English Premiership Rugby - Free API

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Name
English Premiership Rugby

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Poster

Established
1987 (38 years old)

First Recorded Event
2010-09-03

Current Season
2024-2025

Sport
Sport Icon

Rugby

Location
England

Gender
Male

TV Rights
US - NBC Sports [2016-2021]

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Upcoming

21 Mar	Newcastle Fa	-	Sale Sharks	7:45pm
21 Mar	Northampton	-	Leicester Ti	7:45pm
22 Mar	Bristol Rugb	-	Exeter Chief	5:30pm
22 Mar	Saracens	-	Harlequins	3:05pm
23 Mar	Bath Rugby	-	Gloucester	3:00pm
28 Mar	Sale Sharks	-	Northampton	7:45pm
29 Mar	Bath Rugby	-	Harlequins	3:05pm
29 Mar	Exeter Chief	-	Newcastle Fa	3:00pm
29 Mar	Gloucester	-	Bristol Rugb	5:30pm
30 Mar	Leicester Ti	-	Saracens	2:00pm
Results
26 Jan	Sale Sharks	23 - 32	Bath Rugby
26 Jan	Bristol Rugb	55 - 35	Newcastle Fa
25 Jan	Gloucester	38 - 31	Leicester Ti
25 Jan	Exeter Chief	31 - 22	Saracens
24 Jan	Harlequins	22 - 19	Northampton
05 Jan	Northampton	35 - 34	Bath Rugby
04 Jan	Saracens	35 - 26	Bristol Rugb
04 Jan	Gloucester	36 - 20	Sale Sharks
04 Jan	Leicester Ti	28 - 15	Exeter Chief
03 Jan	Newcastle Fa	14 - 38	Harlequins

Description
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Premiership Rugby (officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership due to sponsorship reasons) is an English professional rugby union competition. The Premiership consists of twelve clubs, and is the top division of the English rugby union system. Premiership clubs qualify for Europe's two main club competitions, the European Rugby Champions Cup and the European Rugby Challenge Cup. The team finishing at the bottom of the Premiership each season is relegated to the second division, the RFU Championship; the winner of the Championship is promoted to the Premiership.

The competition has been played since 1987, and has evolved into the current Premiership system. The current champions are Saracens. The most recently promoted side are London Irish, who returned to the top flight in 2019.

The governing body of rugby union in England, the Rugby Football Union (RFU), long resisted leagues as it was believed that the introduction of leagues would increase 'dirty' play and put pressure on clubs to pay their players (thereby contravening the amateur ethos). Instead, clubs arranged their own friendlies and had traditional games. The only organised tournaments were the County Cups and County Championship — the former played by clubs and the latter by County representative teams. The Daily Telegraph and a few local newspapers — such as the Yorkshire Post — compiled 'pennants' based on teams' performances, but as the strength of fixture lists varied, it was at best an estimate of a team's performance throughout a season.

The league turned professional for the 1996/97 season when the first winners were London Wasps, joining Bath and Leicester as the only champions in the league's first decade. Clubs like Saracens, Newcastle and Northampton were able to attract wealthy benefactors, but the professional era also had its casualties, as clubs like West Hartlepool, Richmond and London Scottish were forced into administration when their backers pulled out.

Seasons