Sky Sports vs TNT Sports in 2026: What Each Has, What It Costs, and the Cheaper Way
Sky has 128 Premier League matches, F1 and the cricket. TNT has Champions League and Saturday lunchtime. Together they cost £700+/year. Here's the full UK breakdown — what overlaps, what's exclusive, and the option neither broadcaster wants you to know about.
If you''re a UK sports fan trying to work out which subscription you actually need — Sky, TNT, both, or something cheaper — this is the 2026 breakdown. We''ll cover what each broadcaster has live, where they overlap, what costs, and where the alternative IPTV path makes sense.
What Sky Sports has
Sky Sports is the bigger of the two by some distance. The package across Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event, Football, F1, Cricket, Golf and Action covers most major British sports rights:
- Premier League — 128 of 380 matches per season
- EFL Championship and below — full live rights
- Formula 1 — every Grand Prix qualifying and race in 4K UHD on Sky Sports F1
- Test cricket and the ECB Hundred — entire England summer
- PGA Tour and majors except the Masters
- NFL — selected games in season plus Super Bowl
- Boxing — selected fight nights from Matchroom and Frank Warren
- Rugby — Premiership Rugby, Heineken Champions Cup, Investec Champions Cup
What TNT Sports has
TNT Sports — the rebranded BT Sport — has a smaller library but holds two big jewels: Champions League and the Saturday lunchtime Premier League slot.
- UEFA Champions League — 187 of 204 matches per season (rest on Amazon Prime)
- UEFA Europa League and Conference League — every match
- Premier League — 52 matches per season, mostly Saturday 12:30 kick-offs and midweek
- MotoGP and WSBK — every round
- Boxing — alternating with Sky for some major fights
- WWE Premium Live Events — