AS well as four major rule changes for the 2025 season, a number of amendments to IMG’s grading criteria which had been proposed by IMG following consultation with clubs, have been approved by the RFL Board at today’s RFL Council meeting.
These apply to the digital, viewing, stadium and community pillars, as well as to the minimum standards supporting the grading criteria.
Fandom
Digital changes
Under the ‘Fandom’ criteria, changes will be made to the Digital arm of the pillar.
In 2023 it was acknowledged that the original digital thresholds needed to be reworked. The initial thresholds were built into the illustrative Grading Criteria for 2023 before IMG had access to all digital data for clubs.
As a result, the Engagement and Website scores were based on third party data that estimated scores for club social media accounts.
After reviewing additional data from another season, IMG suggested new digital thresholds, which were then presented to the clubs at the Council meeting following approval by the RFL Board.
Following feedback from clubs at the said Council, it was decided to postpone the introduction of new Digital thresholds until the 2025 season.
With now two seasons of data to review and additional feedback from clubs the following changes to Digital will be made in 2025.
Viewership changes
Also under the ‘Fandom’ criteria, changes will be made to Viewership. This change will reflect the new broadcast deals with Sky Sports and the BBC and the launch of the new SuperLeague+ streaming platform.
The model will be changed in 2025 to measure Viewership as follows:
– Use 1 year of data (latest season e.g. for 2026 season grading, season 2025 audience data will be used).
– TV Average Match Audience (regular season) BBC and Sky Sports.
Points in the 2025 grading model will be allocated as follows:
– Not on TV at all = 0.5 points.
– On any TV or streamed platform (e.g. Sky Sports+, SuperLeague+, L’Equipe+, BBC3, iPlayer, YouTube, Club Owned TV channel) = 0.75 points (regular season, 5 or more games, stream to be of 6 match camera production or better, with commentary).
– The 6 clubs with the highest Average Match Audience = 1.0 points.
Stadium Facilities
Under Stadium Facilities Score, a stadium development exemption will be introduced. If you have commenced stadium re-development and this will affect your score negatively on the data capture form return date, you will receive your previous Facilities Score points for a maximum of two years.
In addition, under Stadium, changes will be made to LED Perimeter Advertising Boards and Big Screen as follows:
– Not in place = 0 points.
In place but does not meet the specification, but does meet the following minimum standard:
– LED Perimeter Advertising Boards as per specification but height reduced to 600mm. = 0.0625 points.
– Big Screen 30m2 and pixel pitch 10mm or better. = 0.0625 points.
– In place and meets the specification = 0.125 points.
Community
Catchment changes
Under Community, changes will be made to Catchment. The current system remains, but if you sign a Rugby League Development Agreement with another Local Authority District (using the same definition as currently) a club can add that Local Authority District population to its data as long as the agreement remains in place.
The acceptance of any Rugby League Development Agreement is subject to RFL approval and activity must be aligned to RFL strategy.
Minimum Standards
Under Minimum Standards, a change will be made to the treatment of an Insolvency event. A grade deflation will be replaced with a grading points deduction.
The rationale being that a Grade A club, moves to Grade B under ‘regular’ scoring mechanism, suffers an event, moves to Grade C, cannot partake in Super League or a Grade C club suffers an event, has nowhere to go and this could effectively be termination of membership by another route.
From 2025 a deduction of 50% of the Finance pillar points score will be made (maximum 2.25 points deduction).
An additional change for 2025 will be the introduction of penalties for late data capture form and evidence return as follows:
– 0.25 points deduction for a late return of the Data Capture Form.
