Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for
sponsorship
Sponsoring something (or someone) is the act of supporting an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. The individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor, is k ...
reasons, is an English professional
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...
competition. The Premiership has consisted of thirteen clubs since 2021, and is the top division of the
English rugby union system
Men's Rugby union in England consists of 106 leagues, which includes professional leagues at the highest level, down to amateur regional leagues. Promotion and relegation are in place throughout the system.
Women's Rugby union in England cons ...
. Premiership clubs qualify for Europe's two main club competitions, the
European Rugby Champions Cup and the
European Rugby Challenge Cup
The EPCR Challenge Cup is an annual rugby union competition organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the second-tier competition for clubs based in European leagues behind the European Rugby Champions Cup. From its inception ...
. The winner of the second division, the
RFU Championship
The RFU Championship is an English rugby union competition comprising twelve clubs. It is the second level of men’s English rugby and is played by both professional and semi-professional players. The competition has existed since 1987, when ...
is promoted to the Premiership and until 2020, the team finishing at the bottom of the Premiership each season was relegated to the Championship. The competition is regarded as one of the three top-level professional leagues in the Northern and Western Hemispheres, along with the
Top 14
The Top 14 () is a professional rugby union club competition that is played in France. Created in 1892, the Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the French National Rugby League, also known by its French initialism o ...
in France, and the cross-border
United Rugby Championship
The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. The current name was adopted in 2021 when the league expanded to include four South Afr ...
for teams from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Italy and South Africa.
The competition has been played since 1987, and has evolved into the current Premiership system. The current champions are
Leicester Tigers. The most recently promoted side are
Saracens, who returned to the top flight in 2021.
History
Beginnings: English domestic rugby union until 1972
The governing body of rugby union in England, the
Rugby Football Union (RFU), long resisted leagues as it was believed that the introduction of leagues would increase 'dirty' play and put pressure on clubs to pay their players (thereby contravening the amateur ethos). Instead, clubs arranged their own fixtures and had traditional games. The only organised tournaments were the County Cups and County Championship – the former played by clubs and the latter by County representative teams. ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' and a few local newspapers – such as the ''
Yorkshire Post
''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds in Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...
'' – compiled 'pennants' based on teams' performances, but as the strength of fixture lists varied, it was at best an estimate of a team's performance throughout a season.
1972–1995: Leagues and cups
In 1972 the RFU sanctioned a national knock-out cup – the RFU Club Competition, the predecessor to the
Anglo-Welsh Cup
The Anglo-Welsh Cup (), was a cross-border rugby union knock-out cup competition that featured the 12 Premiership Rugby clubs and the four Welsh regions. It was a created as a replacement for the RFU Knockout Cup, which featured only English clubs ...
– followed first by regional merit tables and then, in the mid-1980s, by national merit tables. One of the casualties of the move to competitive leagues was the loss of some traditional games as the new fixture lists didn't allow time for all of them.
The league system has evolved since its start in 1987 when the Courage Leagues were formed – a league pyramid with roughly 1,000 clubs playing in 108 leagues, each with promotion and relegation.
In the
first season, clubs were expected to arrange the fixtures on mutually convenient dates. The clubs involved were
Bath,
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
,
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
,
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
,
Harlequins,
Leicester,
Moseley
Moseley is a suburb of south Birmingham, England, south of the city centre. The area is a popular cosmopolitan residential location and leisure destination, with a number of bars and restaurants. The area also has a number of boutiques and ot ...
,
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...
,
Orrell,
Sale,
Wasps
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...
and
Waterloo. That first season was an unqualified success, with clubs in the upper echelons of the national leagues reporting increased crowds, interest from both local backers and national companies, and higher skill levels among players exposed to regular competition. The fears that leagues would lead to greater violence on the field proved largely unfounded.
By the
next season, the RFU allocated fixed Saturdays to the league season, removing the clubs' responsibility for scheduling matches. There was no home and away structure to the leagues in those early seasons, as sides played one another only once.
Initially two teams,
Bath and
Leicester, proved to be head and shoulders above the rest in the Courage League, and between them dominated the top of the table.
