BT Sport Being Offered Free to Millions of U.K. Homes

LONDON: BT Sport is going to be made available for free to any BT broadband customer, meaning that live matches from the Barclays Premiere League will be available to watch at no charge for the first time in more than 20 years.

BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN will feature 38 live and exclusive football matches from the Barclays Premiere League and up to 69 live rugby matches from the Aviva Premiership, where BT will be the exclusive broadcaster.

Through a new partnership with the BT Group, Red Bull Media House is delivering action sports and lifestyle programming to the BT Sport channel. Red Bull Media House is planning to contribute more than 100 hours of content to BT Sport’s new offerings. This includes four world series contest tours, four sports magazine series and feature films, including The Art of Flight.

Ian Livingston, BT’s chief executive, said: "U.K. Sports fans have had a rough deal for too long. Many have been priced out of the market but we will change this by giving away BT Sport for free with our broadband. Sports fans are the winners today.

"BT is the home of broadband so the fight for customers will now take place on our own turf. BT Sport will complement our world class fibre network. Customers don’t have to take BT Infinity to get BT Sport but we are encouraging them to move onto fibre broadband so they can enjoy the best of both worlds.”

Gavin Patterson, BT Retail’s chief executive, added: "The launch of BT Sport is an important moment for the U.K. TV market. We will shake up the market which is great news for sports fans whether their passion is football, rugby or any of the other sports we will be showing. Fans will hopefully be cheering across the U.K. at the prospect of watching their favourite teams for free."

Simon Green, the head of BT Sport, said “We’re delighted to have signed this agreement with Red Bull Media House. BT Sport aims to offer a wide range of sports that appeal to different audiences and Red Bull Media House will enable us to offer our viewers access to unique action sports as well as some fantastic lifestyle programs.”