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How can I get Barclays Premier League football on TV? Sky Sports, BT Sport and ESPN on BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin

Who has the rights to the 2013/14 Barclays Premier League matches? 

How can I get Barclays Premier League football on TV? Sky Sports, BT Sport and ESPN on BT, Sky, TalkTalk and VirginThe 2013/14 football season is about to kick off and will be the debut season of live Barclays Premier League on BT Sport, BT’s new sports broadcasting service. 

Sky Sports will broadcast 116 live games in total throughout the 2013/14 season and BT Sport will show 38. 

In the first run of the season, Sky Sports will show all of the mid-afternoon and evening games on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays while BT Sport will show all of the Saturday games starting at 12:45pm. 

We’ve worked out the cheapest options for BT Vision, BT YouView, Sky, TalkTalk TV and Virgin Media, including the cheapest broadband and standard line rental where they’re required.

You can also follow these links to find out more about BT Sport and Sky Sports. 

Cost of Barclays Premier League on TV 2013/14
How much do Sky Sports and BT Sports cost with different TV providers? (click to zoom)

Why can’t I watch matches with a 3pm kick-off? 

The Saturday 3pm ‘closed window’ was created to protect attendance at lower-league games where ticket receipts are a vital source of income. These games are often shown later on Sky’s Football First show, either as highlights or in full. 

How can I find out which games are on Sky or BT Sport? 

The first portion of games for the 2013/14 season have been announced and we’ve got them all here. Sky Sports’ coverage ranges from games that kick off from 1:30pm to 5:30pm across Saturdays-Mondays whereas BT Sport only covers 12:45pm games on Saturdays.

You can find out what games are on which service using the Barclays Premier League broadcast schedule.

Can I watch the Barclays Premier League in HD or 3D?

Sky Sports and BT Sport film all of their games in both standard and high definition. Sky Sports HD is available on Sky and Virgin Media. BT Sport HD is available on BT YouView, Sky and Virgin Media.

Only Sky Sports currently broadcasts live games in 3D, for customers who take both Sky Entertainment Extra+ (£32/month) and the premium HD pack (£5.25/month) with Sky Sports (£22/month): a grand monthly total of £59.25.

You’ll see the price breakdowns for HD and SD with each TV provider. BT Vision and TalkTalk TV do not currently offer any Sky Sports channels in HD.

If you’ve got a BT Infinity subscription then you’ll be able to stream games in HD through the BT Sport desktop app for no extra cost. 

Sky SportsHow can I watch the Barclays Premier League on Sky? 

To get the full season of Premier League action on Sky TV you’ll need both a Sky Sports subscription and a BT Sport subscription.

Sky Sports

The Sky Entertainment TV pack (£21.50/month) is a prerequisite to having Sky Sports. Sky Sports 1 and 2 cost £13/month each, or it’s £22/month for Sky Sports 1-4 and Sky Sports F1. At its cheapest, Sky Sports on Sky will cost £43.50/month.

If you want everything in HD, this will cost £59.25/month for Entertainment Extra+ (£32/month), Sky Sports  (£22/month) and the HD premium monthly fee (£5.25/month).

BT Sport

There are couple of ways you can go about adding the BT Sport channels to the mix, and you don’t even need to be a Sky TV subscriber:

  • The first and easiest way is to subscribe directly to the channels which you can do by heading to any of the BT Sport channel listings on your Sky TV guide and calling the number that appears on screen. BT Sport in standard definition costs £12/month, and £15/month for the same three channels in HD. 
  • A second option is to take any BT Broadband package (prices start at £10/month plus standard line rental £15.45) and you’ll get the BT Sport channels in SD for no extra cost. If you want the channels in HD you’ll need to pay £3/month extra. 

Paying for BT Sport direct

Sports Packages  Total Monthly Cost
Sky Sports in SD (£43.50), BT Sport in SD (£12)                                       £55.50/month
Sky Sports in SD (£43.50), BT Sport in HD (£15) £58.50/month
Sky Sports in HD (£59.25), BT Sport in SD (£12) £71.25/month
Sky Sports in HD (£59.25), BT Sport in HD (£15)  £74.25/month

When paying for BT Sport directly, we’ve not included the price of any broadband services.