In 1994 the league structure expanded to include a full rota of home and away matches for the first time. The
1994–95 season was the first to be shown live on
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...
, a relationship which continued until the 2013–14 season when
BT Sport
BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and BT Group, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former International Bro ...
acquired the exclusive rights.
1996: The dawn of professional rugby union
The league turned professional for the 1996–97 season when the first winners were
Wasps
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...
, joining Bath and Leicester as the only champions in the league's first decade. Clubs like
Saracens,
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
and
Northampton were able to attract wealthy benefactors, but the professional era also had its casualties, as clubs like
West Hartlepool
West Hartlepool was a predecessor of Hartlepool, County Durham, England. It developed in the Victorian era and took the name from its western position in the parish of what is now known as the Headland.
The former town was originally formed ...
,
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
and
London Scottish were forced into administration when their backers pulled out.
2000–2002: Premiership, Championship and playoffs
The start of the 2000–01 season brought with it a re-vamping of the season structure. In 2000–2001 an eight-team playoff (the Championship) was introduced. However, the team finishing top of the table at the end of the regular season was still considered English champions ("Premiership title").
Halfway through the 2001–02 season, with Leicester odds-on to win their fourth title in succession, it was controversially decided that the winners of the eight-team playoff would be crowned English champions. There was an outcry from fans and this proposal was dropped.
2003–2014: The ascendancy of the playoffs
From the beginning of the 2002–03 season, a new playoff format was introduced to replace the 8-team Championship. The format required the first-placed team in the league to play the winner of a match between the second- and third-placed teams. Critically, the winner of this game (the Premiership Final) would be recognised as English champions. Although Gloucester won the league by a clear margin, they then faced a three-week wait until the final. Having lost their momentum, they were beaten by second-placed Wasps (who had defeated third-placed Northampton) in the play-offs. The playoff structure was reformatted in the 2005–06 season in which the first-placed team would play the fourth placed team in a semi-final (a
Shaughnessy playoff).
Since the implementation of the playoff system, only five teams have won both the regular season and playoffs in the same year: Leicester in 2000–01 (the first year of the playoffs), 2008–09 and 2009–10,
Sale Sharks in 2005–06,
Harlequins in 2011–12,
Saracens in 2015–16 and
Exeter in 2019–20.
Of all the Premiership teams,
Wasps
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...
have made a reputation for playing the competition format to perfection, peaking at the right time to be crowned English Champions in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2008. Wasps did not lead the league standings at the end of the season in any of these years. Conversely,
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
have garnered an unfortunate reputation for leading the table at the end of the regular season, only to fall short of winning the Premiership title, losing finals in 2003, 2007, and 2008. Gloucester's single victory in the playoffs, in 2002, occurred when league leaders Leicester were still considered English champions, meaning Gloucester's Championship victory was considered secondary.
The 2011–12 season saw
Harlequins add their name to the trophy on their first attempt, winning 30–23 against the nine-times champions Leicester. Leicester would have to wait until 2012–13 for their 10th championship, where they defeated
Northampton in the final.
The
2013–14 Aviva Premiership season saw
Northampton become the 8th different team to win the trophy. This was achieved when they defeated
Leicester Tigers in the semi-final 21–20, thus denying Leicester a 10th Consecutive Final. In the final, they defeated Saracens 20–24 with a try in the last minute of extra time to win the
2013–14 Aviva Premiership.
2014–2018: US initiatives
With the future of the
Heineken Cup uncertain beyond 2013–14, due to a row between England's Premiership Rugby Limited and France's
LNR on one side and the sport's governing bodies on the other, Premiership Rugby Limited explored several moves toward expanding its brand into the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. In May 2013, Premiership Rugby Limited and U.S.-based RugbyLaw entered into a plan by which the two organisations were to help back a proposed U.S. professional league that could have begun play as early as 2014.
The first phase of the plan was to involve two preseason exhibitions featuring an "American Barbarians" side that would combine international veterans and young American talent. The "Barbarians" were intended to play matches in August 2013 in the U.S. and London, but those plans fell through, and the matches were indefinitely delayed.
