Remember Setanta Sports; the channel that consistently showed Premier League football, without ever securing any of the key, key fixtures. Now if you’re an avid football fan of any club, any Premier League fixture is entertainment, and so we must thank Setanta for making us pay around a tenner a month to catch second rate Premier League fixtures.
Let us ponder ESPN who have practically done the same thing as Setanta did before the latter went out of British television operation. BT Sport have now come out of the woodworks and bought ESPN, with the intention of bringing forth a new home for Premier League football; and they’re not just looking like another Setanta.
Key Games
There are several factors that can determine whether or not BT Sport is a good Premier League football showing sports channel. The first is the games that they will be showing. While practically no game is ever meaningless in Premier League football, there are some games that will inevitably attract more viewers than others.
With a handsome amount of 18 first-pick Premier League fixtures at BT Sports’ disposal, it is fair to say that some big clashes will be shown on the new channel. In this respect, they are the first sports channel ever in the United Kingdom to pose a direct challenge to the monopoly and supremacy of Sky TV over the biggest Premier League fixtures.
This means that football fans cannot afford to not have BT Sports. Well that is unless they just watch games through online TV methods such as Visopix.
How Many Fixtures Will They Show?
It is not all about how many key fixtures a channel will be showing but also how many fixtures in general it will air.
BT Sports will broadcast 38 Premier League fixtures throughout the season, which works out to an average of one game a week. Considering 18 of these will be top pick fixtures, it is fair to say that the channel is worth having.
Price
Of course, whether or not a channel is worth having, also largely depends on the amount one will spend on the subscription package. ESPN are £13 per month for Sky TV viewers, while being free for those with Cable TV. Meanwhile SkySports is a pricey £21 per month, and that’s for their Sky viewers.
BT however, seem to have been a lot more generous to their customers, making their BT Sports service free to those with BT broadband.
If you choose to stay with Sky however, it’ll be £12 per month for regular BT Sports and £15 per month for HD BT Sports channels.
While it might not yet be a replacement for Sky, BT Sports is most definitely an alternative. Ideally, a passionate Premier League football fan will want both BT Sports and SkySports.
The use of foreign satellite dishes is probably the cheapest alternative. Those with satellite television boxes holding foreign sports channels won’t need to pay any monthly fee for their Premier League football.
However, satellite dishes can be rather unreliable and often fail to function fully when in the rain or during storms.
John Mosbies is a content writer who lives in Manchester. He likes to watch football with his friend.
Please like O-Posts on Facebook
You can follow O-Posts on Twitter @OPosts