Quick answer: UK sports streaming in 2026

Answer-first Verified 19 May 2026 · Sources: Sky, NOW, discovery+, DAZN, Premier Sports, Ofcom, TV Licensing
Cheapest Premier League
£36
NOW Sky Sports, monthly
Champions League
£30.99
discovery+ Premium (TNT)
Boxing & NFL
~£10
DAZN Super Saver, annual
LaLiga & Serie A
£15.99
Premier Sports, monthly
TV Licence fee
£174.50
per year, from April 2026
All Premier League matches: NOW Sky Sports + discovery+ Premium = £66.99/month, no contract
Free-to-air still covers: Wimbledon, FA Cup final, Six Nations, Grand National, Olympics, World Cup

UK sports streaming services at a glance

The UK sports streaming market is split between three paid giants (Sky Sports, TNT Sports, DAZN), one specialist for European football (Premier Sports) and a strong free-to-air offer protected by Ofcom's listed events rules. The table below summarises the cheapest entry point, contract length and rights for each service, before we go into each one in detail.

Bundling through Sky Stream, Virgin Media TV or EE TV is almost always cheaper than subscribing to each service separately once you watch more than one sport. If flexibility matters more than price, stacking NOW Sky Sports and discovery+ Premium on rolling monthly contracts lets you cancel for the summer.

Comparison of the main UK sports streaming services in 2026
Service Cheapest route From / month Contract Main sports
Sky Sports Sky TV contract £33 18 months Premier League (215 live matches), F1, EFL, England cricket, golf, darts
NOW Sky Sports NOW Membership £36 Rolling monthly Every Sky Sports channel, including Premier League and F1
TNT Sports discovery+ Premium £30.99 Rolling monthly UEFA Champions, Europa, Conference Leagues, Premiership Rugby, MotoGP, UFC, 52 Premier League matches
DAZN Super Saver annual £10 12-month upfront (£119.99) Matchroom and Queensberry boxing, NFL Game Pass International, WSL, Women's Champions League
Premier Sports Direct subscription £15.99 Rolling monthly LaLiga, Serie A, Bundesliga, SPFL, Ligue 1, NHL, WWE
BBC iPlayer & ITVX TV Licence (£174.50/yr) Free* TV Licence required Six Nations, Wimbledon, FA Cup final, Grand National, Olympics, World Cup, Euros

Indicative prices in June 2026. Promotional offers and bundle discounts may reduce these rates. *Free-to-air requires a TV Licence to watch live broadcasts or BBC iPlayer.

Sky Sports: the Premier League and F1 anchor

Sky Sports is the broadest sports broadcaster in the UK. It holds the largest Premier League package (215 live matches per season under the 2025/26 to 2028/29 cycle), every Formula 1 race through 2029, the majority of EFL fixtures, England home Test cricket, The Open, the Masters, PDC darts and Ryder Cup golf. If you only pick one sports service, Sky Sports covers the widest range.

There are three practical ways to subscribe: a traditional Sky TV contract with Sky Sports added (from £33/month on an 18-month deal), a Sky Stream contract (same content over the internet, shorter commitment options), or a NOW Sky Sports Membership with no contract at all (£36/month). Stream comes with the Sky Glass or Stream puck, while NOW works on most smart TVs, Fire Stick, Roku, consoles and mobile devices.

Sky Go, included with any Sky TV subscription, lets you stream on up to four devices. NOW caps simultaneous streams at three and, on the base plan, streams at 720p rather than full HD unless you add the Boost pack at £6 per month for 1080p and 5.1 audio.

Best for

Premier League regulars, F1 fans, and anyone who watches multiple Sky-rights sports. NOW Sky Sports if you want to cancel between seasons; a Sky TV or Stream contract if you watch year-round and want the lower headline price.

TNT Sports: Champions League, rugby and UFC

TNT Sports replaced BT Sport in July 2023 following the Warner Bros. Discovery and BT joint venture. It holds exclusive UK rights to every UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Conference League match through to the end of the 2026/27 season, including all finals, plus Gallagher Premiership Rugby, the United Rugby Championship, MotoGP, the UFC and 52 Premier League fixtures per season.

The cheapest standalone route is discovery+ Premium at £30.99 per month, on a rolling contract. Existing Sky, Virgin Media, EE TV and BT Broadband customers can add TNT Sports directly to their bundle, often with a 6 or 12-month introductory discount. The discovery+ Premium subscription also unlocks Eurosport, so French Open tennis, Tour de France and the Winter Olympics come bundled at no extra cost.

TNT Sports Box Office handles selected pay-per-view boxing events when DAZN does not have the rights. For anyone following European football there is no alternative: every knock-out stage Champions League match, including the final, is behind the TNT Sports paywall.

Best for

Champions League nights, club rugby supporters and UFC fans. The Eurosport bundle makes it good value if you also follow tennis or cycling.