Paying for BT Broadband

Sports Packages Total Monthly Cost
Sky Sports in SD (£43.50), BT Sport in SD (free), BT Broadband (£25.45) £68.95/month
Sky Sports in SD (£43.50), BT Sport in HD (£3), BT Broadband (£25.45) £71.95/month
Sky Sports in HD (£59.25), BT Sport in SD (free), BT Broadband (£25.45) £84.70/month
Sky Sports in HD (£59.25), BT Sport in HD (£3), BT Broadband (£25.45) £87.70/month

In this case, we’ve included the cost of line rental and broadband, as they’re prerequisites for getting BT Sport on Sky for free, or for £3/month if you want HD. 

Virgin MediaHow can I watch the Barclays Premier League on Virgin Media? 

Thanks to an 89th minute deal with BT, Virgin Media customers will be able to get both Sky Sports and BT Sport. 

Sky Sports 1 or 2 can be added to Virgin Media for £15.50/month each on all TV packages apart from the entry-level Virgin TV M service, where each channel costs £26/month each. 

A better value for money deal in either case is to go for the Sky Sports Collection, which costs £25.75/month or £31.25/month respectively. This gives you both Sky Sports 1 and 2 as well as Sky Sports 3, Sky Sports 4 and Sky Sports F1. 

There’s an extra £7/month if you want to see any of the Sky premium channels (like Sky Movies) in HD.

If you’ve got the Virgin VIP collection you get all the Sky Sports 1 and 2 for free in both SD and HD. For everyone else, getting these channels in HD costs an extra £7/month. 

BT Sport is currently only available as a combined SD and HD bundle to Virgin TV customers. This costs £15/month, but it will be bundled free with Virgin TV XL (which costs £32/month). 

If you were to take Virgin Media’s best value TV package – Virgin TV M+ – here’s how the costs for everything would break down. You can take Virgin TV M+ without Virgin Media’s broadband or line rental.

Sports Packages Total Monthly Cost
Virgin TV M+ (£14), Sky Sports Collection (£25.75) £39.75/month
Virgin TV M+ (£14), Sky Sports Collection (£25.75), HD (£7) £46.75/month
Virgin TV M+ (£14), Sky Sports Collection (£25.75), HD (£7), BT Sport (£15) £61.75/month

TalkTalkHow can I watch the Barclays Premier League on TalkTalk TV? 

TalkTalk now offers its own TV service based on YouView, with a free Huawei YouView box for TalkTalk Plus subscribers.

TalkTalk TV is a subscription free service in itself, but you’ll need to be a TalkTalk Plus subscriber. The standard price for TalkTalk Plus is currently £15.50/month plus £15.40/month for line rental.

The Sky Sports package on TalkTalk TV consists of Sky Sports 1 to 4, plus F1 and costs £30/month. 

Sports Packages Total Monthly Cost
TalkTalk Plus (£15.50), Sky Sports (£30), line rental (£15.40) £60.90/month

BT VisionHow can I watch the Barclays Premier League on BT Vision+? 

Sky Sports and BT Sport are available on BT Vision+, but only if you can get a BT Infinity broadband package.

If you can get BT Broadband, but not any of the fibre-based Infinity packages, you can get BT Sport 1 and 2 on BT Vision+, but not Sky Sports or ESPN. 

Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 cost £15/month each, or they can be taken as a bundle for £20/month. 
BT Sport is included at no extra cost with any BT Broadband subscription. But to get BT Sport, you’ll need to pay £5/month for BT Vision TV Essential before you can watch anything. There’s also a one-off £10 fee for a viewing card. 

You currently can’t get Sky Sports in HD on BT Vision+.

BT Broadband and BT Infinity require you to have line rental with BT. The standard rate is currently £15.45/month but you can opt to pay £141 with advance line rental saver for 12 months of rental, which works out at £11.75/month. 

Here are the total costs for Premier League action on BT Vision+ with the entry-level ASDL-based BT Broadband (£10/month) and the fibre-based BT Infinity (£15/month): 

Sports Packages Total Monthly Cost
BT Broadband (£25.40), TV Essential (£5), BT Sport (free)

£30.40/month

BT Infinity 1 (£30.45), TV Essential (£7), BT Sport (free) £35.45/month

BT Infinity 1 (£30.45), TV Essential (£7), Sky Sports (£20), BT Sport (free)

£57.45/month

How can I watch the Barclays Premier League on BT YouView? 

Right now you can only get BT Sport on BT YouView. Sky and BT are still negotiating over Sky Sports appearing on BT YouView

BT Sport is available free with BT Infinity broadband subscriptions and gives you BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and EPSN. These three standard definition channels are free and you’ve got the option of having them all in HD as well for an extra £3/month. 

