BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and

BT Group BT Group plc ( trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, bro ...

, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former

International Broadcast Centre The International Broadcast Centre (IBC) is a temporary hub for broadcasters during major sport events. FIFA World Cup During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, in Germany, the IBC in Munich was host to journalists from around 190 countries. The centre wa ...

at the

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is a sporting complex and public park in Stratford, Hackney Wick, Leyton and Bow, in east London. It was purpose-built for the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, situated adjacent to the Stratford City developm ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. BT Sport is available on the

BT TV BT TV is a subscription IPTV service offered by BT; a division of United Kingdom telecommunications company BT Group, and was originally launched as BT Vision in December 2006. As of the end of June 2019, BT TV had 1.9 million customers ...

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...

and

Virgin Media Virgin Media is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 joint ventu ...

television platforms in the UK and

, Eir TV and Vodafone TV in the Republic of Ireland. BT Sport holds exclusive live UK and Republic of Ireland TV rights to 52

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

matches per season, the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. ...

UFC The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

, Ligue 1,

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Cop ...

, the

European Rugby Challenge Cup The EPCR Challenge Cup is an annual rugby union competition organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the second-tier competition for clubs based in European leagues behind the European Rugby Champions Cup. From its inception ...

, the

Premiership Rugby Cup The Premiership Rugby Cup is an English rugby union knockout cup competition for teams in Premiership Rugby. It was created in 2018 to replace the Anglo-Welsh Cup after the withdrawal of the Welsh regions. History The Premiership Rugby Cup was ...

, MotoGP, the

FIH Hockey World League The Men's FIH Hockey World League was an international field hockey competition organised by the International Hockey Federation. The league also served as a qualifier for the 2014 and 2018 Men's Hockey World Cups and the 2016 Olympic Games. T ...

and

WWE World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vari ...

. They are also the official broadcast partner of the European Rugby Champions Cup and

Premiership Rugby Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition. The Premiership has consisted of thirteen clubs since 2021, and is the ...

History

Premier League deal, launch

News of BT's first foray into sports broadcasting first came about on 12 June 2012, when it was announced that they had won the rights to 38 live

matches for three seasons from the 2013-14 season, beating

ESPN UK BT Sport 4 is a British sports television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA and the BT Group. It is part of the BT Sport group of channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and is predominantly focused on sports from North America. ...

, which had held the shared rights with

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

the previous season. BT announced at the same time that it would be launching its own channel for its new football coverage. The news followed speculation that ESPN was reconsidering its position in the UK. The following months also saw BT win rights to

and its associated 7s Series, and American, Brazilian, French and Italian top-flight football. On 25 February 2013, BT announced an agreement to acquire ESPN's television networks in the UK and Ireland, including

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

and international sports channel

ESPN America ESPN America was a British-based European sports network, focusing on professional and collegiate sports of the United States and Canada. Originally launched on 5 December 2002 as NASN (the ''North American Sports Network''), ESPN America broadca ...

; this agreement gave BT rights to the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

beginning in 2013–14, the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

and

through 2015, and the Scottish Premier League through 2017, as well as other international event rights licensed through ESPN. The value of the deal was not disclosed, but BT was understood to be paying "low tens of millions". The deal was expected to close by 31 July, and BT was expected to operate at least one ESPN-branded channel as part of the BT Sport service. BT made other notable rights deals ahead of BT Sport's launch, including

mixed martial arts under a three-year deal, and MotoGP beginning in 2014, under a five-year deal. In May 2013, BT announced that BT Sport would be offered for free to its internet subscribers via streaming. Media analyst Steve Hewlett felt that BT's entry into the sport market was an effort to help strengthen its

triple play In baseball, a triple play (denoted as TP in baseball statistics) is the act of making three outs during the same play. There have only been 733 triple plays in Major League Baseball (MLB) since 1876, an average of just over five per season. Th ...

business and, in particular, help retain internet subscribers lost to Sky (which he believed would result in greater financial loss than those that would be sustained by operating BT Sport). BT Sport launched on 1 August 2013. On 12 August, BT reported that over 1,000,000 households had subscribed to the service ahead of the start of the

2013–14 Premier League The 2013–14 Premier League (known as the Barclays Premier League for sponsorship reasons) was the 22nd season of the Premier League, the top-flight English professional league for men's football clubs, and the 115th season of top-flight Engli ...

