The football season is about to begin, so here’s how to watch it without forking out the equivalent of a Premiership player’s daily hourly wage.

If you’re dusting off your football shirt ready for the new Premier League season, you may also be considering the cheapest ways to watch your team on TV. This year, 200 games will be shown on TV, split between Sky TV, TNT Sports (previously BT Sport) and Amazon Prime

Championship, League One and League Two fans will get most of their action on Sky Sports, but can also watch via their club’s websites.

If you want to watch as many games as possible, it doesn’t come cheap. And if you don’t support one of the big teams, they’ll be featured less often, which can make it more expensive per match. Here’s how to pay less to support your team. 

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(All this football talk reminds me of this classic Mitchell and Webb sketch…)

How to watch the Premier League 2023/2024 on TV

Only selected games are broadcast on TV. These are picked a couple of months ahead and will be split between Sky Sports, TNT Sport and Amazon Prime. Free to air highlights will once again be on the BBC.

You can see selections, as they’re announced, on the Premier League website.

Broadcaster	Number of games
Sky Sports	128
TNT Sports (previously BT Sport)	52
Amazon Prime	20 games
BBC	Highlights on Match of the Day

There are matches every weekend on Sky and TNT Sports, and will usually be in one of these timeslots:

• Saturday 12.30 or 5.30pm
• Sunday 2 or 4.30pm
• Monday 8pm
• Friday 8pm (only 10 fixtures a season)

Amazon only show matches over two midweek match weeks in December (5/6 and 26/27), with every team playing on those dates shown on TV. TNT Sports also broadcasts two full midweek fixtures during the season.

Champions League, Europa League and Europe Conference League

TNT Sports

All games and highlights are on TNT Sports until 2024. The finals have historically been free to watch on the BT Sport YouTube channel, which may now be shown on the TNT Sports YouTube channel this year 

Football League (Championship, League One, League Two, League Cup)

Sky Sports

Sky is the central place to watch EFL games this season with Sky Sports broadcasting at least 138 games, split as follows

• 138 EFL games (minimum of 20 from Leagues One and Two)
• All play-off semi-finals and finals
• 15 EFL Carabao cup games
• Semi-finals and finals of EFL Trophy

Via the club or iFollow

All midweek Championship, League One and League Two games, along with any moved from the traditional 3pm Saturday KO can be streamed by clubs in the UK.

You’ll pay around £10 per game (unless the game has been selected to be shown on Sky). You might also be able to watch games that take place on Bank Holidays – though that’s up to each club.

How you watch it depends on who you support. 40 clubs will use the iFollow platform, while the remaining 32 will be using their own platforms. The cost to stream the games will vary between clubs. You can find your club’s streaming service here.

ITV

You’ll be able to watch EFL highlights on ITV. 

FA Cup 

In 2023/24 the FA Cup will be completely free to watch. Last year, ITV took over from BT Sport as the co-broadcaster alongside the BBC. This remains the same this season. 

Broadcaster	Games
BBC	18 fixtures including the final Highlights
ITV	At least 20 games including the final

Women’s Super League & FA Cup

Matches are split between Sky and the BBC.

Broadcaster	Games
Sky	Up to 44 live league games
BBC	22 live league games plus 7 FA Cup games and the League Cup final

International friendlies and qualifiers

The home nations’ men’s international qualifiers and friendly matches are split across different broadcasters, depending on which team you want to watch. The 2024 Euros will be on BBC and ITV.

England’s women’s games are on ITV. BBC Wales has the women’s international games for Wales.

Broadcaster	Games shown
Channel 4	All England mens games
Viaplay Sports	All other mens games, excluding England
BBC	Highlights on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland mens matches
SC4	Wales mens matches (in Welsh)

Other football

This Wikipedia page will show you who has the broadcast rights for other matches, including the Scottish Premier League and La Liga.

Cheapest ways to watch football on Sky Sports

Sky Sports is available on as an add on for Sky, BT, Virgin and Talk Talk packages, or as a pay as you go pass via NOW.

Get day or month Sky Sports passes with NOW TV

If you only plan to watch a few games at home throughout the season you can buy a NOW TV day pass for £11.98. You get all the Sky Sports channels for 24 hours.

