Betfred Championship 2018 | |
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League | Championship |
Duration | 23 rounds (followed by a league split into Super 8's for 7 more fixtures) |
Teams | 12 |
Highest attendance | 38,881 ![]() |
Lowest attendance | 312 ![]() ![]() |
Broadcast partners | Sky Sports and Premier Sports for Toronto Games |
2018 season | |
Biggest home win |
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Biggest away win |
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The 2018 Rugby Football League Championship will be a rugby league football competition primarily played in the UK, one tier below the first tier Super League. The 2018 season is the fourth to consist of a new structure combining the championship and super league divisions three quarters of the way through the season.
The 2018 Championship features 12 teams, which all play one another twice in the regular season, once at home, and once away, totalling 22 games. The 2018 season also features the "Summer Bash Weekend" for a fourth time. This is a 23rd round of fixtures which replicates Super League's Magic Weekend concept for the Championship sides. After these 23 rounds in both the Championship and the Super League, the two divisions of twelve are split into three divisions of eight, the "Super 8's".
New sponsors for the league were announced in January 2018 and the league will be known as the Betfred Championship until the end of 2019 as the bookmakers, Betfred, extended their sponsorship of rugby league to include the Championship and League 1 as well as Super League.
This year's competition featured 12 teams. The teams consisted of nine of the 12 teams from 2017, the champions of the 2017 League One season, the Toronto Wolfpack, and the champion of the League One playoffs, Barrow Raiders. Bradford Bulls and Oldham, the two bottom placed teams in the 2017 season, were relegated to League One, while Hull Kingston Rovers were promoted back to Super League after just one season in the Championship.