Inside the fixture factory: How Super League’s 2025 schedule was created
Wigan Warriors captain Liam Farrell lifts the Super League trophy at Old Trafford in 2024 after their Grand Final triumph against Hull KR
It is a date in the calendar which attracts interest more than many others: but Super League’s fixture release day is a moment literally months in the making.
All 12 clubs have confirmed their order of who they will play and when for the 2025 season, with the road to Old Trafford at the end of next year now officially in view.
But it is one of the most complex and detailed processes in sport, and this year’s fixtures are something that has taken months to put together, going all the way back to this summer, when the 2024 Super League season was still in full swing.
Love Rugby League was invited behind the scenes this week to learn more about how the fixtures are put together, the challenges the organisers face and why 2025 is the most detailed and nuanced version of fixtures yet, with literally nothing left to chance.
Months in the making
The process begins every year in around August – when clubs are invited to put forward two things. One is their preferred day for home games, the other are any bonafide, guaranteed clashes in terms of their stadium. By this point, the football season has begun so clubs know at least for the first half of the year whether their stadium is available until May.
There are other examples, too. St Helens, for example, would always look to play away from home on Grand National weekend – though this year, the meet at Aintree falls on Challenge Cup quarter-final weekend. Leeds share a stadium with Yorkshire CCC, and would likely look to avoid playing home games when big T20 Blast fixtures are scheduled.
Throw in the fact that an increasing number of clubs now host concerts through the summer months, and pitch renovations are often planned during the football off-season, and you instantly have a calendar which has plenty of holes to fill.
This year, as many as eight clubs indicated their preferred slot for home games was Friday 8pm: Sky and RL Commercial have committed to there being no more than two Friday 8pm games each and every week so as to spread the fixtures out more. So again, another problem.
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‘Starting with a bang’
Once clubs have sent back their requests, the work begins for real. RL Commercial use a super computer fixtures service in Canada which also does a similar service for huge competitions like the NBA and Major League Baseball.
Every club request is worked through to ensure nothing is missed, and once a model is sent back, it is worked through meticulously by staff at RL Commercial. It’s almost guaranteed a late request will come in for a change, or something will need tweaking before it is even sent to clubs. This year, five draft versions were scrapped before a sixth was settled upon to send to clubs.
And this year, there were some key changes. There was a commitment to starting the season with a bang – and a Grand Final rematch between Wigan and Hull KR was considered. However, in order to ensure loop fixtures are spaced across the season, it was decided every club would play a loop game in the opening two rounds.
Wigan versus Hull KR is not a loop fixture: but Wigan versus Leigh is. That was what led the decision towards it being picked for Round One – not to mention the fact Sky had stressed they were keen for as many narratives and stories as possible in the opening fortnight.
Attacking Rounds 5 and 25
Every club was also guaranteed a home game in the opening two rounds, as is traditional. Some other big milestones the fixtures were based around this year were Rivals Round, plus two rounds which sound random at first glance, but have real meaning attached to them.
If you skim across the fixtures for Rounds 5 and 25, you’ll see some big games. St Helens v Wigan is on there. A Hull derby is also there, as is Castleford-Wakefield. Round 25 has St Helens v Warrington and Leeds v Wigan. Why? Because those rounds fall on the international breaks in football.
It’s a fallow period for coverage on Sky, with the broadcaster not having the rights for international football. So they can go bigger with their coverage and allocate more time to rugby league. If there’s huge games with major ramifications, that makes it all the better. So those two rounds were put together deliberately.
The clubs received version six of the fixtures last Wednesday, and had until Friday last week to flag inaccuracies or things that needed changing as a matter of urgency. But even as recently as Wednesday – the day before release – there were dramas.
One club, who shares with a football team, had to move a game from a Saturday to a Sunday due to a request from the host football club.
Another club requested to play Catalans away at a very specific round due to an external matter related to their club. These are all unseen and previously unheard challenges the fixture compilers have to make work.
How Sky and BBC pick games
Which brings us to broadcasters, and the spread of the fixtures across the weekend. After all clubs are satisfied – or at least content – with their fixture line-up and order, the work begins in regards to broadcast picks.
Sky Sports get to decide which two games they feel are the most appealing. The best game, in their opinion, gets the Friday 8pm slot and the next best goes on Thursday nights at 8pm. 23 out of the first 26 rounds will have a Thursday game this year, a change from recent years when it looked as though the time-slot was fading out.
But Sky are keen to make a big deal of it, and despite clubs not being a huge fan of it, Sky do effectively call the shots: so it is back, bigger and better than ever in 2025.
The Thursday game has been allocated all the way through the season already, so as to minimise disruption for clubs and supporters in regards to late fixture changes. Sky have confirmed their broadcast picks through to Round 15: as have the BBC.
They get third pick on the rounds they are showing a game. This year, ten regular-season games will be shown on the Beeb, as well as a further five on the iPlayer. They are across Saturdays and Sundays but again, have been locked in from the start so everyone knows what they are doing and when months in advance.
And when the broadcast picks are selected, and the clubs are satisfied their requests have been heard, the fixtures are distributed.
It’s taken well over three months – and like with most things in rugby league, some people will remain upset at how it’s all turned out.
But it’s an arduous task: that is for sure.
FIXTURE RELEASE DAY ON LRL
👉🏻 Super League fixtures 2025: Every confirmed broadcast pick on BBC and Sky Sports
👉🏻 Super League’s Thursday night priority explained as Sky influence outlined
👉🏻 Ranking every Super League team’s start to 2025 from easiest to toughest
