HEALTHY COMPETITION Sky Sports have announced that they are to show a Premier League football match free-to-air for the first time as their war for viewers with BT hots up. Sky will broadcast the match at 5:30pm on August 17 - the opening day of the season - and will also offer-up a Football League match at lunchtime on the same day. The fixtures they will broadcast have yet to be confirmed. Telecoms giant BT is launching a sports broadcasting service that aims to rival Sky in the summer having paid £738m for the rights to 38 Premier League matches a season in each of the next three years, and they have already signed up some of the nation's best-known TV presenters, including Clare Balding and Jake Humphrey. They are offering their channel free of charge to their broadband customers but Sky's free-to-air day is seen as their first strike back in the battle for viewers. Sky paid £2.3 billion for the right to show 116 games a season from 2013-16 and they will use their free day to try and emphasise the fact that they will still broadcast many more matches than BT. "It's our biggest ever season of Premier League football and we're inviting every home in Britain to enjoy the opening day," said the Sky Sports managing director Barney Francis. "All fans can join the action as we launch our new Saturday schedule for the most eagerly awaited Premier League season in years." The matches will be broadcast on freeview channel 'Sky 2' which will run Sky Sports 1's content for the entire day. Sky also announced that Dave Jones and Jamie Redknapp will host a new Saturday football show and that new pundit Jamie Carragher would join Gary Neville on Monday Night Football. BT hit back at Sky's promotional day and called it nothing more than a 'stunt.' "BT Sport is free every day of the season for BT broadband customers, not just free for one day," they said. "We are pleased to see that our arrival has prompted Sky to attempt to raise its game, but this stunt does not disguise the fact that this season they have fewer top pick matches." Source:http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs...er-league-match-shown-freeview-101517603.html .. .
Anyone know what happens if you have virgin I am sure I have seen you can pay £10 a month on sky for bt sport but not seen anything about virgin media
They do a free weekend every season, usually a **** game though; ie Stoke vs Everton...its like watching tennis
I've got BT Vision at the moment with Sky Sports one and two but was lookin forward to getting the games. Had a letter two weeks ago to say the games and Sky Sports will only be available with their superfast broadband package...which unfortunately isn't available in my area yet Great start BT....you've just LOST a customer.....pillocks.
Yea. The bt offering is pretty poor really. I hope it does become a viable rival to sky as it should help to keep the price down...I will be sticking with sky for now though.
I've only got ordinary BT broadband, not infinity, and I've got free BT sport. You just need to get the unlimited package, which was free for 6 months when I signed up in may. It's actually a really good deal for me as it also includes ESPN, which I was paying a tenner a month for before.
ESPN is part of of btsport now, they bought the naming rights to the channel. Just letting you know if you didnt already
Skysports is f***ing woeful, before people go bashing BT. You spend a lot of money to buy their channels, and let's face it, it's hard to watch 90% of the utter crap they have on there, and on top of that they sometimes show 2 premier league games a weekend (if you're lucky), so why the f*** are you paying so much to watch premier league football when the majority of the games aren't on... no no, why are they paying over 100 million to show so few games? And let's face it, nobody enjoys the analysis they insist on using the giant ipads for. It's pathetic. MOTD has been using better technology than that for analysis for ten years. Oh, and if there's a good boxing match on, chances are you have to pay extra on top to watch the f***ing thing. WHAT A RIP.
yeah but just so everyone realises.... this will be a bidding war in which the clubs get more but WE pay more to sky to pay for it... and bt either
Not sure why people are hating on BT over this. Their broadband package is very competitive already, which is why I get it. Now, on top of that, I'm getting 38 free PL games a year + other sports for exactly the same price. Sky have been known to rip people off for years and will keep doing so.
It would go the other way. Only the one that has the rights can broadcast the games. Therefore, they can't compete against each other for viewers, they can only compete for the rights. This usually goes to the highest bidder = TV coverage becomes more expensive!
