Where to Watch the Premier League in the UK (2026 Guide)
Sky Sports has 128 matches, TNT Sports 52, the BBC zero — and the 3pm Saturday blackout still means a third of fixtures aren't broadcast live at all. Here's the full UK landscape for 2026, with honest costs.
Watching the Premier League in the UK is more complicated than it should be. The rights are split across two paid broadcasters, the BBC has highlights only, and the FA''s ancient 3pm Saturday blackout means roughly a third of all fixtures aren''t shown live at all on UK TV. Here''s the 2026 guide: who broadcasts what, how much it actually costs, and where PREMRED SHOW fits in.
How the rights are split
For the 2025/26 cycle, the Premier League sells UK rights in three packages. Sky Sports holds the lion''s share with 128 live matches, including most Saturday late kick-offs, Sundays and Mondays. TNT Sports — the rebranded BT Sport, now owned by Warner Bros Discovery — has 52 matches, with Saturday lunchtime kick-offs as their core slot plus midweek games. Amazon Prime had a Black Friday round in previous cycles but exited Premier League rights in 2024; they no longer broadcast any matches.
The BBC has zero live matches. Match of the Day on Saturday night and MOTD2 on Sunday show extended highlights — that''s the entire BBC offering.
The 3pm Saturday blackout
This is the part most non-UK fans find baffling. The Football Association forbids any UK broadcaster from showing live football between 14:45 and 17:15 on Saturdays — a rule designed in the 1960s to protect lower-league attendance. Roughly 100 of the 380 Premier League matches per season fall in this window and aren''t broadcast live anywhere on legitimate UK TV. You can see the result on Sky Sports News, listen on radio (5 Live, talkSPORT) or wait for the highlights — but you cannot legally watch them live in the UK.
Sky Sports — the main carrier
Sky Sports gets you most of what you want: the late Saturday kick-off, both Sunday matches, all Monday Night Football, the ten-game weekends, and the title-deciders in May. The Premier League content lives mainly on Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Main Event, with a Sky Sports News channel for everything else.
What it costs
- Sky Q box, Sky Stream or Sky Glass — Sky Sports add-on £30-£35/month on top of base TV (around £25), so £55-£65/month total
- NOW Sports Membership — £34.99/month rolling, no contract, all Sky Sports channels
- NOW Sports Day Pass — £14.99 for 24 hours, useful if you only want a single fixture
- Virgin Media TV — Sky Sports add-on roughly £30/month on top of Virgin TV
TNT Sports — the Saturday lunchtime broadcaster
TNT Sports holds the 12:30 Saturday slot — typically a marquee match — plus midweek slots and a handful of weekend games. Crucially, TNT also has every Champions League and Europa League match, which is why almost everyone who pays for it does so for European nights as much as the Saturday lunchtime.
What it costs
- TNT Sports via Sky/Virgin add-on — roughly £30/month
- discovery+ Premium with TNT Sports — £30.99/month, no contract, app-based
- Bundled with EE mobile — free for selected EE plans (Smart Plan or higher), only on the EE TV box or mobile
BBC and ITV — what''s actually free
Match of the Day on BBC One Saturday at 22:30 covers all the day''s top-flight games in highlights form. MOTD2 covers Sundays. The FA Cup has live coverage split between BBC and ITV through to the final. The League Cup has live coverage on Sky Sports only. The Community Shield in August airs on TNT. None of the league fixtures themselves are free.
What you''re really paying across a season
The honest UK math, for a fan who follows the Premier League and Champions League:
- Sky Sports (NOW Sports) alone — £420/year (Premier League only, no UCL)
- Sky Sports + TNT Sports — £790/year (Premier + Champions, app-based)
- Sky Sports via Sky/Virgin TV + TNT — £900-1,000/year
- PREMRED SHOW 12-month plan — about £40/year (every league in one app)
What PREMRED SHOW gives a UK viewer
PREMRED carries Sky Sports and TNT Sports feeds in 4K HDR, plus international feeds (Premier League is broadcast in dozens of countries) where the regional rights allow. Every Premier League match is available across the line, including the 3pm Saturday slot — most fans use one of the foreign feeds (Sky Italia, Setanta Sports, BT Sport Asia) to get around the UK blackout legally as a viewer abroad.
- All 380 Premier League matches per season including 3pm Saturday kick-offs via international feeds
- All 204 Champions League matches plus Europa, Conference League
- Sky Sports F1 in 4K, Sky Sports Cricket including The Hundred and Test matches
- TNT Sports for the games not on Sky
- Catch-up of 7 days on every channel — Match of the Day at any time, the actual live game if you missed it
- Multi-language commentary on the marquee fixtures — Italian and Spanish lead feeds in 4K HDR
How to set up on Sky Stream, Smart TV or Firestick
Sky Stream and Sky Glass run Android TV under the hood, so the official IPTV Smarters or TiviMate apps install directly from the Google Play Store. Samsung TVs (Tizen) and LG (webOS) use the Smart IPTV app. Fire TV Sticks installation takes about 5 minutes from the Amazon Appstore — no sideloading, no developer mode. Apple TV 4K runs the apps natively in 4K HDR. Plug in the Xtream Codes from the welcome email and you''re live.
"Saturday at 3 used to mean Soccer Saturday on Sky Sports News and a finger on the refresh button. Now I just put the 4K Italian feed on for whichever 3pm match I care about, and it''s like watching Sky."
Bottom line
If you only watch Sky Sports content and the price doesn''t bother you, the official route is straightforward. If you watch Premier League plus Champions League — which most UK fans do — you''re paying £700-£1,000/year for what is essentially two apps and one of them won''t even show you the 3pm kick-off. PREMRED collapses that into one £40/year app, in 4K, including the foreign feeds for blacked-out matches. Test it for £2 over 24 hours, see if the quality is what you want, no charge after that.
