Watching 'Boots n' all' on the telly today and the thing that hit me (apart from the fact Barry McDermott is a pretty poor presenter) is how few paying spectators actually seem to turn up to the majority of SL fixtures. This has got to hit the clubs in the pocket pretty hard? How the hell do they pay their players whilst balancing the books? I don't know what your average RL player is on a year but it's not too bad a bad wage I'm sure.



If it wasn't for Sky Sports and their cash would professional RL fold?





I was never really a fan of the game before the SL days (I don't live in an area where the sport is played) so I don't know how it was before the game was restructured in '96 or whenever it was.



Did many clubs go under in the days before superleague? Have crowds fallen or gone up since it started?



I seriously can't see how the game can be successful when it's only really played in the north of England (apart from minor interest in Wrexham, London and the South of France) hardly anyone turns up to watch it, a lot of the 'big names' are old and/or past it Aussies and the international side havent won anything since 1972.



This isn't a 'trolling' post.



What would happen if Sky pulled out?

Thank heavens for Wigan / Leeds & Hull.

If Sky pulled out the sport would have to go back to being semi pro, like the conference levels of English football.



I think even under those circumstances and with all the major talent poached to Union, SL would still average 5 or 6,000 people instead of 9 thousand odd. I doubt many clubs would go but most wouldn't be able to spend much on players.

Why am I struggling to believe that?

So what was it like before the 'Superleague'?



Were crowds bigger than they are now?





Were games routinely televised... or if you wanted to watch RL would it mean you had to go along to a game?

Soccer was in the same boat till Sky came along, dont forget that...in fact all pro sports would die without Sky. Even the premier league...

Professional sports wouldn’t die without Sky/live TV contracts although there would be a period of pain, eventually the commercials would return back to previous forms and players wages would be paid through gate returns and local sponsorship



There would still be lots of people wanting to play professional football while not being paid £200k a week

Crowds 'back in the day' were much bigger. We're talking pre WW2 though. In the 80s and 90s which are the earliest memories I have of the game teams were semi professional. I can remember Alan Hunte, former St Helens and Great Britain centre/winger fitting blinds at my Gran's house on the day of Saints playing Wigan in a big game. All clubs apart from Wigan and Leeds couldn't pay their players a great deal so a lot had full time jobs as well as the rugby. The standards were obviously reduced because of this and in the late 80s and early 90s Wigan went crazy and mortgaged their souls on winning everything by buying every player that had a pulse. Their 'glory' era ruined the sport for a decade or so as there wasn't a proper competition. It was like having the NRL made up of the double-books Storm and the Jim Beam Cup level teams. Crowds were averaging around 7,000 or so I believe and have reached around 10,000 with Super League.



Games were televised on the BBC, particularly the Challenge Cup which has been on the BBC since I can remember. They also televised the league games on various channels and even had a 'BBC floodlit trophy' in the 70s and 80s I think.

Generally RL exists on the generosity of the club owners , tipping between a few thousand ( Championship one ) and a million ( Quins and a couple of others ) every year



One of the main aims of the RFL should be to do all it can to help all clubs become self sustaining at current max salary cap levels , with any extra monies supplied by the owners going into junior development and infrastructure investement , rather than just treading water

So did the BBC show a live fixture on a Friday or Saturday like Sky do?

I'd have said that even in the 60,70 and early 80 s gates were overall bigger , ie more evened out between all the clubs rather than just 2/3 as we seem to have now



I don't recall the actual league games being televised , more the knock out cup games of the county cups and JP and Challenge cup

Challenge Cup games were on a Saturday from what I can remember. I'm sure the older members can tell you if the league games were televised.



I can remember reading a Parliamentary report about the demise of rugby league which showed that pre-Super League the sport enjoyed viewing percentages of around 33% for televised games (33% of the total viewing public in the UK in the timeslot they were on) but since SL has been on Sky the sport gets only 1-3% of the viewing public which is obviously disastrous for promoting the game.