, although admitting that the majority of them were BT internet subscribers. On 9 November 2013, BT Sport announced its acquisition of rights to the

and Europa League beginning in 2015–16, under a three-year deal valued at £897 million, replacing Sky and ITV. The interactive service BT Sport Extra launched in 2014. In January 2015, BT Sport renewed its licensing agreement with

ESPN International ESPN International is a family of sportscasting and production networks around the world. It was begun in 1989, is operated by ESPN Inc. and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Operating regions Latin America Spanish-speaking countries * ES ...

under a seven-year deal, allowing it to continue operating an ESPN-branded network as part of BT Sport, and hold rights to ESPN original programming, and event broadcast rights that are distributed internationally by ESPN.

UEFA deal, expansion

On 9 June 2015, BT Sport announced it would launch a new channel, BT Sport Europe, which would carry all UEFA Champions League and Europa League matches. Concurrently it was announced that only the BT Sport 1 channel would be free to BT internet subscribers, and that BT Sport 2, BT Sport ESPN, and BT Sport Europe would require viewers to subscribe for £5 extra. BT also announced a

Freeview HD Freeview is the United Kingdom's sole digital terrestrial television platform. It is operated by Digital UK Ltd and DTV Services Ltd, a joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky. It was launched on 30 October 2002, t ...

channel, BT Sport Showcase, which would carry 12 Champions League matches and 14 Europa League matches per season on a free-to-air basis, including at least one match per-round, each English team featured once, and the finals of both tournaments. BT Sport also announced that it would launch BT Sport Ultra HD, the first 4K sports channel in the UK, on 2 August for the 2015 FA Community Shield. The channel would initially be exclusive to BT TV on

BT Infinity BT Superfast Fibre (formerly BT Infinity) is a broadband service in the United Kingdom provided by BT Consumer, the consumer sales arm of the BT Group. The underlying network is fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), which uses optical fibre for all excep ...

, with a 4K service package and compatible

YouView YouView is a hybrid television platform in the United Kingdom developed by YouView TV Ltd., a partnership of four broadcasters, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5; and three telecommunications operators, Arqiva, BT Group and TalkTalk Gro ...

set-top box. In 2016, BT Sport Europe was renamed BT Sport 3. In 2017, BT Sport began an agreement with boxing promoter Frank Warren, under which Warren's channel

BoxNation BoxNation was a British dedicated boxing subscription television channel, operated by Viaplay. The brand is licensed from George Warren's Queensbury Commercial. History BoxNation was launched by Frank Warren Promotions as a free-to-air channe ...

would be distributed as part of the BT Sport service, and that BT Sport and BoxNation would co-produce 20 cards per-year, which would air on Saturday nights and be simulcast by both networks. In April 2018, BT Sport announced a pay-per-view service,

BT Sport Box Office BT Sport Box Office is a pay-per-view channel from BT Sport. The channel is available in HD on BT TV and Sky. History In April 2018, BT Sport revealed its intention to launch a pay-per-view channel to show live boxing and it launched on 15 ...

, with an intent to broadcast premium boxing events. On 2 August 2019, BT Sport relaunched its 4K channel as BT Sport Ultimate, and began to offer

Dolby Atmos Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, allowing sounds to be interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal, nor verti ...

sound and high dynamic range (HDR) on supported devices. On 20 June 2019, BT Sport announced an agreement to carry the programming and pay-per-views of U.S.

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...

promotion

, ending a relationship with Sky Sports that dated back to the network's launch in 1989.

Joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery

In April 2021, it was reported that BT were exploring a sale of all or part of BT Sport, in order to focus more on its fibreoptic services. Rumoured suitors included Amazon.com Inc. (which is one of the Premier League's current rightsholders), the sports streaming provider

DAZN DAZN ( "da zone") is a global sports entertainment platform. Different to traditional linear and satellite broadcasting, DAZN is an over-the-top (OTT) streaming service meaning that it is delivered directly to viewers via the internet. The ...

(which had notably beat out

Sky Italia Sky Italia S.r.l. is an Italian satellite television platform owned by the American media conglomerate Comcast. Sky Italia also broadcasts three national free-to-air television channels: TV8, Cielo and Sky TG24. As of 2018, following an ag ...

for exclusive domestic rights to

football), and ESPN owner

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

. By September 2021, DAZN were reported to be in "advanced talks" with BT. However, in December, it was reported that negotiations had stalled, and that

Discovery Inc. Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1985, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Cha ...

