Free Premier League football with BT – all you need to know

BT has just made the second biggest footballing announcement of the year by announcing that BT Sport will be free for BT Broadband subscribers, that’s around 5m households in the UK.

BT is touting this announcement as a return to ‘free’ TV for top flight football, though given you can find cheaper broadband than BT’s admittedly admirable service, the term ‘free’ isn’t quite clear cut. If you’re not with BT, though, then you’ll have to either pay up or switch over, see below.

WHAT ARE YOU GETTING

BT secured two packages of Premier League matches for the three seasons from 2013-2016. It only has 38 games, compared to Sky’s 116, but it has almost half the first pick games (18 vs 20), meaning that around half the big clashes – the kind of games a casual follower would be interested in seeing and a die-hard fan wouldn’t miss – will be appearing on the service. Most of these games are at 12.45 on a Saturday with some mid-week evening kick-offs too.

For a full breakdown see http://www.sportingintelligence.com

In addition to this, there are 69 exclusive Aviva Premiership matches as well – where BT is the lone broadcaster – plus a raft of other sports across three channels (two BT Sport branded and the other ESPN) – FA Cup, Europa League, Scottish Premier League, Moto GP, plus women’s tennis and football coverage.

BUT I’M NOT WITH BT!

If you have your broadband with another provider and you’re a big football fan then you should probably switch to BT. There may be some addtional cost, but it will be small compared to what you’d have to pay to get the channels alone. Of course this is just what BT is planning on.

If you don’t want to switch then you’ll have to pay £15 a month for the three channels in HD, or £12 for standard definition. These prices are to receive the channels from Sky. We contacted Virgin Media for a quote but at present it was only willing to say that: “We’re always looking to bring the best possible value and breadth of high quality content to our customers and we’re talking to BT about how we could make the forthcoming BT Sport package available.” It looks likely to appear though as Virgin media had ESPN (a £10 a month package with Premier League football) bundled into its top-end TV package last season.

BT customers will also have to pay £3 a month if they want the HD service, though this will be waived for the first year for those signing up before the 1st of August.

HOW DO YOU WATCH IT

BT Sport will be available online via your PC, tablet, smartphone etc. IF you can connect one of these to your TV then you’re good to watch on the big screen too. It will also be available through BT’s YouView set top box (or any YouView box connected to BT Broadband in fact) or its older BT Vision box.

You can get it on your Sky box, which is the most convenient way for many football fans. if you’re a Sky customer and a BT Broadband customer then you can get BT Sport on your Sky+ box at no extra charge – again it’ll cost £3 a month for HD after the first year.

For more details check out BT Sport.