BRADFORD Bulls have suffered disappointment in their IMG grading, making slight improvements on their score from this time a year ago, but only inching up from 12.02 to 12.15.

It leaves them down in 16th place out of the 33 professional clubs who have submitted a score, with Batley and Whitehaven having not returned all their data yet.

They have been overtaken in the rankings by London Broncos and York, and have fallen well short of the score above 13 they were hoping for.

Their old and tired Odsal Stadium is badly hampering their ranking, scoring a dreadful 0.7811 out of a possible three points.

Clubs need to have a ranking among the top 12 to be in Super League for 2025, with Bulls falling well short, despite provisionally being less than half a point off this time last year.

Salford are the 12th and final team to make up next year’s top flight with a grading of 13.97, well ahead of Bulls’ score.

Hull FC (14.51) and Huddersfield (14.48) are the other two sides with a Grade B score (between eight and 15) that will play in Super league next season.

St Helens, Wigan, Leeds, Warrington, Hull KR, Catalans, Leigh, Wakefield and Castleford, in that order, all have Grade A status now, which is a marker that guarantees Super League status.

In terms of the breakdown, Bulls have gone up in two areas, down in one and stayed the same in two.

That is as follows:

Fandom - 4.2 out of 5 (up from 3.95 in 2023, an increase of 0.25)

Performance - 2.17.14 out of 5 (up from 2.17 in 2023, an increase of 0.0014)

Finance - 2.75 out of 4.5 (no change from 2023)

Stadium - 0.7811 out of 3 (down from 0.894 in 2023, a decrease of 0.1129)

Community - 2.25 out of 2.5 (no change from 2023)

Bulls CEO Jason Hirst will be holding a sit-down interview at Odsal with the T&A this afternoon, where the IMG score will be discussed.

Other topics will include head coach Eamon O’Carroll’s departure from the club last week, as well the play-off semi-final defeat to Toulouse, season ticket sales and the decision to move next year’s summer home games to Friday night.