English Premiership
|
|
Current season | Season 2019/20 |
sport | Rugby union |
Association | Rugby Football Union (RFU) |
League foundation | 1987 |
Teams | 12 |
Country countries | England |
Title holder | Saracens |
Record champions | Leicester Tigers |
TV partner |
British Sky Broadcasting and ESPN UK |
Website | premiershiprugby.com |
The English Premiership is the top division of men in English rugby union . The Gallagher Premiership currently bears the name of the main sponsor Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., a company in the insurance and risk management industry . The professional league was introduced for the 1987/88 season and is organized by the English rugby association Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Premier Rugby Limited (PRL) in the form of a joint venture called England Rugby Limited (ERL). There are twelve clubs in the league.
League names
- 1987–1997: Courage League National Division One
- 1997-2001: Allied Dunbar Premiership
- 2001–2005: Zurich Premiership
- 2005–2010: Guinness Premiership
- 2010–2018: Aviva Premiership
- 2018– : Gallagher Premiership
mode
In the Premiership , the four participants in the play-offs and the six participants in the European Rugby Champions Cup, the highest European cup competition, are played in the league system , in which each club competes against every other club in return matches . The English rugby champion will be determined by the play-offs at the end of regular time. All other six teams that did not qualify for the Heineken Cup automatically take part in the second European Cup competition called the Amlin Challenge Cup . The latter is relegated to the RFU Championship , which has been the second highest division below the Gallagher Premiership since 2009, and is also a pure professional league.
history
The RFU resisted the introduction of leagues for many years. She feared that this would increase the pressure on the clubs to have to pay their players and thus break the amateur ethos. Instead, the clubs organized friendly matches and held traditional encounters. The only organized tournaments in England were the County Cup and the County Championship - the former for club teams, the latter for the county teams . The Daily Telegraph and some regional newspapers such as the Yorkshire Post published lists of the performance of each team over the course of a season.
In 1972 the RFU decided to introduce a national cup competition now known as the EDF Energy Cup . Regional scoring tables followed, and finally a national scoring table in the mid-1980s. Finally, in 1987, the Courage League was introduced. In the first season, the clubs agreed the starting times among themselves. The new league system proved to be a great success, especially the teams in the upper leagues recorded higher attendance figures, greater commitment from sponsors and, due to the regular games, an increase in the level of performance. Fears that a league could lead to more violence on the field proved largely unfounded.
In the following season 1988/89 the RFU took over the season planning and set the game days. In the first few years there was no fixed structure with home and away games, as the teams only competed against each other once. It was not until 1994 that a full program was introduced, with one home game and one away game against every other team. In the 1994/95 season, Sky Sports broadcast games live on television for the first time. This collaboration continues to this day. For the 1996/97 season, the amateur league turned into a professional league. In the 2000/01 season, a semi-final, a so-called play-off, was introduced, in which the four best teams of the regular season participate.
Finances
Clubs in the Premiership are allowed to spend £ 2.25m per season to pay their players. By the 2004/05 season, that salary cap was £ 2 million. In addition, the Rugby Football Union pays clubs £ 30,000 in compensation for each English player, on condition that they are released from international matches. The problem, however, is that top players are worth far more than this £ 30,000 and that is why some clubs do not use their best players throughout the season in order to minimize the risk of injury.
During the 2006/07 season, 1,539,334 spectators attended the 135 championship games, which corresponds to an average of 11,402. This was more than half more than in the 2001/02 season, when the average was 7,490 spectators per game. This increase is mainly due to the success of England's national team at the 2003 World Cup .
