YORK Knights have improved on their provisional IMG grading score by almost two-and-a-half points but will remain in the Betfred Championship for 2025.

The club have been scored 12.42 points, up from 10.05 points in the provisional gradings released last autumn, their ranking going up from 17th to 15th of the 35 clubs.

They are the third-ranked Championship side behind Toulouse Olympique and London Broncos, the latter who have jumped up the rankings significantly following their return to the Betfred Super League ahead of the 2024 season.

St Helens top the rankings with 17.02 of a possible 20 points, with Wigan Warriors (16.91), Leeds Rhinos (16.84), Warrington Wolves (16.27), Hull KR (15.97), Catalans Dragons (15.09), Leigh Leopards (15.13), Wakefield Trinity (15.09) and Castleford Tigers (15.02) also awarded Grade A status.

They will be joined in Super League next season by the three highest-ranked Grade B clubs, Hull FC (14.51), Huddersfield Giants (14.48) and Salford Red Devils (13.97).

Two clubs, Batley Bulldogs and Whitehaven, have not received scores after having not yet returned all their data.

How does the grading work?

IMGโ€™s grading criteria consists of five different pillars โ€“ performance, finance, fandom, stadium and community โ€“ each of which have a different number of points on offer.

Scores for each category are combined to return an overall score, with clubs ranked from Grades A-C.

More detailed assessments show that 20 clubs have increased their score across both the finance and fandom pillars, whilst three have improved their community scores.

Performance (25 per cent, five points)

Whilst the Knights have not released their full points breakdown,ย they have received 2.2857 points for their on-field performance over the last three years after a trio of play-off finishes.

There is a bonus of 0.75 points for winning the Super League, 0.25 for the Challenge Cup, 0.25 for the Championship, 0.1 for League One and 0.1 for the 1895 Cup.

Fandom (25 per cent, five points)

The fandom pillar is split into three sub-sections: Attendance (2.5 points), Viewership (1) and Digital (1.5, 0.2 social following, 0.8 website visits, 0.5 total engagements).

Clubs averaging over 7,500 fans will receive the full 2.5 points for attendance, whilst over 3,000 will get two, over 1,500 1.5 and less than 1,500 one.

Whilst the Knights do not release their attendance figures, it is expected that they will receiveย 1.5 points.

They will likely receive 0.75 points for viewership, with only clubs receiving more than 150,000 views across televised games receiving the maximum one point.

Clubs with a digital following of over 500,000 will receive 0.2 of a point, and if they achieve more than five million engagements, they will earn 0.8 of a point. Should website figures exceed 60,000 they will get another half a point.

Points go down on a sliding scale for lower figures โ€“ clubsย with less than 10,000 followers will gain only 0.05 points.

Finance (22.5 per cent, 4.5 points)

The Finance pillar consists of Revenue Diversification (3 points), Profitability (0.5) and Sustainability (1).

Revenue Diversification is a clubโ€™s total annual turnover excluding the money given to them by the League for TV deals, whilst they have also been judged on three years of pre-tax profit.

Sustainability figures are calculated through ensuring that there is a substantial continued investment, plus the strength of assets compared to club debts.

Stadium (15 per cent, 3 points)

Stadium points are split into five differently-weighted areas โ€“ Facilities (1.5 points), Utilisation (0.5), Stadium Ownership (0.25), LED Advertising boards (0.125) and having a big screen (0.125).

The Knights are expected to have scored highly in the facilities category, with the LNER Community Stadium having a capacity of over the 5,000 minimum, as well as facilities for corporate partners and media.

Utilisation measures clubs on their attendance as a percentage of their capacity, a 50 per cent attendance will give a score of 0.5 and so on.

Community (12.5 per cent, 2.5 points)

Points are awarded on how well a club represents its local community (1.5 points), and a point for how well the club interacts with the local community.

This is measured by the population of the local area divided by the number of clubs in the area, and the annual turnover of a clubโ€™s foundation.