English Premiership Rugby - TheSportsDB.com

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Name
English Premiership Rugby

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Poster

Established
1987 (37 years old)

First Recorded Event
2010-09-03

Current Season
2024-2025

Sport
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Rugby

Location
England

Gender
Male

TV Rights
US - NBC Sports [2016-2021]

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Upcoming

11 Oct	Sale Sharks	-	Newcastle Fa	6:45pm
12 Oct	Exeter Chief	-	Bristol Rugb	2:00pm
12 Oct	Gloucester	-	Bath Rugby	2:05pm
12 Oct	Leicester Ti	-	Northampton	4:30pm
13 Oct	Harlequins	-	Saracens	2:00pm
18 Oct	Newcastle Fa	-	Exeter Chief	6:45pm
18 Oct	Northampton	-	Sale Sharks	6:45pm
19 Oct	Bristol Rugb	-	Saracens	2:05pm
19 Oct	Harlequins	-	Bath Rugby	4:30pm
20 Oct	Leicester Ti	-	Gloucester	2:00pm
Results
06 Oct	Saracens	29 - 14	Exeter Chief
05 Oct	Bath Rugby	26 - 36	Bristol Rugb
05 Oct	Newcastle Fa	10 - 42	Leicester Ti
04 Oct	Sale Sharks	31 - 27	Gloucester
04 Oct	Northampton	33 - 29	Harlequins
29 Sep	Leicester Ti	15 - 20	Bath Rugby
28 Sep	Northampton	30 - 24	Exeter Chief
28 Sep	Saracens	45 - 26	Sale Sharks
28 Sep	Harlequins	28 - 14	Newcastle Fa
27 Sep	Bristol Rugb	41 - 44	Gloucester

Description
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Premiership Rugby (officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership due to sponsorship reasons) is an English professional rugby union competition. The Premiership consists of twelve clubs, and is the top division of the English rugby union system. Premiership clubs qualify for Europe's two main club competitions, the European Rugby Champions Cup and the European Rugby Challenge Cup. The team finishing at the bottom of the Premiership each season is relegated to the second division, the RFU Championship; the winner of the Championship is promoted to the Premiership.

The competition has been played since 1987, and has evolved into the current Premiership system. The current champions are Saracens. The most recently promoted side are London Irish, who returned to the top flight in 2019.

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 friendlies 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 and a few local newspapers — such as the Yorkshire Post — 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.

The league turned professional for the 1996/97 season when the first winners were London Wasps, joining Bath and Leicester as the only champions in the league's first decade. Clubs like Saracens, Newcastle and Northampton were able to attract wealthy benefactors, but the professional era also had its casualties, as clubs like West Hartlepool, Richmond and London Scottish were forced into administration when their backers pulled out.

Seasons