All well and good I thought and there was some merit in what was written until I read that next year Sky were going to cover Rabodirect Pro 12 and my cynicism alarm sounded. The paper I was reading this article in was the Sunday Times, owned by News Corp or 21st Century Fox or whatever name they are now using. This is the same company that owns 40% of Sky (British Sky Broadcasting to give them their proper name) and wanted to own the whole lot until the hacking scandal put paid to that – for now. Suddenly what appeared to be a well argued article seemed to be the first step in the SKY fight back against the lose of all the biggest club rugby in the Northern Hemisphere to BT. (BT is the phone and broadband giant who was loosing broadband customers to SKY until they started their own sports channel and now control the rights to the top flight English and French club rugby having out bid SKY to get it) It also seems that from next year SKY will no longer have coverage of the European Club Rugby Championship because both the English and French clubs have withdrawn from the current championship, SKY owning the TV right for this now doomed competition, to form their own, which BT Sports will own the rights to. This withdrawal will destroy the current European championship and a lot of earning potential for SKY.

Rugby is one of those sports that advertises love, whilst it doesn’t have the mass appeal that say the English Premier League has the people that do watch tend to be more affluent and so the TV companies can sell the adverts at a premium. Am I being cynical or am I seeing too many conspiracies for my own good? Only time will tell. But for now SKY seems to be reeling from the loss of top flight english rugby. They now only have the second level Green King IPA Championship to cover and no matter how much they try to hype games they don’t carry the glamour of the Aviva Premiership and that must really hurt – hence the move to cover the giants of Irish and Welsh rugby with some Scots and Italian clubs thrown in for good measure. This also means that the weight of the Murdoch/News Corp papers must also tow the line – Rugby covered by BT Sports – BAD; Rabodirect Pro 12 Rugby – Good. Or perhaps I’m just too cynical for my own good.

PS
From next year the RaboDirect Pro 12 will just be plain Pro 12 as they don’t have a lead sponsor so how does the SkyBet Pro 12 sound? Just a thought.

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