One Super League owner has quashed worries about how the competition’s 2026 expansion impacts the current Sky Sports deal.

Super League will expand to 14 teams in 2026 and with that, each round will see seven games played as opposed to the current six.

The sport’s main broadcast partners Sky Sports are only contracted to air six games per round and it’s believed that the additional cost to air the extra 20 games would be around £500,000, something that Sky are not obligated to pay and potentially unwilling.

Obvious fears have emerged about what will happen to that seventh game with more questions than just how it will be aired, including how it will be refereed given the small pool of elite officials, and how it will utilise a video referee if it is not broadcast.

Whilst the questions have not been answered, the worries have been quashed by Super League club owner Derek Beaumont who has revealed that an extra game every week actually creates an “opportunity”, as opposed to a problem.

Super League consider airing seventh game in competition with Sky

Speaking to BBC Radio Manchester ahead of his side’s magnificent win over Warrington Wolves, Beaumont argued that the clubs themselves and Super League as a collective could air them seventh game and potentially even strengthen their own TV deal for 2027.

The current Sky Sports deal runs out at the end of the 2026 season and the sport will head to the negotiating table with Sky and other broadcasters to seek a deal for 2027 and beyond.

Beaumont has now argued that Super League is in a unique situation whereby they can get a true acid test for how willing fans would be to go out of their way for one extra game per week, and potentially use that data to secure a better deal in 2027.

“The bigger thing of all this, what everybody is missing, is the opportunity it presents,” Beaumont explained, before paying credit to Sky Sports but ultimately suggesting that the sport has been “undervalued” in recent years.

“Sky are absolutely magnificent and if it wasn’t for them for the last 30 years, we wouldn’t be the sport that we are. We don’t want to lose them, but we’ve been undervalued, and as owners, we feel we’ve been undervalued and underpaid to by the sport.

“The only competition to Sky that they don’t know about is ourselves. This presents us an opportunity where we’ve got a game every round that isn’t contracted away.”

He’d add: “If ever there’s a chance to find out exactly how many people will come looking for that game and they can’t find it anywhere other than our channel, that’ll tell us.

“If Sky want to have it, I’m sure Nigel (Wood, Chair of RFL’s Strategic Review) will be open to a conversation and whatever that entails. They might want to wrap that up and extend the deal and keep all the rugby league for another five years. I hope they do, and I hope they pay the right price for it, and that’s what we end up with.”

Why were Sky Sports not consulted about Super League expansion?

Among plenty of questions to arise after the decision that was made on Monday about Super League expanding to 14 teams for the 2026 season, one was why Sky Sports were not consulted about it given the fact they are, and have been for 30 years, the sport’s primary broadcaster.

To that, Derek Beaumont shut down any suggestion that they should have been consulted as he insisted that Super League’s contract with Sky, which in simple terms is to provide six games per round and a play-off series, will still be fulfilled.

“Sky don’t need to agree to anything. Sky have got a contract that we will fulfill,” Beaumont explained.

“We obviously respect Sky as a broadcaster but I set out what my business is, what my products are, what my prices are, and I go and find customers,” he added, as he began a metaphor relating to his other businesses.

“I obviously try and keep my customers, but if there’s a better customer out there that’s willing to pay more for my product because they respect it, and I’ve only got the resources that can deal with a certain number of customers, then I’m going to take the better customer because that’s the nature of the beast and that’s business.

“I’m pretty sure that Sky value rugby league highly enough. They’ve kept it with us for a long time. We’re improving the product. We’re getting rid of loop fixtures.”

One thing that Sky Sports will miss out on, and something that they value highly, is Magic Weekend with the removal of loop fixtures seemingly confirming the removal of that event as well.

Beaumont seemed to confirm that, stating: “Magic Weekend is a loop fixture.If you’re changing your league to 14 to get rid of loop fixtures, you can’t keep Magic, can you? Then you would be able to call me mad.”