Wakefield Trinity • IMG Announce Proposed Criteria for Super League 2025

Some more information and a couple of tweets, could it really be possible for a 14 team SL happening?

Breaking News from the RFL.

RL Commercial will enter a 30-day exclusive negotiating period with Sky Sports to formalise the broadcast rights agreement.

It would appear the RFL have managed to increase the offer made from Sky from £17M to £20M+ a decrease on the current deal.

22nd August - for immediate release
Update on Broadcast Rights
Following a meeting of RL Commercial, IMG and Super League (Europe) Shareholders, RL Commercial will now enter a 30-day exclusive negotiating period with Sky Sports to formalise and
contract the broadcast rights agreement. This follows a period of activity in the market that saw multiple bids tabled for the rights, with all
stakeholders convinced Sky Sports are offering the best deal for the Super League competition. It would see the partnership with Sky Sports extend for a further three years, until the end of the 2026 season - which would include the 30th anniversary of the launch of Super League's
partnership with Sky Sports for the inaugural season in 1996. Under the proposed deal, the partnership would include the live broadcast of every Super League fixture, to the UK and worldwide - a transformative development for the competition. This would
also allow for video match officials to be appointed for every match.
There would also be the continuation of a free-to-air window.
Further details will be shared on the conclusion of the negotiating period.
Ends...

What is interesting from the meeting with clubs today is that the competition structure will change as the sport of Rugby League works around what the broadcasters want, not what the self serving Super League clubs want. It’s taken a further reduction to hammer home this message.
The top tier to expand to 14 clubs is what I’m hearing which would finally remove the awful loop fixtures. That gives Championship clubs like Bradford, Featherstone, Newcastle and York hope that they accumulate enough IMG points to make the 13th and 14th positions.