NOW: the no-contract route to Sky Sports

NOW (formerly NOW TV) is Sky's contract-free streaming service and the cheapest legal way to watch Sky Sports without committing for 18 or 24 months. A Sky Sports Membership costs £36 per month on a rolling basis and unlocks all eleven Sky Sports channels, including Premier League, Main Event, F1, Cricket, Golf and Football.

NOW also sells a Day Membership at £15, valid for 24 hours, ideal for a single F1 race weekend, a boxing undercard, the Masters Sunday or a one-off Premier League match. There is no weekly pass since the 2022 refresh, so frequent viewers are always better off on the monthly membership.

The main compromise on NOW is picture quality: the base membership streams at 720p with limited 5.1 audio. 1080p full HD plus surround sound requires the Boost add-on at £6 per month. You can watch on up to three devices simultaneously, which is generous compared with most rival services.

NOW memberships auto-renew each month. Cancel in your account settings at least 24 hours before the renewal date to avoid being charged for the next period. The Day Membership does not auto-renew.

DAZN: boxing, NFL and women's football

DAZN has become the default home of UK boxing and American football. It holds the exclusive UK streaming rights to Matchroom and Queensberry boxing cards, including Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury bouts, and remains the only place to buy NFL Game Pass International in the UK since the NFL moved its direct-to-consumer service into DAZN in 2023. DAZN also streams the Women's Super League, the Women's Champions League (the latter free on its YouTube channel) and selected darts events.

The pricing structure changed in 2024 and now sits at three tiers:

  • Super Saver: £119.99 upfront for 12 months (around £10/month equivalent), one device at a time;
  • Flexible: £19.99 per month, rolling, cancel any month;
  • Premium: £24.99 per month, includes 4K boxing and two concurrent screens.

NFL Game Pass Pro is sold separately inside the DAZN app at around £175.99 per season, with every regular-season and playoff game live. There is no pay-per-view surcharge for Matchroom or Queensberry cards: they are included in any DAZN subscription. DAZN is ad-free on every tier and works on smart TVs, phones, consoles and via Chromecast.

Best for

Boxing and NFL fans. The Super Saver annual plan is the cheapest serious sports subscription in the UK if you can commit for a year.

Premier Sports: LaLiga, Serie A and Scottish football

Premier Sports is the UK home for LaLiga, Serie A, the Bundesliga, the SPFL (Scottish Premiership) and Ligue 1 highlights. It also carries the NHL, selected cricket (including New Zealand home Tests), WWE and darts. It is the cheapest specialist service at £15.99 per month on a rolling basis, with an annual plan at £149.99 (around £12.50/month).

Premier Sports is available as an app on Sky Q, Sky Stream, Virgin Media, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV, and directly via premiersports.com. It is the only affordable way to watch a full Spanish, Italian, German or Scottish league season in the UK. Anyone following a non-English top-division team should start here before paying for anything else.

Best for

European football fans whose team is not in the Premier League. SPFL viewers outside Scotland. NHL fans.

Free live sport on BBC iPlayer and ITVX

A surprising amount of top-tier sport is still free-to-air in the UK thanks to Ofcom's listed events regulations. BBC iPlayer and ITVX between them cover Wimbledon, the FA Cup final, the Six Nations, the Grand National, the Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup, the UEFA European Championship, the Rugby World Cup final and the Commonwealth Games live, at no extra cost beyond the TV Licence.

Channel 4 adds Formula 1 highlights, live Women's Six Nations fixtures and selected England cricket highlights. S4C covers Welsh-language rugby. For a breakdown of everything you can watch without a subscription, see our dedicated guide to the best UK free streaming services.

Live tool

Cheapest sports bundle picker

Tick the sports you actually want to follow this season. The picker totals the cheapest no-contract route to each one and tells you when a Sky Stream or Virgin Media bundle would beat the standalone services.

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Your monthly total

No-contract bill, this season

£ /month

Tick at least one sport to see the total.

services on rolling monthly contracts (DAZN Super Saver is a 12-month upfront plan).

Bundle tip: if you take Sky Sports AND TNT Sports, the Sky Stream Whole Home Sports bundle packages them for around £58 per month. That saves you about £/month over standalone NOW + discovery+, but locks you in for 18 months.

Your picks

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Estimate based on May 2026 headline prices on each provider's standalone plan. Bundle prices for Sky Stream, Virgin Media TV and EE TV may sit lower; call the team below for an honest review.

Cheapest ways to bundle multiple sports in 2026

Subscribing to Sky Sports, TNT Sports and DAZN separately at full price costs over £80 per month. You can cut that bill significantly by bundling through a single provider. The best value routes in 2026 are:

  • Sky Stream Whole Home Sports: Sky Sports and TNT Sports together from about £58 per month over 18 months, including Netflix on Sky Glass devices;
  • Virgin Media Mega Volt bundle: Sky Sports, TNT Sports, gigabit broadband and a phone line in one bill, usually the cheapest dual-sport option if you also need fast broadband;
  • EE TV Big Entertainment: Sky Sports add-on plus broadband, with no upfront fee for existing EE Mobile customers;
  • NOW + discovery+ stacked on rolling monthly contracts: around £67 per month with no lock-in, perfect if you want to cancel between seasons.

