A full breakdown of Hull FC’s IMG score.
(Image: SW Pix)
Hull FC have secured Grade A status in IMG’s grading system ahead of the 2026 Super League season – guaranteeing their entry to the competition for a 29th consecutive year.
The Black and Whites have scored 15.06 points out of 20 from the five IMG pillars: performance, fandom, finance, stadium, and community. They are the ninth highest-scoring club out of rugby league ’s 35 professional entities – with the top 12 clubs making up Super League and a further two joining the competition as per the outcome of an independent panel on Friday.
Meanwhile, the club’s points have been allocated from criteria based on fanbase engagement, on-field performance, finances, stadium, and community reach, with all data audited by the RFL and assurance partner, Hurst.
In total, the club has increased their score by 0.55 points, going from 14.51 to 15.06 and ensuring Grade A status. As previously reported by Hull Live, they have seen increases in some key areas from league performance, stadium utilisation, social media following, and catchment, which falls under the community pillar.
Together, the four scoring increases are enough to get Hull over the line and achieve their highest IMG score to date, with the club provisionally awarded 15.05 points in 2023.
Here is a full breakdown of the club’s IMG scoring:
Fandom (4.50 out of 5.00)The club surpassed the top scoring average attendance threshold of 7,500 over the last three seasons. This earned them 2.50 points.They have given an additional 0.75 points for TV viewership – the second highest scoring threshold. They didn’t feature in the top six clubs for television viewership.They earned the full 0.2 points for social media, having hit the highest scoring threshold of over 300,000. They have achieved a 10% growth this year and now stand at 310,000.They also received a further 0.8 points for social media engagement, having recorded 55 million engagements across their social media channels this year – almost 10% of the total 585 million engagements recorded across all clubs collectively this year.They received an additional 0.25 points for website hits. This area is down from last year due to a change in the scoring threshold under this year’s grading system. Interestingly, Hull actually got more website hits than they did last year.Performance (3.0857 out of 5.00)As first reported by Hull Live last week, Hull have jumped two places on the league performance table, which is based on the last three seasons. They have gone from 11th to 9th, with a seventh-place finish this year added to 11th and 10th-place finishes in 2024 and 2023. That brings a points increase of 0.2206.Finance (3.25 out of 4.50)The 2025 finance pillar is calculated over the period from 2022 to 2024. The club scored the last as they did in 2024. The club achieved top threshold scores of 2.25 points for non-centralised turnover (£) and 0.75 points for non-centralised turnover (%), while also receiving 0.25 points for adjusted profit.Interestingly, the club will increase points on this pillar next year, should the gradings still be in effect, with the investment from Andrew Thirkill and David Hood taken into account.Stadium (1.9765 out of 3.00)The club received the all-or-nothing score of 1.50 points for stadium facilities, with the MKM Stadium continuing to display all of the required facilities under the stadium pillar.They scored 0.125 points for their LED boards but did not receive any points for the stadium big screens due to the screens’ pixel pitch dimensions not meeting the set criteria.They received 0.35 points for stadium utilisation, with the score calculated on how full the MKM Stadium has been over a three-year period. This has grown thanks to an increased average attendance for 2025.The club scored no points for ‘primacy of tenure’ due to not owning the MKM Stadium. The metric is worth 0.25 points.Community (2.25 out of 2.50)The club has achieved the second-highest score of 0.75 points for their Community Foundation, having achieved an average annual turnover over the past three seasons of more than £250,000.They have achieved their biggest score increase under catchment, with the score determined by the population within the club’s local authority and divided by the number of clubs within that area. Therefore, the club’s catchment score, as per the most recent census in 2021, is 133,500. This would see the club achieve the second highest score of 1.00 point. However, the club has signed a Rugby League Development Agreement with North Lincolnshire Council – this allows the club to add the population of the North Lincolnshire local authority to that of the club’s own authority area. This takes the club’s catchment figure to 303,000 – this is above the highest scoring threshold of 260,000, and the club achieves the maximum 1.5 points – a 0.5 point increase.