A prerequisite for BT Sport on BT YouView is a subscription to BT TV Essential Extra. This costs £7/month and gives you access to some extra channels including British Eurosport 1 and 2. 

Sports Packages Total Monthly Cost
BT Infinity 1 (£30.45), TV Essential Extra (£7), BT Sport (free) £37.45/month
BT Infinity 1 (£30.45), TV Essential Extra (£7), BT Sport (free), HD (£3)

£40.45/month

How can I watch the Barclays Premier League on Freeview? 

Now that ESPN has become part of BT Sport, you can’t get any live Barclays Premier League action on Freeview. 

Freesat

How can I watch the Barclays Premier League on Freesat? 

Neither Sky Sports nor BT Sport are currently available on Freesat. 

How can I watch the Barclays Premier League online? 

Both Sky and BT have desktop and mobile apps that let you watch live Premier League games online. 

Sky Go lets Sky TV subscribers watch games on their PC, laptop, iPhone, iPad selected Android phones and on Xbox 360. 

Non-Sky TV customers can also pay to watch games (£4.99/month) through the Sky Sports TV mobile app, available for iOS and Android. 

The BT Sport app lets BT Broadband customers watch online and on selected iOS and Android devices for no extra cost.

Savvy viewers can of course watch games on their TV set by connecting their laptop to their TV.

How can I watch the Barclays Premier League for less than Sky or BT Sport costs? 

Shhh. It’s the worst-kept secret in the world that you can get European satellite TV subscriptions in the UK, including Premier League matches. The EU is a single market, so even if the broadcaster isn’t supposed to let people watch outside its own borders, they can’t refuse your business. There are also increasing numbers of streaming services online. For our own safety, we can’t tell you any more. 

This ‘grey market’ also lets you watch 3pm kick-off games, because foreign broadcasters aren’t affected by the restriction. 

If you’re thinking of checking out non-Sky or BT games in your local boozer think again, because the Premier League has vowed to come down hard on pubs that show games via other means. They’re covered by rules which don’t affect private viewing at home.

What happens in the 2014/15 season? 

Sky and BT both have the same broadcast rights for three years, meaning the 2014/15 season will shape up much like this one. 

In that time, BT and TalkTalk could come to an agreement and Sky Sports and BT might be able to agree on something that will let BT have both Sky Sports and BT Sport on BT YouView. 

What about other major football championships?

We’ve also compiled guides to watching the UEFA Champions League, Scottish Premier League (including Rangers), FA Cup and the nPower Championship and League.

What’s new for Barclays Premier League football on TV? 

News stories for how to get Barclays Premier League football on TV:

Jake Humphrey to head up BT’s football channel in 2013

BT has announced that Formula 1 presenter Jake Humphrey is to be head anchor of its Barclays Premier League channel.

The channel which will show 38 live games a season for three seasons will launch in January next year. 18 of these games will be ‘first pick’ matches – high profile games such as Chelsea vs Manchester United – which marks the first time anyone but Sky has has won the rights to do this.

This news also scotches the long-held rumour that Gary Lineker was being lined up for the BT job, something which was anathema to many of our commenters.

September 18, 2012

News stories for how to get Barclays Premier League football on TV

Sky adds in-depth Premier League stats to iPad app

Sky has added in-depth statistics and facts about Barclays Premier League matches, teams and players to its Sky Sports for iPad app, which is free to Sky Sports subscribers.

A new Football Match Centre includes team and player profiles, match-day stats, team form and selected fan and expert tweets about live games.

Sky Sports for iPad app - team line-up

August 21, 2012

TV rivals lose Sky Sports price appeal

Virgin Media, BT Vision, Top Up TV and TalkTalk could be forced to raise their prices for Sky Sports channels in 2013.

The Competition Commission’s Appeals Tribunal has reversed a ruling made by media regulator Ofcom in 2010 which forced Sky to cut its wholesale rates for Sky Sports by almost a quarter.

Sky’s competitors are likely to challenge the latest decision, but if they fail, they’re likely to face a steep rise in the price they pay for the Sky Sports channels, which will probably be passed on to viewers.

The price rises are likely to come into effect as each broadcaster renegotiates its deals with Sky over the coming year.

August 9, 2012

Welcome to Recombu Digital’s Premier League TV guide

The new season of Barclays (English) Premier League football kicks off on August 18, so here at Recombu Digital we’ve compiled a guide to who’s showing what, and how much it costs.

August 7, 2012

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