BT Sport has confirmed its live TV picks for the opening rounds of the brand new Premiership Rugby Cup.
Featuring all 12 Gallagher Premiership Rugby club and with total prize money of more than half a million pounds, the Premiership Rugby Cup replaces the Anglo Welsh Cup and will be played over four pool rounds, including the new Derby Day weekend, semi-finals and final.
It will comprise three pools of four teams each and will kick off with the first three pool rounds starting on the last weekend of October and the last round in the New Year.
The first weekend of the new tournament sees two matches live on BT Sport with Saracens hosting Leicester Tigers on Saturday, 27 October, and Exeter Chiefs making the trip to Newcastle Falcons the next day.
A further four matches across the next two rounds will also be televised live on BT Sport, with TV picks for the New Year round, which will feature Derby Day clashes for the 12 teams, to be confirmed after the conclusion of the third round of fixtures.
Following the pool stages, both semi-finals and the final will be broadcast exclusively live on BT Sport.
Commenting on the new competition, Premiership Rugby Chief Executive, Mark McCafferty, said:
“The Cup has been a highly successful competition in recent years in helping develop the best new Premiership and England players, in front of big crowds and TV audiences.
“Many Test players including Owen Farrell, George Ford and Maro Itoje all made their senior debuts in the previous Anglo-Welsh Cup and some of the most recent Breakthrough Players of the Year have been Jack Nowell, Jonny May and Adam Radwan.
“This focus on new playing and coaching talent will continue in the new Cup format with young players and coaches experiencing the challenge of bigger crowds and TV exposure.
“An audience of more than 1.3m watched live coverage of the Cup on BT Sport last season, a 37% increase year on year. This competition is fundamental to developing young players for Gallagher Premiership Rugby and European action in front of big crowds at matches with a more intense atmosphere.”
The Premiership Rugby Cup forms part of huge line-up of live rugby union on BT Sport, which is also now the exclusive pay-TV home of every European Rugby Champions Cup match.
It will be be showing more than 80 live Gallagher Premiership matches throughout the campaign, including 28 live matches across the first nine rounds of the season.
Free-to-air highlights of the new Premiership Rugby Cup will be shown throughout the season on Monday nights on Channel 5.
For more information about BT Sport’s rugby union coverage, visit btsport.com/rugbyunion.
SATURDAY 27th OCTOBER
Saracens v Leicester Tigers
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15:00 |
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SUNDAY 28th OCTOBER
Newcastle Falcons v Exeter Chiefs
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15:00 |
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FRIDAY 2nd NOVEMBER
Bristol Bears v Gloucester
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19:45 |
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SUNDAY 4th NOVEMBER
Harlequins v Newcastle Falcons
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15:00 |
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FRIDAY 9th NOVEMBER
Gloucester v Northampton Saints
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19:45 |
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SUNDAY 11th NOVEMBER
Wasps v Bristol Bears
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15:00 |
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