1996 Super League season
rugby competition
The Stones Bitter Super League I was the official name for 1996's 102nd season of top-level rugby league football, and the first year of Europe's new championship: Super League. It is also the first season of rugby league to be played in summer. The competition featured all eleven teams from the 1995-96 RFL First Division plus one expansion club, Paris Saint-Germain.
Teams
Twelve teams were selected to play in the inaugural Super League season.
D*-League and Cup winners
Formation
Original plan
Although RFL chairman Maurice Lindsay had pushed for a more modern top-flight setup for some time, his previous efforts had only resulted in a tepid reform during the 1994 offseason. The more radical Super League came together over just ninety-six hours in early April 1995, following overtures by emissaries of Australian media conglomerate News Ltd., who were looking for international partners to sway the battle for the control of Australian rugby league in their favour. The first rumours transpiring from the talks mentioned a 1997 start. News' plan entailed moving the RFL season to summer to align it with the southern hemisphere, to which St Helens and Leeds were said to be the most reticent. In particular, Leeds feared scheduling conflicts with the Yorkshire County Cricket Club, but they were quickly won over by the financial opportunities promised by the Murdoch deal.
The English game's new era officially began on 8 April 1995, when RFL clubs voted to approve the £77 million package negotiated with News to help the transition.
The public source identifies “1996 Super League season” as rugby competition. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Super, League and season.
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This entry incorporates text from “1996 Super League season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.