How to watch 2025 Betfred Super League: TV channel & more

Jonathan Victoria • 13 Feb 2025 Guides

A new season is set to kick-off.

A new year, a renewed chance at glory. The 2025 Betfred Super League season is here, ready to bring the thrilling action as it always does.

Get ready for 30 weeks of regular season and playoff fun, including the highlight weeks as usual. Find out how to watch the 2025 Betfred Super League season on TV plus more info about the campaign to come.

How to watch the 2025 Betfred Super League on TV

While you can watch the Betfred Super League via their own dedicated streaming platform, known as SuperLeague+, there are other avenues which you can use to catch the playoffs and Grand Final live.

Sky Sports and BBC Sport both announced deals this year to share broadcasting rights for this year, with the formers in particular representing a major deal for the league.

Betfred Super League on Sky Sports

Sky Sports and the Super League agreed to a new deal prior to the 2024 campaign, extending their partnership beyond 30 years.

However, this new deal represented Sky’s ongoing passion for showcasing the top rugby league in England by showing all six matches of each round during the regular season live - totalling 170 games each year across Sky Sports channels and platforms.

This will also extend to all special event rounds, such as Magic Weekend fixtures, as well as the playoffs and all three Grand Finals (Men’s, Women’s and Wheelchair).

In addition to live action, Betfred Super League fans can also tune into Sky Sports’ range of supporting programming, such as interviews and features with players and coaches and the latest news around the league. This can be found on the Sky Sports channels on TV, on social media or on SkySports.com.

If you’re a rugby league fan interested in watching the remainder of this year’s playoffs as well as as much action as you’d like for next season, be sure to get yourself sorted with a Sky Sports deal now. 

If you’re already a Sky TV customer, you can get Sky Sports added to your existing package, with options of a 31-day rolling contract or a standard 24-month contract available to you.

Betfred Super League on BBC Sport

Last February, shortly before the start of the 2024 season, BBC Sport announced a three-year deal that saw them supplant Channel 4 as the league’s free-to-air partner.

BBC have committed to showing several games of the regular season plus playoff matches during their initial three year deal. This games will be free to watch live on one of BBC’s TV channels (likely BBC Two) as well as on BBC iPlayer.

2025 Betfred Super League: Dates

The 2025 Betfred Super League season will begin on Thursday 13th February, with the first game of the new season being contested between Leigh Leopards and the defending champions Wigan Warriors.

The remaining fixtures in round one sees Hull KR host Castleford Tiger, while the league’s only non-British side Catalans Dragons will welcome Hull FC, with both games coming on Friday 14th.

Saturday 15th will see Leeds Rhinos welcome Wakefield Trinity, and St Helens hosting Salford Red Devils.

Finally, round one will conclude on Sunday 16th with Huddersfield Giants taking on Warrington Wolves.

As has been the way since the 2022 season, there will be 27 rounds of the regular season followed by the three weeks of playoffs.

Here is the full list of dates for each round:

• Round 1: 13th - 16th February
• Round 2: 20th - 23rd February
• Round 3: 27th February - 2nd March
• Round 4: 6th - 9th March
• Round 5: 20th - 23rd March
• Round 6: 27th - 30th March
• Round 7: 10th - 13th April
• Round 8: 17th - 19th April
• Round 9: 24th - 27th April
• Round 10: 3rd & 4th May
• Round 11: 15th - 18th May
• Round 12: 22nd - 25th May
• Round 13: 29th May - 1st June
• Round 14: 13th - 15th June
• Round 15: 19th - 22nd June
• Round 16: 27th - 29th June
• Round 17: 3rd - 6th July
• Round 18: 10th - 13th July
• Round 19: 17th - 20th July
• Round 20: 24th July - 1st August
• Round 21: 7th - 10th August
• Round 22: 14th - 17th August
• Round 23: 21st - 24th August
• Round 24: 28th - 31st August
• Round 25: 4th - 7th September
• Round 26: 11th - 14th September
• Round 27: TBC

Rivals Round

As per usual, the most competitive weekend of the season, Rivals Round, will be coming during the Easter Weekend, which will be Round 8 of the season.

