In Great Britain, rugby league is as synonymous with northern England as chips and gravy. While the sport is played nationwide, and teams from southern England regularly feature in the higher leagues, the heartlands of the sport are based around the M62 motorway. This corridor, which links Merseyside clubs with teams in Cheshire, Greater Manchester, and Yorkshire, was the region from which the Northern Rugby Football Union (NRFU) sprang in 1895. Formed of 21 founding clubs, the NRFU split from the Rugby Football Union (RFU), primarily over the latter refusing clubs the right to pay their players. This schism saw the development of two separate codes, with
having a separate set of rules, a distinction that can bamboozle the uninitiated. Today, the NRFU is known as the Rugby Football League (RFL) and is the governing body for rugby league in England.
Which team has the most Super League titles?
Since the highest tier of rugby league in Great Britain was rebranded the Super League in 1996, only four teams have won a title: St Helens, Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors, and Bradford Bulls. Among these clubs, the
team with the most Grand Final wins is St Helens, having won nine as of 2023. Although Bradford Bulls were relegated from the Super League in 2014, the Rhinos and Warriors have remained competitive during Saints’ era of dominance, with Leeds reaching the 2022 Grand Final and Wigan winning the 2023 Grand Final, as well as securing a record-matching fifth
World Club Challenge title that same year. As the “Big Three”, the Saints, Rhinos, and Warriors also hold the distinction of being the three clubs with the
most Challenge Cup title wins. Despite not being as prestigious as the Super League, the Challenge Cup is the sport’s oldest cup competition and still has the power to draw a large crowd, with
attendances at Challenge Cup finals reaching as high as 80 thousand in the last decade.
A post-IMG future: is grassroots rugby league under threat?
In 2022, the RFL finalized a 12-year strategic partnership with media company IMG in a bid to grow and develop the game outside of its traditional parameters. This move comes at a time when the future of the sport at a grassroots level looks in jeopardy, with
rugby league participation rates in England down by nearly a quarter between 2017 and 2022. One major move already made by new partners IMG and the RFL has been a
renegotiation of broadcast rights with Sky Sports. While this might have halved the annual value of the deal for the RFL, it affords the governing body the freedom to broadcast matches on its own streaming service and free-to-air TV, which it hopes will grow the sport’s audience. The partnership with IMG, however, has not been free from controversy, especially regarding the introduction of
IMG’s grading criteria for rugby league clubs competing in Great Britain. Under these new rules, a team is awarded a score based on its on-field performance, fandom, finances, stadium, and community, and only the 12 highest-ranked teams are permitted to play in the Super League. This removes the chance for a team to be promoted based on sporting merit alone which, for a lot of smaller clubs, is their best chance to reach a higher tier. While bigger clubs look secure under the new system, British grassroots rugby league stands at a crossroads.
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