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The 19th Super League season will begin next month with orthodox title sponsors for the first time in two years, boosting attempts to relaunch the flagship competition after months of uncertainty and turmoil.
The Rugby Football League was unable to find replacement sponsors for the 2013 season after an unusual deal finalised the previous year with Stobart, involving advertising on lorries but no hard cash –and therefore unpopular from the start with a significant minority of clubs – ran out of steam in less than 12 months.
That added to the growing dissatisfaction with the licensing system that had been introduced in 2010 in place of promotion and relegation, especially as all 14 clubs struggled with the effects of the recession. Hopes that the clubs, and the governing body, would be able to build on the success of last autumn's World Cup were in danger of being scuppered as squabbling continued through the winter over proposals for a restructuring of the competition, under which promotion and relegation would be reintroduced between two 12-team divisions.
However, at a meeting last Friday the rebel clubs – led by Wigan, the champions – agreed to shelve their considerable reservations about the new divisional structure, which involves those two divisions being reorganised into three at a late stage of the season, in the interests of presenting a united front.
That unity will begin to pay dividends with the announcement on Tuesday of new backers, believed to be a utilities firm, little more than a fortnight before Wigan launch their title defence against Huddersfield on 7 February.
Nigel Wood, the RFL's chief executive, and his deputy, Ralph Rimmer, also fleshed out some of the details of the new structure at a media briefing in Leeds on Monday, confirming that in addition to having a clearer path into the Super League, clubs outside the elite will receive a greater share of the game's central funds, which throughout the Super League era have been generated mostly from the television contract with Sky.
As things stand clubs in the Championship receive only around £90,000 per year compared to funding for the Super League clubs of more than £1m, and Rimmer said: "At the moment there is a funding ratio of 12 to one and, if that can be changed to a two-one ratio, we will have a more competitive structure."
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