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Figures released on Friday show that Super League's cumulative television audience for the first four rounds is more than 25 per cent up on 2018, with over 1.7 million viewers.

The Wigan v Leeds round two fixture attracted the biggest TV average audience so far of 250,300, while the average attendance to date of 9,185 is the highest in the last five years, although the figures do not include those of newly-promoted London Broncos.

The league say the extension of a paid-for streaming service has beamed live matches into Spain, Norway, Poland, Philippines and UAE and say statistics are proving the success of the new rules, with matches lasting on average just over 91 minutes, more than seven minutes shorter than those in 2018.

The statistics also appear to demonstrate that games are now more competitive, with the average points difference decreasing from 14.3 to 13, while there have been more offloads and quicker play-the-balls.

Super League CEO Robert Elstone said; "It's great to start 2019 with such positive news.

"We have seen some great games live on Sky Sports in the opening four rounds and these figures show Betfred Super League is off to a great start in 2019."