The matchups for Rivals Round are as followed:

Thursday 17th April

Wakefield Trinity vs Castleford Tigers

Friday 18th April

Hull FC v Hull KR 

Wigan Warriors v St Helens 

Leeds Rhinos v Huddersfield Giants

Saturday 19th April

Leigh Leopards v Warrington Wolves

Catalans Dragons v Salford Red Devils

Magic Weekend

This year, one of the fans’ favourite weeks of the season, Magic Weekend, will be coming much earlier than last year.

St James’ Park in Newcastle will be ready to host all 12 teams for Magic Weekend during Round 10.

Here are the matchups for Magic Weekend:

Saturday 3rd May

Leigh Leopards v Catalans Dragons

Hull KR v Salford Red Devils

St Helens v Leeds Rhinos

Sunday 4th May

Huddersfield Giants v Hull FC

Wigan Warriors v Warrington Wolves

Castleford Tigers v Wakefield Trinity

Super League in Las Vegas

History will be made this season as for the first time in the Super League’s existence, a game will be played in America as Wigan Warriors will act as the designated hosts and welcome Warrington Wolves to their temporary home of the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Saturday 1st March, which places the game during Round 3.

‘Split’ Round 20

The official midseason international break is no more for this season, but all 12 teams will still be receiving a week's break during Round 20 due thanks to the new ‘Split’ gameweek.

The ‘Split’ round will see six teams play one weekend, then the remaining six playing the next weekend. This games will take place 

Here are the fixtures for ‘Split’ Round 20:

Week 1

Thursday 24th July 

Wakefield Trinity v Leeds Rhinos

Friday 25th July

Wigan Warriors v Catalans Dragons

Saturday 26th July

Hull FC v Huddersfield Giants

Week 2

Thursday 31st July

Salford Red Devils v Hull KR

Friday 1st August

Leigh Leopards v Warrington Wolves

St Helens v Castleford Tigers

Challenge Cup Final

Credit: Highlights | Warrington Wolves v Wigan Warriors | 2024 Betfred Challenge Cup Final (Rugby League, YouTube)

The 2025 Challenge Cup is underway, having started with the first round in January. 11 of the 12 Super League teams are still in the competition, with only Castlefield not advancing to the next round.

Next up will be the fourth round, with the draw set to take place on Saturday 15th February during half time of the Super League Round 1 match between St Helens and Salford Red Devils.

The Challenge Cup Final will take place at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 8th June.

Regular Season finale

The final round of the regular season is yet to be fully set in stone. The matchups have been decided, but the powers above have not decided if all six matches will be played on one day or spread out across the weekend like the other rounds.

The matches for the regular season-ending Round 27 are:

• Hull KR vs Warrington Wolves
• St Helens vs Castleford Tigers
• Leigh Leopards vs Huddersfield Giants
• Salford Red Devils vs Wakefield Trinity
• Hull FC vs Catalans Dragons
• Wigan Warriors vs Leeds Rhinos

2025 Betfred Super League: Table

After each week of play, this table will be updated to reflect the new standings.

2025 Betfred Super League: Playoffs

As always, the regular season will be followed by the playoffs, where the top six sides in the table will go through to the post-season and battle it out to be crowned champion in the Grand Final.

The format remains the same, with the top two teams in the league receiving a bye week in the first weekend of the playoffs, while the remaining four teams will play in the Eliminators.

The playoffs are a single-tie elimination game, so every team will want to be at their best on their day.

Eliminators

The Eliminators is the first round of the playoffs, where the teams who finish 3rd-6th will get the chance to advance to the semi-finals. The games will be decided with 3rd place playing 6th place, and 4th playing 5th. 

For the 2025 season, the Eliminators will take place on 27th and 28th September.

Semi-finals

The winners of the two Eliminators games will go through to the semi-finals, where they will meet the two teams who finished 1st and 2nd in the league.

The semi-finals will take place on the 4th and 5th October.