In August 2013, Leicester Tigers chairman Peter Tom confirmed that Premiership Rugby Limited had discussed the possibility of bringing select Premiership matches to the US.
The first match played in the USA was on 12 March 2016 when
London Irish
London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club which competes in the Premiership, the top division of English rugby union. The club has also competed in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, the European Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup. While ...
were defeated by
Saracens at the
Red Bull Arena in the
New York Metropolitan Area
The New York metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the Tri-State area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass, at , and one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. The vast metropolitan area ...
. This match was intended to be the first of a three-year deal which would have seen London Irish play one home match each season in the US, but their relegation from the Premiership at the end of the 2015–16 season scuttled that plan.
A new deal was reached with American sports marketing company
AEG in 2017 which was intended to see at least one Premiership match taken to the US for four seasons starting in 2017–18. The first match under the new deal was held on 16 September 2017, with
Newcastle Falcons
Newcastle Falcons is a rugby union team that play in Premiership Rugby, England's highest division of rugby union.
The club was established in 1877 as the Gosforth Football Club. Around 1882 the club merged with the Northumberland Football Cl ...
taking their home fixture against Saracens to the
Talen Energy Stadium
Subaru Park (formerly known as PPL Park and Talen Energy Stadium) is a soccer-specific stadium located in Chester, Pennsylvania, located next to the Commodore Barry Bridge on the waterfront along the Delaware River. The venue is home to the Phila ...
in the
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
suburb of
Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located within the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, it is the only city in Delaware County and had a population of 32,605 as of the 2020 census.
Incorporated in 1682, Chester i ...
.
[ In 2018–19, although no match was scheduled to take place in the US, the round 6 match between Saracens and Harlequins was the first broadcast on network television in the US of a Premiership Rugby game. The game was shown live on ]NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
. In 2019–20, and 2020–21 once again no matches were scheduled to take place in the US.
2018 also saw a revamp of the league's secondary competition with the launch of the Premiership Rugby Shield
The Premiership Rugby Shield was launched in 2003 as the Premiership Rugby A League. It runs parallel to the Premiership Rugby seasons. Split into north and south pools, it comprises twelve sides. The clubs select players from their academy and ...
.
2018–19: CVC Capital Partners investment
In December 2018 it was announced that the Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
based investment advisory firm CVC Capital Partners had bought a 27% stake in Premiership Rugby in a deal worth £200m. A previous offer to purchase a 51% majority share was rejected. The money from the investment was planned to be used to improve facilities at clubs and grow the game globally.
2019–20: Salary Cap investigation into Saracens
In March 2019, allegations emerged that Saracens may have broken the league's salary cap
In professional sports, a salary cap (or wage cap) is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on players' salaries. It exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both. Sever ...
. In June, Premiership Rugby announced that they would investigate the allegations. In November 2019, Saracens were found to have been in breach of the salary cap regulations due to failure to disclose player payments in the 2016–17, 2017–18 and 2018–19 seasons, which would have taken them over the senior player cap. They were handed a 35-point deduction for the 2019–20 season and fined £5.3 million. The judgement found that Saracens had been reckless in entering into the arrangements with players without disclosing them to Premiership Rugby.
On 18 January 2020, Premiership Rugby announced that Saracens would be relegated to the RFU Championship
The RFU Championship is an English rugby union competition comprising twelve clubs. It is the second level of men’s English rugby and is played by both professional and semi-professional players. The competition has existed since 1987, when ...
for the 2020–21 season. Premiership Rugby CEO Darren Childs said this punishment was due to Saracens lack of cooperation in a mid-season audit to prove compliance in the 2019–20 season.
On 23 January 2020, Lord Dyson
John Anthony Dyson, Lord Dyson, (born 31 July 1943) is a former British judge and barrister. He was Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice, the second most senior judge in England and Wales, from 2012 to 2016, and a Justice of the Supr ...