Attendees
The following twelve clubs will play in the Gallagher Premiership in the 2019/20 season:
English Premiership 2019/20 clubs |
Club | founding | Stadion | Places | City / region |
---|---|---|---|---|
Bath rugby | 1865 |
Recreation Ground |
14,500 | Bath , Somerset |
Bristol Bears | 1888 |
Ashton Gate Stadium |
27,000 | Bristol , Avon |
Exeter Chiefs | 1871 |
Sandy Park |
12,921 | Exeter , Devon |
Gloucester RFC | 1873 |
Kingsholm Stadium |
16,115 | Gloucester , Gloucestershire |
Harlequins | 1866 |
Twickenham Stoop |
14,000 | Twickenham , London |
Leicester Tigers | 1880 |
Welford Road Stadium |
25,849 | Leicester , Leicestershire |
London Irish | 1898 |
Madejski Stadium |
24,161 | Reading , Berkshire |
Northampton Saints | 1880 |
Franklin's Gardens |
15,249 | Northampton , Northamptonshire |
Sale Sharks | 1861 |
AJ Bell Stadium |
12,000 | Salford , Greater Manchester |
Saracens | 1876 |
Allianz Park |
8,500 | Hendon , London |
Wasps | 1867 |
Ricoh Arena |
32,753 | Coventry , West Midlands |
Worcester Warriors | 1871 |
Sixways Stadium |
11,499 | Worcester , Worcestershire |
At the end of the 2018/19 season, the London Irish rose while the Newcastle Falcons were relegated to the RFU Championship .
master
|
|
Play-off finals
Traditionally, the final is played in London's Twickenham Stadium . Until the 2002/03 season, the championship was decided in league mode.
date | encounter | Result | spectator |
---|---|---|---|
May 31, 2003 | London Wasps - Gloucester RFC | 39: 3 | 42,000 |
May 29, 2004 | London Wasps - Bath Rugby | 10: 6 | 59,500 |
May 14, 2005 | London Wasps - Leicester Tigers | 39:14 | 66,000 |
May 27, 2006 | Sale Sharks - Leicester Tigers | 45:20 | 58,000 |
May 12, 2007 | Leicester Tigers - Gloucester RFC | 44:16 | 59,000 |
May 31, 2008 | London Wasps - Leicester Tigers | 26:16 | 81,600 |
May 16, 2009 | Leicester Tigers - London Irish | 10: 9 | 81,601 |
May 29, 2010 | Leicester Tigers - Saracens | 33:27 | 81,600 |
May 28, 2011 | Saracens - Leicester Tigers | 22:18 | 80.016 |
May 26, 2012 | Harlequins - Leicester Tigers | 30:23 | 81,779 |
May 25, 2013 | Leicester Tigers - Northampton Saints | 37:17 | 81,703 |
May 31, 2014 | Northampton Saints - Saracens | 24:20 a.d. | 81,193 |
May 30, 2015 | Saracens - Bath Rugby | 28:16 | 80,589 |
May 28, 2016 | Saracens - Exeter Chiefs | 28:20 | 76.109 |
May 27, 2017 | Exeter Chiefs - Wasps | 23:20 a.d. | 79,657 |
May 26, 2018 | Saracens - Exeter Chiefs | 27:10 | 75.128 |
June 1, 2019 | Saracens - Exeter Chiefs | 37:34 | 75,329 |
Audience numbers
The number of visitors increased almost continuously over the years. In the 2016/17 season, the total number exceeded the two million mark for the first time and the average was over 15,000 viewers per game.
season | total | cut |
---|---|---|
2002/03 | 1,183,972 | 8,518 |
2003/04 | 1,241,557 | 9,062 |
2004/05 | 1,481,355 | 10,813 |
2005/06 | 1,483,920 | 10,922 |
2006/07 | 1,598,734 | 11,842 |
2007/08 | 1,517,863 | 11,243 |
2008/09 | 1,671,781 | 12,384 |
2009/10 | 1,900,177 | 14,075 |
2010/11 | 1,740,751 | 12,894 |
2011/12 | 1,755,073 | 13.001 |
2012/13 | 1,684,804 | 12,480 |
2013/14 | 1,721,729 | 12,754 |
2014/15 | 1,804,914 | 13,370 |
2015/16 | 1,837,427 | 13,611 |
2016/17 | 2,033,805 | 15,065 |
2017/18 | 1.912.301 | 14,165 |
2018/19 | 1,958,402 | 14,507 |
See also
Web links
- Official website of Premiership Rugby (English)
- Rugby Union News BBC (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andrew Laughlin: ESPN grabs Guinness Premiership rights. In: digitalspy.co.uk. December 14, 2009, accessed August 30, 2019 .
- ↑ Attendances ( Memento of January 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ↑ Attendance Table. In: rd.premiershiprugby.com. Premiership Rugby, accessed August 30, 2019 .