{"id":312945,"date":"2025-08-02T21:56:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T21:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/312945\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T21:56:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T21:56:19","slug":"rugby-league-undervalued-as-club-owners-explore-option-of-broadcasting-seventh-super-league-game-in-competition-with-sky-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/312945\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby League ‘undervalued’ as club owners explore option of broadcasting seventh Super League game in competition with Sky Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

One Super League owner has quashed worries about how the competition\u2019s 2026 expansion impacts the current Sky Sports deal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Super League will expand to 14 teams in 2026<\/a> and with that, each round will see seven games played as opposed to the current six.<\/p>\n

The sport\u2019s main broadcast partners Sky Sports are only contracted to air six games per round and it\u2019s believed that the additional cost to air the extra 20 games would be around \u00a3500,000, something that Sky are not obligated to pay and potentially unwilling.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Whilst the questions have not been answered, the worries have been quashed by Super League club owner Derek Beaumont<\/a> who has revealed that an extra game every week actually creates an \u201copportunity\u201d, as opposed to a problem.<\/p>\n

Super League consider airing seventh game in competition with Sky<\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC Radio Manchester<\/a> ahead of his side\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bigger thing of all this, what everybody is missing, is the opportunity it presents,\u201d Beaumont explained, before paying credit to Sky Sports but ultimately suggesting that the sport has been \u201cundervalued\u201d in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSky are absolutely magnificent and if it wasn\u2019t for them for the last 30 years, we wouldn\u2019t be the sport that we are. We don\u2019t want to lose them, but we\u2019ve been undervalued, and as owners, we feel we\u2019ve been undervalued and underpaid to by the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only competition to Sky that they don\u2019t know about is ourselves. This presents us an opportunity where we\u2019ve got a game every round that isn\u2019t contracted away.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019d add: \u201cIf ever there\u2019s a chance to find out exactly how many people will come looking for that game and they can\u2019t find it anywhere other than our channel, that\u2019ll tell us.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Sky want to have it, I\u2019m sure Nigel (Wood, Chair of RFL\u2019s 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\u2019s what we end up with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why were Sky Sports not consulted about Super League expansion?<\/p>\n

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\u2019s primary broadcaster.<\/p>\n

To that, Derek Beaumont shut down any suggestion that they should have been consulted as he insisted that Super League\u2019s contract with Sky, which in simple terms is to provide six games per round and a play-off series, will still be fulfilled.<\/p>\n

\u201cSky don\u2019t need to agree to anything. Sky have got a contract that we will fulfill,\u201d Beaumont explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d he added, as he began a metaphor relating to his other businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously try and keep my customers, but if there\u2019s a better customer out there that\u2019s willing to pay more for my product because they respect it, and I\u2019ve only got the resources that can deal with a certain number of customers, then I\u2019m going to take the better customer because that\u2019s the nature of the beast and that\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty sure that Sky value rugby league highly enough. They\u2019ve kept it with us for a long time. We\u2019re improving the product. We\u2019re getting rid of loop fixtures.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Beaumont seemed to confirm that, stating: \u201cMagic Weekend is a loop fixture.If you\u2019re changing your league to 14 to get rid of loop fixtures, you can\u2019t keep Magic, can you? Then you would be able to call me mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Super League owner has quashed worries about how the competition\u2019s 2026 expansion impacts the current Sky Sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-312945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114961408668365643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}