Premiership Rugby 2024-25 fixtures: Northampton begin at Bath

Among the 18 rounds of regular-season fixtures, stand-out games include Bristol playing West Country rivals Bath at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff for the first time.

The match in round 16 on 10 May will see the Bears swap their Ashton Gate home for the 75,000-seater south Wales venue in a game branded as the ‘Big Day Out’, to “reach new audiences and grow [Bristol’s] commercial revenue”.

The fixture aims to replicate the success of Harlequins and Saracens in recent years of playing a showpiece game at a major ground.

Saracens will host their London rivals at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 22 March, while Quins will face Gloucester on 10 May at Twickenham Stadium.

The new Premiership campaign had been described as a “relaunch of the league” by chief executive Simon Massie-Taylor after three clubs went out of business two seasons ago.

There was again no promotion from, or relegation to, the Championship last season, although it could return for 2024-25.

The Rugby Football Union Council has proposed plans for a two-legged play-off which, if approved, would see a two-legged play-off between the bottom side in the Premiership and top side in the Championship.

The proviso is that the second-tier side must meet the Premiership’s minimum standards criteria, which it has not done in recent campaigns.