NH Pro season has already kicked off in France, but for the rest of Europe: it’s this Friday. I’ve got tickets for Edinburgh v Leinster and cannot wait! Champions cup joins the URC on Premier Sports; hooray for me, as I was never going to pay for TNT and Premier Sports
Re that last point about the ARU and their financial viability, here’s an interesting counterpoint from NZ: https://archive.ph/nVtt6
Basically, the argument is that bc ARU couldn’t get any vulture capital, they haven’t made the same mistake as NZR and other professional unions so are getting to keep 100% of any revenue they make. NZR have to pay $20m annually to Silver Lake now - for basically doing nothing other than one lump sum that’s going to be gone shortly.
So, unlike NZ - Australia doesn’t need to try to chase every possible dollar, they just need to work for the most efficient dollars instead.