's full report into Saracens' spending was published, it revealed that Saracens had overspent the salary cap by £1.1m in 2016–17, £98,000 in 2017-18 and £906,000 in 2018–19. These included £923,947.63 of property investments between Nigel Wray and three unnamed Saracens players. It also included Saracens claim that the Salary Cap was unenforceable under competition law, this defence was rejected. On 28 January 2020, Premiership Rugby applied a further 70 point deduction for the 2019–20 season to ensure Saracens would finish bottom of the league table.
2020–2024: Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and expansion of the league.
The COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
disrupted all elite sports in England in spring 2020. The RFU initially suspended both the Premiership and Championship before eventually cancelling the Championship season. Newcastle Falcons, who topped the Championship table at the time of the season's premature end were promoted based on their playing record and would replace Saracens in the Premiership the following season.
The 2019–20 Premiership Rugby season recommenced on 14 August and the final was held 24 October 2020.
The disruption of the 2019–20 season meant the 2020–21 season commenced 10 weeks late on 20 November 2020 and ran over a reduced timeframe of 32 weeks (down from 42).
The financial impact of the pandemic also caused the salary cap to be temporarily reduced for a maximum of 3 seasons from the 2021–22 season.
A moratorium on relegation was also approved in February 2021, meaning no teams would be relegated as a potential consequence of another team receiving more points due to games cancelled because of COVID-19. With this news it was also confirmed that the league's minimum standards criteria for promotion would be reviewed as would league structure from 2021–22. The new structure extended the moratorium on relegation for a further two-years. A playoff between the top team in the Championship and the bottom team in the Premiership is also introduced in the 2023–24 season.
Financial Problems and Administration (2022)
On 17 October 2022, Wasps went into administration, and were suspended from the league.
Their upcoming fixture against Sale Sharks on 18 October, was also cancelled.
On 28 October, it was confirmed that Wasps would be relegated to the championship, and any remaining fixtures expunged.
Clubs
Current clubs
The Premiership began the current 2022-23 season with 13 clubs, but both Wasps Rugby
Wasps Rugby Football Club is a professional rugby union team. They last played in Premiership Rugby, the top division of English rugby until being suspended on 12 October 2022. On 17 October 2022 the club entered administration, resulting in r ...
and Worcester Warriors
Worcester Warriors Rugby Football Club is a professional rugby union club, based in Worcester, England, that is currently in administration and which has been suspended and will be relegated from Premiership Rugby, the top division of domestic ...
were removed from the league, and automatically relegated, after going into administration.
* Note: Capacity listed for rugby union games may differ from official stadium capacity
All time
A total of 28 clubs have been involved in the top-flight since the league's inception in the 1987–88 season. The most recent club to make its debut in the Premiership was London Welsh
London Welsh Rugby Football Club ( cy, Clwb Rygbi Cymry Llundain) was a rugby union club formed in 1885. Based in Old Deer Park, Richmond-upon-Thames, London Welsh RFC played in the English Premiership in the 2012–13 and 2014–15 seaso ...
, which made their top flight debut in 2012–13.
Three clubs — Bath, Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
and Leicester Tigers — have appeared in every season to date. Having come bottom of the table in the 2021/22 season Bath would have been relegated to the championship had it not been for the moratorium on relegation. Harlequins have only missed the 2005–06 season. Six other clubs have appeared in at least 20 seasons: Saracens, Northampton, Sale, London Irish, Bristol and Newcastle. Wasps
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...
administration, expulsion and automatic relegation in the 2022-23 Premiership Rugby
The hyphen-minus is the most commonly used type of hyphen, widely used in digital documents. It is the only character that looks like a minus sign or a dash in many character sets such as ASCII or on most keyboards, so it is also used as such. ...
season means their record of being ever-present effectively ended at the end of the 2021-22 season.
Coventry, Liverpool St Helens, Moseley, Nottingham, Rosslyn Park, Rugby and Waterloo only appeared during the amateur era, whereas Exeter Chiefs, Leeds, London Welsh, Richmond, Rotherham and Worcester have only appeared during the professional era.
Below, the 2022–23 clubs are listed in bold; ever-present clubs are listed in ''bold italics''. Years listed are the calendar years in which the seasons ended. All current teams will remain in the league until at least 2024.