2025 Betfred Super League: Grand Final

Credit: Warriors complete QUADRUPLE 🏆 | Wigan Warriors 9-2 Hull KR | Super League Grand Final Highlights (Sky Sports, YouTube)

After 27 rounds plus two rounds of the playoffs, two teams will be left to battle it out in the Grand Final.

Taking place at Old Trafford in Manchester on 11th October, the Grand Final will crown the champion of the 2025 season.

2025 Betfred Super League: Rule changes

There are several new rules changes being introduced for the 2025 season, including systems that some feel are long overdue for the league.

Captain Challenge

The first of which is the Captain’s Challenge. You may know it from its use in the Australian leagues plus in the latest edition of the World Cup, but for those who don’t know how it works, simply put the Captain’s Challenge is a process that allows teams to contest a ruling made by the referee.

After a stoppage in play that resulted from an intervention by the referee, a team’s captain has 10 seconds to decide if they want to challenge the decision. If they do choose to challenge, the incident is then referred to the video referee for a second opinion, who will watch the replays and make their own ruling on the incident.

A Captain’s Challenge doesn’t apply to every referee intervention, mind you. Things like deliberate forward passes, scrum penalties and general dissent cannot be challenged. Both teams have one unsuccessful challenge per game, so the captain must think carefully before deciding to contest a decision.

Green Card

Also being adopted for this season is a change to the green card system, which now applies to both attacking and defending players, where previously it had only applied to defending players since its introduction in 2022.

If you’re unfamiliar with how a green card works, it is a system to deter time wasting. When a player is treated for an injury, the referee will produce the green card, which indicates that the player must leave the field for two minutes before being allowed back on.

Offside Penalties

Then there’s a change to the way offside penalties are awarded. Adding a layer of complexity to them, the referee and video referee will have to confer to differentiate between active and passive players.

An active player is one who has influence on the course of a play/the game, while a passive one is a player who does not fall under that umbrella. 

Drop-Outs

There are two new variants of drop-outs being introduced.

If a team kicks a drop-out on the full over the touchline or kicks a drop-out so that it fails to travel at least 10 metres forward in the field of play, play will restart with a play the ball 10 metres out from the centre of the goal line rather than a penalty kick from the centre of the 10-metre line.

If a team takes a 20-metre drop-out and it travels on the full over the touchline or kicks a 20m drop-out so that it fails to travel at least 10 metres forward in the field of play, play will restart with a play the ball from the centre of the 20-metre line, rather than a penalty kick from the centre of the 20-metre line.

Betfred Super League: Winners

The reigning Betfred Super League champions is Wigan Warriors, who won their 7th Super League title, making it 24 First Division titles in total. They succesfully defended their championship from 2023, marking just the fourth time a team has won consecutive championships.

More impressively, Wigan made history in 2024 by becoming the first team to achieve the Quadruple in the Super League era, winning all four pieces of silverware available to a Super League team in a season (World Club Challenge, League Leaders Shield, Challenge Cup & Super League Grand Final). 

Past 10 winners

2024: Wigan Warriors

2023: Wigan Warriors

2022: St Helens

2021: St Helens

2020: St Helens

2019: St Helens

2018: Wigan Warriors

2017: Leeds Rhinos

2016: Wigan Warriors

2015: Leeds Rhinos

All-time records

Team

Most Betfred Super League titles: 10 – St Helens

Most consecutive Betfred Super League titles: 4 – St Helens (2019-2022)

Most Grand Final appearances: 13 – St Helens & Wigan Warriors

Most points scored in a season: 1152 – Leeds Rhinos (2005)

Biggest home win: 96-16 – Bradford Bulls vs Salford City Reds (25th June 2000)

Biggest away win: 6-84 – Hull Kingston Rovers vs Wigan Warriors (1st April 2013)

Player

Most Betfred Super League games: 495 – James Roby (St Helens, 2003-2014)

Most Betfred Super League titles: 9 – Jamie Peacock (3x Bradford, 6x Leeds)

Most Betfred Super League tries scored: 295 – Ryan Hall (2001-2024)

Most Betfred Super League points scored: 3447 – Kevin Sinfield (1997-2014)