If flexibility matters more than price, the rolling NOW + discovery+ route is roughly £10 to £15 more than a long contract, but you can cancel at the end of the football season and save for the rest of the year.

Advantages

  • NOW + discovery+: no contract, cancel any month
  • Sky Stream Whole Home: best picture quality, single remote and app
  • Virgin Media Mega Volt: Sky Sports, TNT Sports and gigabit broadband in one bill
  • DAZN Super Saver: boxing and women's football for around £10 per month on an annual plan

Disadvantages

  • Sky Stream Whole Home locks you in for 18 months
  • TNT Sports and Sky Sports combined still miss LaLiga and Serie A (Premier Sports)
  • NOW base plan streams at 720p without the £6 Boost add-on
  • No single service covers every major sport

Watching UK sport from abroad

Sky Go, NOW, TNT Sports and DAZN all geo-restrict their streams to the UK. If you travel within the EU, EU portability rules still allow Sky Go and NOW subscribers to access their account temporarily from another member state for up to a few weeks. Outside the EU, you will be blocked unless you use a VPN set to a UK server. A VPN typically breaches each service's terms of use, so check before relying on it for paid streams.

A safer legal alternative when abroad is to subscribe to a local broadcaster that holds the same rights (for example, beIN Sports in France for Premier League, or ESPN+ in the United States for selected matches). Free-to-air fixtures on BBC iPlayer are the most restrictive: access is limited to viewers physically in the UK, with no EU portability outside the trial Premier Sports app exceptions.

Sport streaming FAQ

BT Sport rebranded to TNT Sports on 18 July 2023 after Warner Bros. Discovery formed a 50/50 joint venture with BT. All channels, Champions League rights and Premiership Rugby coverage transferred to TNT Sports, and the app moved to discovery+, where it still lives in 2026.

Under the four-year rights cycle that started in 2025/26, Sky Sports holds 215 live Premier League matches per season and TNT Sports holds 52. Amazon Prime Video no longer carries Premier League fixtures in the UK. The cheapest no-contract route to all Sky games is NOW Sky Sports Membership at £36 per month; for the TNT matches, discovery+ Premium at £30.99 per month.

Yes. NFL Game Pass International is sold inside the DAZN app, not directly from the NFL. The 2026 season pass is around £175.99 for the full regular season and playoffs, with every game live or on-demand. A basic DAZN subscription is required to access it.

TNT Sports holds exclusive UK rights to every Champions League, Europa League and Conference League match through to the end of the 2026/27 season, including the finals. The cheapest route is discovery+ Premium at £30.99 per month on a rolling contract; existing Sky, Virgin Media, BT Broadband or EE TV customers can usually add it to their package at a discount.

Yes. The "Group A" listed events on Ofcom's register stay free-to-air by law: Wimbledon, the FA Cup final, the Grand National, the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup, the UEFA European Championship and the Rugby World Cup final, all on BBC iPlayer or ITVX. The Six Nations is the biggest "Group B" event (free-to-air highlights and most live coverage). You still need a valid TV Licence (£174.50 from April 2026) to watch live broadcasts or BBC iPlayer.

On a 12-month plan, DAZN Super Saver at £119.99 upfront (around £10 per month) is the cheapest mainstream sports subscription in 2026, but you only get boxing, NFL and women's football. On a flexible monthly basis, Premier Sports at £15.99 is the cheapest specialist service. For Premier League specifically, NOW Sky Sports at £36 per month is the cheapest no-contract route.

Most live HD streams need a stable 25 Mbps connection, and 4K football on Sky Stream or TNT Sports requires roughly 50 Mbps. If two people in the home watch different streams at once, double those numbers. If you are on ADSL or a 10–20 Mbps fibre plan, an upgrade is often the cheapest single change you can make before paying for a sports subscription.

Sky Go, NOW, TNT Sports and DAZN all geo-restrict to the UK. EU portability rules still let Sky Go and NOW subscribers access their account temporarily in another EU member state. Outside the EU you will be blocked; a VPN can technically restore access but generally breaches each service's terms of use. The safer route is to subscribe to a local broadcaster that holds the same rights for that country.

Get the right broadband for live HD and 4K sport

Most live HD sport streams need a stable 25 Mbps connection and 4K football on Sky Stream or TNT Sports needs roughly 50 Mbps. If two people in the home watch different streams at once, double those numbers. If your speeds are borderline, upgrading your broadband is usually a cheaper monthly fix than dropping picture quality.

Selectra's UK broadband team compares Sky, BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, Vodafone and full-fibre challengers like Community Fibre and Hyperoptic against your postcode, the sports services you want and the number of simultaneous streams in your home.

Call our UK advisers on 020 3936 0059 for a free 5-minute check of the broadband and sports bundles that fit your address.