Sponsorship
Structure
Referees
Referees in the Premiership are selected from the RFU's Professional Referee Unit. The Professional Referee Unit consists of 15 referees with match appointments decided by PRU management team of ex-international referees Ed Morrison, Brian Campsall and Tony Spreadbury
Antony John "Tony" Spreadbury (born 28 March 1962 Bath, Somerset, Bath, England) is a retired international rugby union referee.
In his earlier years, he attended Beechen Cliff School, in Bath, England, Bath.
He refereed at the 2003 Rugby World ...
.
List of Premiership Referees
Source:
*Wayne Barnes
Wayne Barnes (born 20 April 1979) is an English international rugby union referee and barrister. He is a regular referee in the English Premiership, and has refereed games in the Heineken Cup and the European Challenge Cup. At international lev ...
* Matthew Carley
*Sara Cox
Sara Joanne Cyzer (née Cox; born 13 December 1974) is an English broadcaster. She presented ''Radio 1 Breakfast'' on BBC Radio 1 from 3 April 2000 until 19 December 2003. Since January 2019 she now hosts the BBC Radio 2 drivetime show, Monday ...
* Karl Dickson
*Tom Foley
*Simon Harding
*Andrew Jackson
*Greg MacDonald
*Craig Maxwell-Keys
*John Meredith
*Luke Pearce
Luke Pearce (born 13 November 1987) is a British rugby union referee representing the Rugby Football Union. He is a regular referee in the English Premiership and has refereed games at European level and at the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Refereeing ...
*Dean Richards
*Christophe Ridley
Christophe Ridley (born 16 April 1993) is an English rugby referee.
Career
Previously a student at the University of Gloucestershire, Ridley began refereeing professionally in 2016. He has been a regular referee in Premiership Rugby and has al ...
*Ian Tempest
*Tim Wigglesworth
They are supported by a large team of assistant referees.
League season
The Premiership Rugby league season typically runs from September to June and comprises 26 rounds of matches, with each club playing each other home and away. Each team will receive two bye weeks. The results of the matches contribute points to the league as follows:
*4 points are awarded for a win
*2 points are awarded for a draw
*0 points are awarded for a loss, however
**1 losing (bonus) point is awarded to a team that loses a match by 7 points or fewer
**1 additional (bonus) point is awarded to a team scoring 4 tries or more in a match
Since the restart of the 2019–20 season, scheduled fixtures which are cancelled because of a COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
outbreak in one of the competing teams will have their outcome and points allocation decided by a Premiership Rugby panel. As of the start of the 2021–22 season, if the fixture cannot be rescheduled, it is recorded as a 0–0 draw. In this situation, if one team would have been able to fulfill the fixture, they will be awarded 4 points, while the team unable to field a matchday squad due to a COVID-19 outbreak will be given 2 points – otherwise, if both teams are impacted by COVID-19, they will each receive 2 points for the affected fixture.
Playoffs
Following the completion of the regular season, the top 4 teams enter the playoffs
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...
, which are held in June. The top two teams receive home advantage, the league leaders hosting the 4th ranked team, and the 2nd place team hosting the 3rd place team. The winners of these semi-finals progress to the final, held at Twickenham Stadium
Twickenham Stadium () in Twickenham, south-west London, England, is a rugby union stadium owned by the Rugby Football Union (RFU), English rugby union governing body, which has its headquarters there. The England national rugby union team plays ...
, with the winner of the final being crowned champions.
Promotion and relegation
Previously, there was a system of promotion and relegation
In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues ...
between the Premiership and the RFU Championship, whereby one club was relegated from the league and one club was promoted into it. Currently all teams remain in the league for the subsequent season.
Promotion from the Championship (regardless of the format used) is subject to Minimum Standards Criteria. If the team scheduled for promotion does not meet these standards, then there is no promotion. In the 2011–12 season London Welsh
London Welsh Rugby Football Club ( cy, Clwb Rygbi Cymry Llundain) was a rugby union club formed in 1885. Based in Old Deer Park, Richmond-upon-Thames, London Welsh RFC played in the English Premiership in the 2012–13 and 2014–15 seaso ...
won promotion from the Championship. They were initially denied promotion under the criteria, reprieving Newcastle Falcons
Newcastle Falcons is a rugby union team that play in Premiership Rugby, England's highest division of rugby union.
