Premiership Rugby

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 fixtures 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 e.g.1980- 81 Rugby Union County Championship. 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.

In 1972 the RFU sanctioned a national knock-out cup – the RFU Club Competition, the predecessor to the Anglo-Welsh Cup – followed first by regional merit tables and then, in the mid-1980s, by national merit tables. One of the casualties of the move to competitive leagues was the loss of some traditional games as the new fixture lists didn't allow time for all of them.

The league system has evolved since its start in 1987 when the Courage Leagues were formed – a league pyramid with roughly 1,000 clubs playing in 108 leagues, each with promotion and relegation.

In the first season, clubs were expected to arrange the fixtures on mutually convenient dates. The clubs involved were Bath, Bristol, Coventry, Gloucester, Harlequins, Leicester, Moseley, Nottingham, Orrell, Sale, Wasps and Waterloo. That first season was an unqualified success, with clubs in the upper echelons of the national leagues reporting increased crowds, interest from both local backers and national companies, and higher skill levels among players exposed to regular competition. The fears that leagues would lead to greater violence on the field proved largely unfounded.

By the next season, the RFU allocated fixed Saturdays to the league season, removing the clubs' responsibility for scheduling matches. There was no home and away structure to the leagues in those early seasons, as sides played one another only once.

Initially two teams, Bath and Leicester, proved to be head and shoulders above the rest in the Courage League, and between them dominated the top of the table.

In 1994, the league structure expanded to include a full rota of home and away matches for the first time. The 1994–95 season was the first to be shown live on Sky Sports, a relationship which continued until the 2013–14 season when BT Sport acquired the exclusive rights in a deal which is currently scheduled to end after the 2023–24 season.

The league turned professional for the 1996–97 season when the first winners were 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.

The start of the 2000–01 season brought with it a re-vamping of the season structure. In 2000–2001 an 8-team playoff (the Championship) was introduced. However, the team finishing top of the table at the end of the regular season was still considered English champions ("Premiership title").

Halfway through the 2001–02 season, with Leicester odds-on to win their fourth title in succession, it was controversially decided that the winners of the 8-team playoff would be crowned English champions. There was an outcry from fans and this proposal was dropped.

From the beginning of the 2002–03 season, a new playoff format was introduced to replace the 8-team Championship. The format required the first-placed team in the league to play the winner of a match between the second- and third-placed teams. Critically, the winner of this game (the Premiership Final) would be recognised as English champions. Although Gloucester won the league by a clear margin, they then faced a three-week wait until the final. Having lost their momentum, they were beaten by second-placed Wasps (who had defeated third-placed Northampton) in the play-offs. The playoff structure was reformatted in the 2005–06 season in which the first-placed team would play the fourth placed team in a semi-final (a Shaughnessy playoff).

Since the implementation of the playoff system, only six teams have won both the regular season and playoffs in the same year: Leicester twice in 2000–01 (the first year of the playoffs), 2008–09, 2009–10 and 2021–22 Sale Sharks in 2005–06, Harlequins in 2011–12, Saracens in 2015–16, Exeter in 2019–20, and Northampton Saints in 2023–24

Of all the Premiership teams, Wasps have made a reputation for playing the competition format to perfection, peaking at the right time to be crowned English Champions in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2008. Wasps did not lead the league standings at the end of the season in any of these years. Conversely, Gloucester have garnered an unfortunate reputation for leading the table at the end of the regular season, only to fall short of winning the Premiership title, losing finals in 2003, 2007, and 2008. Gloucester's single victory in the playoffs, in 2002, occurred when league leaders Leicester were still considered English champions, meaning Gloucester's Championship victory was considered secondary.

The 2011–12 season saw Harlequins add their name to the trophy on their first attempt, winning 30–23 against the nine-times champions Leicester. Leicester would have to wait until 2012–13 for their 10th championship, where they defeated Northampton in the final.

The 2013–14 Aviva Premiership season saw Northampton become the 8th different team to win the trophy. This was achieved when they defeated Leicester Tigers in the semi-final 21–20, thus denying Leicester a 10th Consecutive Final. In the final, they defeated Saracens 20–24 with a try in the last minute of extra time to win the 2013–14 Aviva Premiership.

With the future of the Heineken Cup uncertain beyond 2013–14, due to a row between England's Premiership Rugby Limited and France's LNR on one side and the sport's governing bodies on the other, Premiership Rugby Limited explored several moves toward expanding its brand into the United States. In May 2013, Premiership Rugby Limited and U.S.-based RugbyLaw entered into a plan by which the two organisations were to help back a proposed U.S. professional league that could have begun play as early as 2014. The first phase of the plan was to involve two preseason exhibitions featuring an "American Barbarians" side that would combine international veterans and young American talent. The "Barbarians" were intended to play matches in August 2013 in the U.S. and London, but those plans fell through, and the matches were indefinitely delayed.

