Here’s how to watch football on TV 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, with more games than ever broadcast.
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 my guide to the cheapest ways to watch Premier League, EFL and other football.
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(All this football talk reminds me of this classic Mitchell and Webb sketch…)
How to watch the Premier League 2024/2025 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 – 32 on Saturday at 5.30pm – 8 on Saturday at 7.45pm – 32 on Sunday at 4.30pm – 32 on Sunday at 2pm – 24 on either Friday at 7.30pm or Monday at 8pm |
| TNT Sports (previously BT Sport) | 52 – 32 on Saturday at 12:30pm – 15 matches from two midweek fixtures – 5 matches from split weekend |
| Amazon Prime | 20 games – 10 on a December midweek – 10 on Boxing Day and following days |
| BBC | Highlights on Match of the Day |
How to watch Champions League, Europa League and Europe Conference League
Amazon Prime
17 Champions League games will be shown on Prime for the first time this season. They’ll be on Tuesday nights and Amazon have the first pick for these games.
TNT Sports
All the other games and highlights are on TNT Sports until 2024. The finals have historically been free to watch on the BT Sport YouTube channel, and are now on the TNT Sports app this year
BBC
You’ll get free to air highlights for the Champions League on the BBC until 2027.
How to watch Football League (Championship, League One, League Two, League Cup)
Sky Sports
Sky is the only place to watch EFL games this season with a massive increase in the games shown on Sky Sports. 1,059 out of 1,891 matches will be on TV. You can see what’s been picked on the EFL upcoming live games page.
It will be broadcasting the following:
- 328 EFL Championship games
- 248 League One games
- 248 League Two games
- All play-off semi-finals and finals
- All 93 EFL Carabao cup games
- All 127 EFL Trophy games
Each week there will be:
- Five matches in the Sky Bet Championship
- Five from Sky Bet League One and League Two
This includes:
- All opening and closing day fixtures
- All mid week fixtures
- All bank holiday fixtures
Shown across these time slots:
- Saturday at 12.30pm (five games)
- Friday night and Sunday 12.30pm
- Some Thursday and Monday nights
ITV
You’ll be able to watch EFL highlights on ITV.
FA Cup
In 2024/25 the FA Cup will be completely free to watch.
| Broadcaster | Games |
| BBC | 18 fixtures including the final |
| ITV | 20 games including the final |
Women’s Super League & FA Cup
Matches are split between Sky and the BBC, and some may be on YouTube too. All Women’s Championship are on YouTube.
| Broadcaster | Games |
| Sky | Up to 44 live league games |
| BBC | 22 live league games plus 7 FA Cup games and the League Cup final |
| YouTube | Some games not shown on the BBC or Sky |
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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.
England’s women’s games are on ITV. BBC Wales has the women’s international games for Wales.
| Broadcaster | Games shown |
| ITV | All England mens games, including World Cup qualifiers and Nations League |
| Premier 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.
If you already pay for Sky or Virgin, then it’s worth haggling to see if you can add on Sky Sports, or reduce your existing spend. However if you just want the sport channels you’ll be tied into an 18 or 24 month contract for all your other services you have with them such as broadband, as well as forced to also pay for entertainment options, really bringing the price up.
Sky Sports is currently £22 a month for 24-months direct from Sky with the standard Sky channels and Netflix adding on another £20 a month, at least.
Sadly it doesn’t look like Sky is still offering a cut price deal just for the football channels or just for the F1 channel – but keep an eye out for either’s return.
You can pay a £27 a month for a monthly rolling contract via Sky Stream but you’ll need to pay at least £29 a month on top for Sky Entertainment and Netflix. For most people you’re better off going with NOW.
With Virgin Media it’s also another £20 on top, at least for the sports channels. Again, not bad, but you’re likely over paying for the other channels.
Get day or month Sky Sports passes with NOW TV
NOW TV passes are particularly good if you don’t want to pay for other Sky or Virgin channels or Netflix (which is bundled with Sky), or if you won’t watch all year around.
Plus, 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.
If you only plan to watch a few games at home throughout the season you can buy a NOW day pass for £14.99. You get all the Sky Sports channels for 24 hours. This isn’t as good a deal as it used to be, but still a money saver if you just want to watch a single match.
A monthly pass is also available, meaning you can view more sport. But at £34.99 it’s not as cheap as adding to Sky if you pay it every month.
The good news is there are regular deals to reduce the price of a pass. These have dwindled a little over the last few years, and there are very few day pass deals.
But monthly ones do still pop up quite regularly, often dropped to between £21 and £26 a month either when you first sign up or as a retention offer if you go to cancel. Get it this low, if not lower, then it’s more comparable to what you’d pay adding it to Sky without the requirement for other channels.
More recently you might find these offers tie you in for a minimum period, perhaps as long as six months, which isn’t as flexible. But others still let you cancel when ever you want.
You can get more details on NOW TV sports deals in our regularly updated list of the best NOW TV Sky Sports Pass offers.
You can stream the NOW TV app on your TV, console or streaming stick; or on your computer or mobile device. Though you can’t record (it’s all on-demand and catch up), you can now pause and rewind live sport.
If you want HD or to share your pass you’ll need to pay more. It’s £6 a month for Boost (2x streams and 720p) and £9 a month for Boost Ultra (3x streams and 1080p). Again, there are often deals to bring the price down.
The cheapest way to watch football on TNT Sports
TNT Sports is available to add to TV packages from Sky, EE 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.
Free with some BT broadband packages
If you have been with BT for a while for broadband or mobile packages then it’s worth checking if you’ve got free access to the full Discovery+ package, which includes TNT Sports. If you’re not eligible you can add it for £10 a month with no long contract commitment.
Buy a month’s pass
If you don’t have or want expensive pay TV contracts, you can access TNT Sports with Discovery+ for £30.99 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.
Save money on TNT Sports
All my ways to save on this dedicated TNT Sports deals article
The cheapest way to watch football on Amazon Prime Video
There will be 20 Premier League and 17 Champions League 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
Last 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.
Managed to obtain sky sports, all channels, for £17/month, 18 month contract.
Is this article for 2022 or 2021? There were some misleading dates in your post. I was led to believe that NowTV shows ALL the matches for the upcoming season. Can you confirm?
2022/23. It’s only selected games on Sky/Now in the UK
The providers have stitched up the public. If you have a license you should’ve able to watch all UK matches and the likes of sky, bt etc should have to pay to broadcast them overseas.
You can now sign up for a Now TV Sky Sports pass and pay £25 a month for 12 months which is available until the 5th October.
Hi, whats the cheapest way to watch all the England mens football matches?
If you have Plusnet fibre broadband you can get access to all the BT Sport channels via the BT app for just £5 a month; way cheaper than the other alternatives. If you also happen to have a chromecast then you can stream BT Sport to that so you can watch on your TV.