The club was established in 1877 as the Gosforth Football Club. Around 1882 the club merged with the Northumberland Football Cl ...
from relegation, but successfully appealed against their block and achieved promotion.
In February 2021, a moratorium was approved on relegation from the league for that season. Promotion from the Championship would still take place meaning the league expanded to 13 teams from 2021–22. The moratorium was extended by an additional two seasons in June 2021. This means the Premiership could have expanded again to 14 teams from 2022–23. The new regulations would also include a moratorium on promotion from the Championship in the same season had the Premiership expanded to 14 teams and introduce a play-off between the bottom placed Premiership Club and top placed Championship club in 2023–24. New minimum standards criteria were announced in September 2022, confirming that promotion from the championship was still due to take place in 2023.
The league returned to 12 teams on 6 October 2022 when Worcester Warriors
Worcester Warriors Rugby Football Club is a professional rugby union club, based in Worcester, England, that is currently in administration and which has been suspended and will be relegated from Premiership Rugby, the top division of domestic ...
were suspended for the season and will be relegated after entering administration. Their results were expunged from the table.
Wasps
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...
suffered a similar financial fate to Worcester and entered administration on 17 October 2022, creating 167 redundancies within the club and triggering automatic relegation from the Premiership, with their remaining games cancelled and their current season results expunged.
European competition qualification
The top seven teams qualify for the following season's European Rugby Champions Cup. The eighth champions cup place is awarded to either the winner of the Challenge Cup or the team placed eighth. Teams placed 8-13th that do not qualify for the Champions Cup play in the Challenge Cup.
Champions
Between 1987 and 2002, the team at the top of the league was crowned English champions. Since 2002–03, the winner of the league has been determined by a Premiership Final, which takes place at Twickenham
Twickenham is a suburban district in London, England. It is situated on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames since 1965, and the boroug ...
and consists of two rounds of knock-out play amongst the top four teams. This change was originally considered controversial, particular when Wasps
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...
won four of the first six play-off finals without ever topping the regular season table, with Sale the only team to both top the table and win the Premiership final in that period. Over time, the play-off structures have bedded in, but as of 2022 only seven teams across twenty seasons have managed to both top the regular season table and proceed to win the Premiership final.
In most seasons, at least one team has been relegated at the end of the season, although in 1995–96, there was no relegation to allow division expansion, and in 2001–02, Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...
were given a reprieve because the Division One
The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...
champions did not have a suitable ground to allow promotion. Relegation was also suspended between 2020–21 and 2022–23 to allow further expansion, although Wasps and Worcester will both be relegated for going into administration at the end of the 2022-23 season.
Summary of winners
Player records
All records relate to the 1997–98 season onward when National League One was re-launched as the Premiership.
Source: . ''Bold italics'' denote players active in the 2022–23 Premiership.
Appearances
Points
Tries
Awards
Attendances
Salary cap
The English Premiership operates a salary cap, set by the Premiership Rugby Board, specifying the money a club can spend on the player salaries of its squad per season. Until the 2024–25 season, the base cap is £5 million, with an "academy credit" of up to £600,000 (£100,000 per player for up to six players).
A club may use the academy credit on a player that: (i) joined the club before his 18th birthday; (ii) is under age 24 at the start of the season; and (iii) earns a salary of more than £50,000. Under the credit scheme, the first £100,000 of a qualifying player's salary is not counted against the cap.
Exclusions
Since the 2022–23 season, each club has been allowed to exclude one player from the cap calculations, a decrease from two in prior seasons. An exception is made for any team which had two excluded players currently under contract. Both players remain excluded until the first of their contracts expire.
The "excluded player" slot can be filled by any player on a team's current roster who meets any of the following criteria:
* Played with his Premiership club for at least two full seasons before he was nominated as an excluded player.
* Played with his Premiership club for the full season before being nominated as an excluded player, after having played outside the Premiership.
* Played outside the Premiership in the season before he was nominated.