In August 2013, Peter Tom, the chairman of Leicester Tigers, confirmed that discussions had taken place within Premiership Rugby Limited about the possibility of hosting selected Premiership matches in the US. The first match played in the USA was on 12 March 2016 when London Irish were defeated by Saracens at the Red Bull Arena in the New York Metropolitan Area. This match was intended to be the first of a three-year deal which would have seen London Irish play one home match each season in the US, but their relegation from the Premiership at the end of the 2015–16 season scuttled that plan. A new deal was reached with American sports marketing company AEG in 2017 which was intended to see at least one Premiership match taken to the US for four seasons starting in 2017–18. The first match under the new deal was held on 16 September 2017, with Newcastle Falcons taking their home fixture against Saracens to the Talen Energy Stadium in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, Pennsylvania. In 2018–19, although no match was scheduled to take place in the US, the round 6 match between Saracens and Harlequins was the first broadcast on network television in the US of a Premiership Rugby game. The game was shown live on NBC. In 2019–20, and 2020–21 once again no matches were scheduled to take place in the US.

2018 also saw a revamp of the league's secondary competition with the launch of the Premiership Rugby Shield.

In December 2018, it was announced that the Luxembourg based investment advisory firm CVC Capital Partners had bought a 27% stake in Premiership Rugby in a deal worth £200m. A previous offer to purchase a 51% majority share was rejected. The money from the investment was planned to be used to improve facilities at clubs and grow the game globally.

In March 2019, allegations emerged that Saracens may have broken the league's salary cap. In June, Premiership Rugby announced that they would investigate the allegations. In November 2019, Saracens were found to have been in breach of the salary cap regulations due to failure to disclose player payments in the 2016–17, 2017–18 and 2018–19 seasons, which would have taken them over the senior player cap. They were handed a 35-point deduction for the 2019–20 season and fined £5.3 million. The judgement found that Saracens had been reckless in entering into the arrangements with players without disclosing them to Premiership Rugby.

On 18 January 2020, Premiership Rugby announced that Saracens would be relegated to the RFU Championship for the 2020–21 season. Premiership Rugby CEO Darren Childs said this punishment was due to Saracens lack of cooperation in a mid-season audit to prove compliance in the 2019–20 season.

On 23 January 2020, Lord Dyson's full report into Saracens' spending was published, it revealed that Saracens had overspent the salary cap by £1.1m in 2016–17, £98,000 in 2017-18 and £906,000 in 2018–19. These included £923,947.63 of property investments between Nigel Wray and three unnamed Saracens players. It also included Saracens claim that the Salary Cap was unenforceable under competition law, this defence was rejected. On 28 January 2020, Premiership Rugby applied a further 70 point deduction for the 2019–20 season to ensure Saracens would finish bottom of the league table.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted all elite sports in England in spring 2020. The RFU initially suspended both the Premiership and Championship before eventually cancelling the Championship season. Newcastle Falcons, who topped the Championship table at the time of the season's premature end were promoted based on their playing record and would replace Saracens in the Premiership the following season.

The 2019–20 Premiership Rugby season recommenced on 14 August and the final was held 24 October 2020.

The disruption of the 2019–20 season meant the 2020–21 season commenced 10 weeks late on 20 November 2020 and ran over a reduced timeframe of 32 weeks (down from 42).

The financial impact of the pandemic also caused the salary cap to be temporarily reduced for a maximum of 3 seasons from the 2021–22 season.

A moratorium on relegation was also approved in February 2021, meaning no teams would be relegated as a potential consequence of another team receiving more points due to games cancelled because of COVID-19. With this news it was also confirmed that the league's minimum standards criteria for promotion would be reviewed as would league structure from the 2021–22 season. The new structure extended the moratorium on relegation for a further two-years. A playoff between the top team in the Championship and the bottom team in the Premiership is also introduced in the 2023–24 season.

On 26 September 2022, Worcester Warriors went into administration and were suspended from the league. Their upcoming fixture against Gloucester on 1 October, was also cancelled. On 6 October, Worcester Warriors were suspended for the rest of the season, relegated from the premiership, and all past and future fixtures for that season expunged.

On 17 October 2022, Wasps went into administration and were suspended from the league. Their upcoming fixture against Sale Sharks on 18 October, was also cancelled. On 28 October, Wasps were suspended for the rest of the season, relegated from the premiership, and all past and future fixtures for that season expunged.

On 6 June 2023, London Irish were suspended from the Premiership after missing a deadline to pay players and staff. Irish subsequently went into administration on 7 June.

Despite ongoing financial concerns the league remained very competitive during these years and with Northampton Saints defeating Bath in the 2023–24 final, the league has produced five different winners of the competition in five years stretching back to the 2019-20 season.