Where is rugby league in Sky’s list of priorities?

Rugby league was the seventh most televised sport on Sky Sports in 2014.

Almost 1200 hours of rugby league programming was shown, including live coverage, highlights and magazine shows.

Ahead of rugby league was football (10,912 hours), golf (6282), cricket (4607), F1 and motorsport (4,276), rugby union (1,943) and tennis (1,662).

In 2015, around 100 live matches will be shown from Super League, the Championship, Challenge Cup and World Club Series.

The first live game of the new season sees Widnes take on Wigan on Thursday February 5.

However, Sky Sports has received criticism from fans on Twitter for ignoring rugby league in the trailer for its sport coverage in 2015, entitled “more of the sports that matter”.

The Championship is expected to be largely ignored once again, with only games from the Summer Bash due to be scheduled prior to the mid-season split.

All Super League teams will be televised twice before the Easter weekend, while champions St Helens are live seven times in the first eight rounds of the new season.