Media coverage
In the United Kingdom, the primary rights are currently held by BT Sport
BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and BT Group, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former International Bro ...
under a new deal signed on 18 December 2020 replacing former deals signed on 16 March 2015 and 12 September 2012. The new deal sees BT broadcast up to 80 live matches per season from both Premiership Rugby and the Premiership Rugby Cup until the end of the 2023–24 season along with extended highlights of all matches and midweek programming. Secondary UK rights are held by ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
who simulcast 7 matches live on a free-to-air basis, including the final. Their coverage uses a different presenting and commentary team to BT, and they also show a weekly highlights programme until the end of the 2023–24 season. In Australia the Premiership is available on beIN Sports
beIN Sports ( ) is a global network of sports channels owned and operated by the Qatari media group beIN. It has played a major role in the increased commercialization of Qatari sports. Its chairman is Nasser Al-Khelaifi, and its CEO is Yousef O ...
. In the United States, the Premiership is available on NBC Sports since spring 2016. It has also been broadcast in China since 2017.
Talksport and BBC Radio 5 Live, along with various BBC Local Radio stations broadcast commentary and magazine programming.
See also
*Top 14
The Top 14 () is a professional rugby union club competition that is played in France. Created in 1892, the Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the French National Rugby League, also known by its French initialism o ...
, French equivalent of the Premiership, second of the three major northern hemisphere leagues.
*United Rugby Championship
The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. The current name was adopted in 2021 when the league expanded to include four South Afr ...
, cross-border equivalent of the Premiership, third of the three major northern hemisphere leagues.
*English rugby union system
Men's Rugby union in England consists of 106 leagues, which includes professional leagues at the highest level, down to amateur regional leagues. Promotion and relegation are in place throughout the system.
Women's Rugby union in England cons ...
* List of English rugby union teams
*Premiership Rugby Cup
The Premiership Rugby Cup is an English rugby union knockout cup competition for teams in Premiership Rugby. It was created in 2018 to replace the Anglo-Welsh Cup after the withdrawal of the Welsh regions.
History
The Premiership Rugby Cup was ...
*Anglo-Welsh Cup
The Anglo-Welsh Cup (), was a cross-border rugby union knock-out cup competition that featured the 12 Premiership Rugby clubs and the four Welsh regions. It was a created as a replacement for the RFU Knockout Cup, which featured only English clubs ...
(superseded by the Premiership Rugby Cup)
*Premiership Rugby Shield
The Premiership Rugby Shield was launched in 2003 as the Premiership Rugby A League. It runs parallel to the Premiership Rugby seasons. Split into north and south pools, it comprises twelve sides. The clubs select players from their academy and ...
*RFU Championship
The RFU Championship is an English rugby union competition comprising twelve clubs. It is the second level of men’s English rugby and is played by both professional and semi-professional players. The competition has existed since 1987, when ...
, second tier of English club rugby, from which teams are promoted from, and into which teams are relegated from, the Premiership.
*European Professional Club Rugby
European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) is the governing body and organiser of the two major European rugby union club tournaments: the European Rugby Champions Cup and the European Rugby Challenge Cup. A third tournament, the European Rugby Chall ...
* European Rugby Champions Cup
*European Rugby Challenge Cup
The EPCR Challenge Cup is an annual rugby union competition organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the second-tier competition for clubs based in European leagues behind the European Rugby Champions Cup. From its inception ...
*Premiership Rugby Sevens Series
The Premiership Rugby Sevens Series is a friendly Rugby Sevens competition for the twelve Premiership Rugby clubs that will play the following season (i.e. the 2010 competition features the teams playing in the Aviva Premiership in the 2010†...
*
* List of English rugby union stadiums by capacity
* List of professional sports teams in the United Kingdom
References
Notes
External links
*
Guinness Premiership
Rugby Week
English rugby union news
BBC Sport
All Time Premiership Records
{{DEFAULTSORT:English Premiership (Rugby Union)
1
National rugby union premier leagues
Professional sports leagues in England
Sports leagues established in 1987
1987 establishments in England
Professional sports leagues in the United Kingdom