Premiership Rugby Cup 2023: How to watch, schedule, TV channel, groups, fixtures, who is playing

The Premiership Rugby Cup returns for the 2023-24 season on Friday, September 8, albeit with a slightly changed format.

This year the 12 Championship teams will join their 10 Premiership counterparts in the competition, meaning 22 sides will take part. As a result, there have been a few tweaks to the competition format.

The 22 teams have been split into four pools – two of six sides and two of five – based on their rankings at the end of the 2022-23 season.

Teams in the pools of five will play one cross-pool fixture each as well as the sides in their own group.

The winner of each pool will progress to the single-tie semi-finals, played at the home of the highest-ranked teams. The final will take place at the home of the highest-ranked finalist, although the date has not yet been confirmed.

Here’s all you need to know about the 2023-24 Premiership Rugby Cup.

The 2023-24 Premiership Rugby Cup gets started on Friday, September 8.

Cornish Pirates will face Bath and Doncaster Knights will take on Cambridge on opening night, both at 7:30pm BST

TNT Sports has the broadcast rights for the following Premiership Rugby Cup matches:

• Round 1 – Sunday, September 10, 1pm – Ealing Trailfinders v Northampton Saints
• Round 2 – Saturday, September 16, 1pm – Bath v Jersey Reds
• Round 3 – Friday, September 22, 7.45pm – Gloucester v Harlequins
• Round 4 – Sunday, October 1, 2.30pm – Harlequins v Saracens
• Round 5 – Sunday, October 8, 2pm – To be picked after the first two rounds

TNT Sports is available across all major TV platforms, offering a line-up of up to four TV channels (TNT Sports 1, TNT Sports 2, TNT Sports 3, TNT Sports 4), and up to six digital or red-button channels (TNT Sports 5 to 10), and TNT Sports Ultimate plus TNT Sports Box Office HD.

These are the four pools of teams battling it out for a place in the semi-finals:

Pool A: Saracens, Harlequins, Gloucester Rugby, Coventry, Hartpury University, Nottingham

Pool B: Sale Sharks, Leicester Tigers, Newcastle Falcons, Bedford Blues, Ampthill, Caldy

Pool C: Exeter Chiefs, Bath Rugby, Jersey Reds, Cornish Pirates, London Scottish

Pool D: Northampton Saints, Bristol Bears, Ealing Trailfinders, Doncaster Knights, Cambridge

The semi-finals – held at the homes of the two highest-ranked pool winners -will take place on the weekend of February 16-18.

The highest-ranked semi-final winner will host the final on the weekend of March 15-17.

The teams in Pools C and D will play one cross-pool fixture alongside their own pool games.

*The Championship club seeded 11th, London Scottish, and 12th seed Cambridge, who were promoted from National One, were swapped with Nottingham and Caldy, seeded ninth and 10th. The higher seeds therefore host a home fixture against a Premiership club. Leicester Tigers and Exeter Chiefs also swap pools for operational reasons.