2025 RFL Championship

The 2025 RFL Championship, (officially known as the Betfred Championship for sponsorship reasons), is a professional rugby league club competition. The second tier of the British rugby league system comprises 13 clubs – 12 from England and one from France.

2025 Betfred Championship
Teams	13
2025 season

The season will comprise 24 rounds in the regular season with the top six teams taking part in the play-offs to determine the champions.

Team changes

Wakefield Trinity won promotion to the Super League at the end of 2024 and were replaced by London Broncos who were relegated from Super League under the IMG grading system. Promoted from League One in 2024 were Oldham and Hunslet who replaced the 2024 relegated teams, Swinton Lions, Whitehaven and Dewsbury Rams.

Structure changes

There will be no automatic promotion from the Championship to Super League at the end of the season. This is due to the IMG grading scheme where clubs are graded by a number of factors, not all based on on-field performance.

Following a review of the league structure below Super League, the RFL announced that by the start of the 2026 season, the Championship and League 1 would be equalised in size at 12 teams each. In March 2024 the RFL completed the review and announced that the first steps will be taken to equalise the number of teams in the Championship and League One at 12 each by the start of the 2026 season. Following the 2-up, 3-down system in 2024, 2025 will see the return of the Super 8s format with the top four teams in League One meeting the bottom four teams in the Championship to decide which division those clubs will play in for 2026. The Super 8s will comprise four rounds with each League One club playing the four clubs from the Championship, two at home and two away. After the four rounds have been completed, the top two teams will automatically qualify to play in the 2026 Championship. The teams finishing third and fourth will play each other to decide which teams gets the final place in the Championship. The losers of this match and the teams finishing fifth to eighth will play in League One in 2026.

Clubs

West Yorkshire

Barrow

Doncaster

Sheffield

Oldham

London

Widnes

York

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Locations of English teams competing in the 2025 Championship.

Bradford

Batley

Hunslet

Featherstone

Halifax

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Locations of the 2025 RFL Championship teams in West Yorkshire

Toulouse

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Locations of 2025 RFL Championship teams in France

Team	Location	Stadium	Capacity
Barrow Raiders	Barrow-in-Furness	Craven Park	6,000
Batley Bulldogs	Batley	Mount Pleasant	7,500
Bradford Bulls	Bradford	Odsal Stadium	22,000
Doncaster	Doncaster	Eco-Power Stadium	15,231
Featherstone Rovers	Featherstone	Post Office Road	8,000
Halifax Panthers	Halifax	The Shay	10,401
Hunslet	Leeds	South Leeds Stadium	4,000
London Broncos	Wimbledon, London	Plough Lane	9,215
Oldham	Sale	Boundary Park	13,500
Sheffield Eagles	Sheffield	Olympic Legacy Park	1,320
Toulouse Olympique	Toulouse	Stade Ernest-Wallon	19,500
Widnes Vikings	Widnes	DCBL Stadium	13,350
York Knights	York	York Community Stadium	8,005

Results

Main article: 2025 RFL Championship season results

Table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Qualification
1	Barrow Raiders	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	Semi-finals
2	Batley Bulldogs	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	Bradford Bulls	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	Eliminators
4	Doncaster	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5	Featherstone Rovers	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	Halifax Panthers	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7	Hunslet	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8	London Broncos	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
9	Oldham	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
10	Sheffield Eagles	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	Super 8s
11	Toulouse Olympique	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
12	Widnes Vikings	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
13	York Knights	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

First match(es) will be played: 15 February 2025. Source: RFL
Rules for classification: 1) Competition points; 2) Points difference; 3) Points percentage (points scored/points conceded x 100)