—who owns competitor

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its international sports unit, it operates two main channels— Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territories, ...

, and were preparing to merge with

WarnerMedia Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

to form

Warner Bros. Discovery Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at 230 Park Avenue South in New York City. It was formed after the spin-off of WarnerMedia by AT&T, and its merger with Di ...

—was negotiating a joint venture with BT to combine their respective networks. In February 2022, the two companies entered exclusive negotiations. On 11 May 2022

Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. The subsidiary is responsible for managing the collection of their cable and satellite networks around the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions. History WarnerMedia ...

(WBD) announced that it had reached an agreement to combine its Eurosport UK business with BT Sport in a 50/50 joint venture, in a transaction scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022 pending approval from regulators and sports bodies. Under the agreement, WBD will assume the operations of BT Sport, and merge them with Eurosport under a new brand at a later date. WBD will pay £93 million to BT over three years; if performance targets are met, WBD will pay a bonus of up to £540 million. The company will also have the option to buy out more of BT's stake in the venture. As part of the agreement, BT agreed to distribute Warner Bros. Discovery's factual streaming service

Discovery+ Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discover ...

—which is the streaming platform of Eurosport—at no charge to most BT TV subscribers, and those who subscribe to BT Sport via the company directly. The venture was approved by the

Competition and Markets Authority The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the competition regulator in United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-com ...

(CMA) on 22 July 2022, and completed on 1 September. On 1 August 2022, BT Sport ESPN was rebranded as BT Sport 4, while the BT Sport Extra overflow channels were rebranded as BT Sport 5 through 10.

Availability

In the UK, BT Sport is available in standard definition with all BT TV packages for BT Broadband customers. The 4K channel BT Sport Ultimate is also available to

BT Superfast Fibre BT Superfast Fibre (formerly BT Infinity) is a broadband internet access, broadband service in the United Kingdom provided by BT Consumer, the consumer sales arm of the BT Group. The underlying network is fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), which uses o ...

customers for an additional fee. BT Sport operates five part-time overflow channels, originally branded as BT Sport Extra, but branded since August 2022 as BT Sport 5–10. They are carried via the red button on Sky, and displayed as individual channels on the BT and

EPGs. On

BT Sport 1 only is currently offered for free to broadband subscribers as 'BT Sport Lite', regardless of what subscription they have. Plusnet TV also offered the same until 1 November 2021 when their TV brand was discontinued, however BT Sport is still available to Plusnet customers via the app service. Customers who wish to view the remaining channels can subscribe to the 'BT Sport Pack' in either standard or high definition. BT also provide broadband subscribers access to the channels via the BT Sport online player and mobile app. Virgin Media customers receive BT Sport 1, 2, 3, 4 , and Ultimate as part of their "Full House" bundle however, they do not receive BoxNation or AMC from BT.

TalkTalk TV TalkTalk TV is a UK-based consumer television and video on demand service, operated by the TalkTalk Group that originally launched in 2000. In September 2012, the current TalkTalk TV was launched in partnership with YouView. Its television a ...

customers must subscribe to the BT Sport Pack in order to receive the entire range of channels. In the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

, BT Sport channels (except Ultimate) are bundled with

Eir Sport Eir Sport (stylised as eir Sport; formerly Setanta Sports) was a group of Irish television sports channels operated by Eircom Sport Limited, a subsidiary of Eir. In December 2015, Eir purchased original Setanta Sports operations in the Republi ...

subscriptions across all platforms, as a part of a deal BT had with its predecessor

Setanta Sports Setanta Sports is a sports television company based in Dublin, Ireland broadcasting throughout select Eurasian. The company was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events to international audiences. The company previo ...

In addition

customers received BT Sport Showcase and Virgin Media customers received BT Sport Free. They closed on 30 June 2018. On 4 December 2018, the SD versions of BT Sport and BT Sport ESPN stopped broadcasting on Virgin Media. On 6 February 2019, BT Sport released the app for

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

. It was later released for PlayStation 4 on 31 May 2019. On 8 September, 2020 BT Sport also launched on

Fire TV Amazon Fire TV (stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed via the Internet to a connected ...

