Major broadcasters set to return to rugby league in huge agreement with RFL

According to reports, the RFL are close to agreeing a major broadcasting agreement for the Betfred Championship.

The new Championship season is nearly upon us after a delayed start to allow for 1895 Cup games and Challenge Cup ties.

The big season will kick off with the favourites for Super League promotion Wakefield Trinity colliding with the Bradford Bulls.

But we still don’t know about TV coverage. Well according to the Game Caller, after the new structure for the second and third tier was decided at the council meeting on Wednesday 13th March, there were also plans for Premier Sports to take over coverage again of the Championship.

This would be a massive boost for the sport’s second tier ahead of a new era.

RFL reaping benefits of BBC involvement

This season marks also the first that the BBC have been able to show Super League games live with a deal having been done between themselves and Sky, just one of many huge broadcasting deals done in the off-season in a major move by the RFL for the new season.

The BBC kicked off their Super League coverage with champions Wigan Warriors travelling to Castleford Tigers last weekend, following it up with Matt Peet’s side earning a record fifth World Club Challenge title in a major achievement for the RFL.

Their schedule for the next few months has now also become clearer with their latest announcement.

A set of five games were confirmed to be shown on the BBC later this year on Friday but there have now been additions to that, as confirmed during their coverage of the World Club Challenge.

The five games that we knew about included Catalans Dragons taking on St Helens (April 6th) in a repeat of last year’s dramatic play-off semi-final.

That game will be shown on live television on BBC3 but in March two games will be shown via iPlayer, the Red Button and the BBC Sport website.

Those two are Salford Red Devils versus Hull KR (March 2nd) and Warrington Wolves against Catalans (March 30th) before coverage then returns to the main TV channels.

The first of those games sees Leigh Leopards host Salford Red Devils on a Friday night (10th May) before the Yorkshire derby of Leeds Rhinos and Castleford Tigers is aired in the summer (June 1st).

New games to be confirmed will all feature on BBC2 including St Helens versus Hull KR (August 24th) and Leigh Leopards against Warrington Wolves (August 31).

The other two games will be play-off games with a first-round and a semi-final game slated to be shown on BBC in late September and early October.