Today the Premier League announced a staggering 70% increase in the revenue they will receive for the broadcasting rights, over £3bn





Anyway for me the most interesting thing to come out of this announcement was a quote from BSkyB chief executive Jeremy Darroch, "Whilst the cost is higher, we have capacity for this increase through the combination of excellent work on cost efficiency across the business and choices over other future spending"

For me this suggests 2 things; 1) Sky subscriptions are going to go up even more 2) Other sports, in particular rugby league will be affected.

It looks as though BT are looking at creating a new sports channel & ESPN will no longer be showing Premiership football. Will this work in rugby league's favour?

Just means the coverage of football is increasing. Nothing new.

Apparently BT have the 'first choice' games which means they will get the best fixtures. This could work in our favour.

Be interesting what the next cricket and union TV deals are

Sky is coming to the end of a prize freeze in September 2012, so subs are due an increase.

Sky really can't put it's prices up any more surely? They are already horrendous as it is.

What they should be doing is creating seperate channels for the F1 and for Premier League football and making these seperate paid for subscriptions. Why the F1 channel is free is beyond me, that must be costing an absolute fortune to acquire, produce and promote.

I'd happily pay a sub for just RL.

they need to build an audience first, if they went straight for charging people then not many would have gone for it. by giving a year for free they can get people 'hooked' then start to charge.

I do. Its called Premier Sports!

BT have got first dibs on 18 weekends, and will be showing games in the Saturday lunch time slot.

ESPN will be looking a bit light on top level sport now, so I expect they will be interested in moving into other sports than footy in a bigger way.

As long as RL continues to bring in the viewing figures it does for SKY, we will remain a key sport in their portfolio, so they will want to continue paying a decent amount for it.

If Premier Sports had the Super League, SOO and Challenge Cup, along with the NRL and Championship, I would throw my money at them.

I understand that SKY did offer to increase the SL payment by 70%. However, the SL clubs rejected that increase in favour of a deal with Richard Branson's Virgin media empire, and a commitment on his part to paint 14 of his Virgin set-top digiboxes in the colours of SL clubs.

RFL spokesman Nigel Wood said "This is a great deal for SL clubs. Rather than cash, which is over-rated in any case, we'll have the incredibly valuable contribution of 14 households who have a set-top box in various exciting colours."

Asked whether he was satisfied that 14 colourful domestic appliances were worth more to the game than several million pounds of cold, hard cash, Wood went on : "Well, we did ask Richard whether he'd promise to only give those boxes to houses where the telly backs on to the window, so passers-by could see the team strips and be inspired to come along to their nearest club. However, he said no."

Dont give up your day job