reasons to go and IMG aren’t interested in crowds through Gates. More teams are going to go to the wall.

FlatCapper

Whilst I welcome continued coverage on free to view TV, there’s no mention of this on the BBC RL Sports pages. How strange…

Perhaps they’ll nick Adam Hills from C4 rather than stick with the old guard. Mind you Chappers aint too bad.

yorky

back to the bad old days of Eddie waring & empty grounds on Saturday afternoon & Arthur Lampkin doing his scrambling antics, oh dear i fear the worst for our game

pirate

Eddie Waring was head and shoulders above any commentator since he jacked in, the whole country were aware of Eddies “up and unders” commentary and were also aware of the sport itself
, Sadly you are right about the attendances,
Hope you are right about the Lampkins and the scrambling though 🤪

DaveOneBeat

pirate Waring had a proper sport to commentate about, with people commited to watching all afternoon and no more than ⅔ other channels as alternatives. Let alone internet on phones etc. Harder for those commentating these days even if they were on Waring’s level, none of them is though.

CurtisTigers

My mate sent me this yesterday showing the sky schedule for the first weekend of games. Surprised all of them have ended up pm the sky sports channels. Thought there might have been a variety of platforms being utilised

stuey

Sky Sports February TV Schedule

Thursday 15th Feb
Hull FC vs Hull KR (Main Event) – 8pm
Friday 16th Feb
Leeds Rhinos vs Salford Red Devils (Arena) – 8pm
St Helens vs London Broncos (Action) – 8pm
Leigh Leopards vs Huddersfield Giants (Mix) – 8pm
Saturday 17th Feb
Castleford Tigers vs Wigan Warriors (Main Event) – 3pm
Catalans Dragons vs Warrington Wolves (Arena) – 5:30pm
Thursday 22nd Feb
Hull KR vs Leeds Rhinos (Main Event) – 8pm
Friday 23rd Feb
London Broncos vs Catalans Dragons (Action) – 8pm
Warrington Wolves vs Hull Fc (Arena) – 8pm
Saturday 24th Feb
Huddersfield Giants vs St Helens (Arena) 5:30pm
Wigan Warriors vs Penrith Panthers (Arena) – 8pm
Sunday 25th Feb
Salford Red Devils vs Castleford Tigers (Arena) – 3pm

RaoulDuke

Kind of typical that our first home match and the one we need crowds for is at 3pm on a Saturday. All football fans are otherwise engaged. It’ll be interesting to see the crowd.

FlatCapper

I’ve just seen a social post about Sky’s new commentators. They’ve lined up both Mark Wilson (Ch4) and Dave Woods from the BBC.

I assume Woodsy will still be doing the Beeb but the addition of Wilson should be an advantage for viewers.

Correction, Woods has left the Beeb…

Hepworth

Nice to see the BBC plugging the Cas Wigan game during their coverage of the Six Nations, it’s in a prime slot so I’d be hopeful it would attract some decent viewing figures,certainly more than it would get restricted to the Sky platform. Let’s hope we can avoid the drubbings of last season and provide a competitive spectacle. Be interesting to see how the attendance figures are affected.

Maturecasfan

Hepworth

According to the club there’s less than 2k tickets left.

Hepworth

That’s great news, corresponding fixture last year was just over 7,500 though we did get over 10,000 for the Saints game first up. From an IMG perspective let’s hope those figures hold up. Need to keep that average over 7,000.

Maturecasfan

Hepworth

Let’s hope the players put a top performance in to keep the fans coming.

FlatCapper

There may be a reasonable level of interest from Wigan fans. You’d like to think they’d support their team in high numbers..?

stuey

No jeopardy, and ALL matches televised. I expect attendances at grounds to be down massively I hope not though, as it will hav a big impact on income.