Android TV Android TV is a smart TV operating system based on Android (operating system), Android and developed by Google for television sets, digital media players, set-top boxes, and soundbars. A successor to Google TV (operating system), Google TV, it fe ...

and the

Roku Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services. The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduced ...

devices.

Programming

Plans for the channels launch came about when it was announced in June 2012 that the broadcast rights to the

from the 2013–14 to 2015–16 seasons were awarded to BT and

, outbidding existing broadcaster

for the rights. BT showed 38 live matches from the Premier League each season, including 18 first pick matches, from the 2013/14 season til the end of the 2015/16 season. In October 2012, BT announced it had also agreed deals to air

, Ligue 1, Brasileirão and Major League Soccer, all of which were previously broadcast on ESPN, as well as

. In January 2013, BT announced they would also broadcast

Women's Tennis Association The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. It governs the WTA Tour which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women and was founded to create a better future for women's tenn ...

matches from 21 tournaments. On 25 February 2013, BT announced that it had acquired

's UK channels and their sports broadcasting rights, including rights to the

, Scottish Premier League,

and

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

. This led to the shutting down of

ESPN Classic ESPN Classic was an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns 20%). The channel was originally la ...

and

in favour of the BT Sport channels. On 7 May 2013, BT Sport acquired the rights to air

Ultimate Fighting Championship The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...

(UFC) events and taped programming in the UK and Ireland for three years, from 1 August. Two days later it was announced that BT Sport had acquired an exclusive five-year deal to broadcast MotoGP races from the 2014 season, including free practices and qualifying as well as full coverage of Moto2 and Moto3. BT Sport also broadcasts the FA WSL, A-League and programming from Red Bull Media House. On 9 May 2013, BT announced that they had acquired the exclusive UK TV rights to MotoGP along with the Moto2 and Moto3 championships. Later in May, BT Sport acquired rights to the

Football Conference The National League (named Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons) is an association football league in England consisting of three divisions, the National League, National League North, and National League South. It was called the ...

for two years with 25-30 live games a season, including the end-of-season play-offs. On 9 November 2013, BT announced a £897 million deal with UEFA to broadcast the Champions League and

Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

exclusively on BT Sport from the 2015–16 season for three years. The deal ended two decades of the competition being broadcast free-to-air on ITV, although BT stated that the finals of both competitions and at least one match per season involving each participating British team would still be broadcast free-to-air. In January 2014, it was reported that BT Sport had acquired the rights to broadcast the

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...

for the 2014 season.

Football coverage

Studio hosts

Studio Analysts

Lead Commentator

Bold Indicates BT Sport’s main commentator for that competition

Co-commentators

Reporters

Premier League

BT Sport currently has the rights to show 68 live Premier League matches in 2020–21 and 52 live matches per season between 2021–22 and 2024–25 seasons. Their packages (A and G) give BT the rights to 20 second pick and 12 fifth pick matches. The coverage for the current rights period see BT Sport showing live matches on Saturday lunchtimes at 12:30 pm, they will also show midweek matches and 5 matches from the split weekend. The rights to the Premier League are shared with

and Amazon Prime Video, who have 128 live matches, and 20 live matches respectively. The

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

History

Premier League deal, launch

UEFA deal, expansion

Joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery

Availability

Programming

Football coverage

Studio hosts

Studio Analysts

Lead Commentator

Co-commentators

Reporters

Premier League

=BT Sport Score

European Club Competitions

=UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League On Air-Team

=Broadcasting teams for UEFA Champions League Finals

=UEFA Super Cup

Vanarama National League

FA Trophy and FA Vase

Ligue 1

Serie A

Coppa Italia

A-League

Canadian Premier League

Rugby union coverage

Premiership Rugby

European Professional Club Rugby

Cricket coverage

Motorsport coverage

MotoGP

Motorcycle Speedway

Other International Motorsport Events

American sports coverage

Combat sports coverage

Mixed martial arts

Boxing

Professional wrestling

World Poker Tour

Previous coverage

Football

FA Cup

FA Community Shield

Scottish Professional Football League

Scottish League Cup

Bundesliga

DFB Pokal

CONMEBOL Libertadores

Süper Lig

Cricket

Caribbean Premier League

Indian Premier League

Tennis

Darts

BDO Darts coverage

Basketball

NBA

WNBA

Magazine shows

Documentaries

Classic sport

See also

References

External links