A monthly pass is also available, but at £34.99 it’s not cheap if you pay it every month. 

Normally I’d say you don’t have to pay the full price for NOW TV, as there are usually offers. These have dwindled a little over the last few years, but they do still pop up from time to time, especially on month passes which often drop to around £21 a month.  You can get more details on NOV TV offers in my regularly updated list of the best NOW TV Sky Sports Pass offers.

I love that there’s no minimum subscription with NOW TV meaning you can cancel whenever you want. You watch on the NOW TV app on your TV, console or streaming stick; or on your computer or mobile device.

It’s also only 720 HD rather than the full 1080. There is an upgrade available, which also lets you stream on 3 devices at the same time, but this comes at an extra £6 a month.

Combine a NOW TV pass with a cut-price broadband and phone line deal and it’ll often be much much cheaper than getting everything as part of the full Sky or Virgin packages.

The cheapest way to watch football on TNT Sports

TNT Sports is available to add to TV packages from BT, Sky and Virgin, or stream direct from Discovery+. We’ve got a deals page which highlights some of the best TNT Sports deals available, but here are the cheapest options.

Buy a month’s pass

You can access TNT Sports with Discovery+ for £29.99 per month. You don’t need to commit to a contract, so you can get a month’s access whenever you need it, making it good for casual fans.

Add TNT Sport to Virgin Media Broadband via Virgin Stream

When adding sports to your existing TV package, you need to factor in the other charges you’re paying such as landline, broadband and other TV channels. You’ll also probably have a new contract that lasts 18 to 24 months.

At the start of the season there are often offers to add the channels, so keep an eye out for those to get your sports channels at a discount.

One good offer at the moment is Virgin Media Stream, which is offering TNT Sports for £10 per month and Sky Sports for £18.75 per month. There’s a £35 activation fee and it’s only available to Virgin Broadband customers, but this works out as a good deal if you’re looking for year-round sports channels. 

The cheapest way to watch football on Amazon Prime Video

There will be 20 games shown on Amazon Prime this season, so you only need a month’s subscription to Prime Video to access it. 

Get a free Amazon Prime trial

If you’ve never had Prime, you can take out a 30-day trial for free. This’ll allow you to watch all those games, and if you time it right, get free delivery on your Christmas shopping!

Pay £5.99 a month

You can also sign up on a monthly basis, at just £5.99 a month. So if you only want to watch those games, you can do it for £6 – as long as you cancel. You can also get an annual membership to Amazon Prime with extra Amazon benefits for £95.

Save more on pay TV

Switch to a new deal

With Sky Sports and TNT Sports, rather than just add the channels to your existing service as a top-up, it’s often cheaper to switch your service to a new company.

There are always offers for current customers signing new contracts, but the best deals are usually for new customers or those who threaten to leave. You can generally save even more by going via cashback sites.

Haggle with your provider

You can add on the Sky Sports and TNT Sports channels to your existing Sky, Virgin, Talk Talk and BT TV packages, but this can get very expensive.

Look out for special offers at the start of the season, or get on the phone with your provider and haggle for a better deal. 

Cancel it when you don’t need it

These big pay TV companies often let you take Sky Sports month by month, so if there aren’t any matches you want to see, or you know you won’t have time, just call up and cancel.

You can sign up again when you want to restart watching the channels. Check the terms and conditions before subscribing and see if there is a notice or minimum period.

The cheapest way to watch every live TV game

Share it with a friend

Know someone who has TNT Sports, NOW TV or Sky? You can usually watch the channels on up to two devices (smart TV, computer, tablet, phone) simultaneously, so you could split the cost between you. Here’s my guide on sharing your subscriptions.

Watch it in the pub

Of course, you can save all that hassle and head to the pub.

Premiership fans will normally be able to find somewhere showing the games, though Championship and lower may struggle. A few pints would cost the same as a NOW TV day pass.

The average cost to watch each Premier League team

This year, we looked at the potential savings you could make from mixing and matching providers rather than committing to a year of sports channels. We found that football fans could save themselves up to £850 on watching the Premier League this season.

If you pay for all the services all year you’re going to get better value if you support one of the big teams and very poor value if you support a smaller one. However, if you’re a fan of various different sports or like to watch multiple teams, it might be worthwhile.