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The 2024 RFL Championship, (officially known as the Betfred Championship for sponsorship reasons), was a professional rugby league club competition. The second tier of the British rugby league system comprises 14 clubs – 13 from England and one from France.
The season comprised 26 rounds in the regular season with the top six teams taking part in the play-offs to determine the champions.
The title was won by Wakefield Trinity who beat Toulouse Olympique in the grand final. Wakefield also won the league leader's shield winning 25 of their 26 matches during the regular season.
Wakefield's Max Jowitt became the first player in the British game to score 500 points in a season. Going into the grand final on 494 points, Jowitt kicked the three goals he needed to reach the 500 mark.
Despite Wakefield winning the Championship, there is no automatic promotion to Super League, due to Super League status being dependent on a club's performance under the IMG grading system. However, on 22 October 2024, it was announced that Wakefield had improved their rating to a Grade A, which will now see them playing in Super League for the 2025 season.
There was no automatic promotion from the Championship to Super League at the end of the season. This was due to the introduction of the grading scheme where clubs are graded by a number of factors, not all based on on-field performance.
The Summer Bash round which saw all the fixtures played at one location over a weekend was dropped for 2024 following disappointing attendance figures for the 2022 and 2023 events which were played in Leeds and York respectively.
Following a review of the league structure below Super League, the RFL announced that by the start of the 2026 season, the Championship and League 1 would be equalised in size at 12 teams each. The first step was to reduce the Championship from 14 clubs to 13 at the end of the 2024 season. This was achieved by the bottom two clubs being relegated to League 1 but only the League 1 champions being promoted. The team finishing third-bottom in 2024 played the team winning the League 1 play-offs for the 13th spot in the 2025 Championship.
Rule changes
A number of changes were introduced for 2024.
The "six again" rule was amended so that set restarts would only be awarded if the ball was in the defending team's half of the field. Infringements in the attacking team's half would result in a penalty to the attacking team.
The use of the 18th man was allowed after two players (reduced from three) had failed head impact assessments or a player was unable to continue through injury (not just a head injury) resulting from foul play where the opposing player was sin-binned or sent-off. The use of the green card by the referee ordering injured players off the field for treatment was discontinued in the Championship.
A team awarded a penalty at a scrum had the option to reset the scrum instead of taking the penalty.
For disciplinary processes a category of "reckless tackle" was introduced.
On 26 February 2024, the RFL announced that changes would be made to the 'head on head contact' rule that was previously implemented to start the season. This came after Nu Brown of Super League club Hull FC was controversially shown a red card for a tackle during his side's match against Warrington Wolves. The RFL stated that the rule will be amended, "emphasising that it applies only to initial contact".
Clubs
Locations of English teams competing in the 2024 Championship.Locations of the 2024 RFL Championship teams in West YorkshireLocations of 2024 RFL Championship teams in France
On 13 October Swinton, the team finishing 12th in the regular season, played Hunslet, the League One play-off final winners to decide the 13th team in the 2025 Championship. Swinton lost to Hunslet and were relegated to League One for 2025.
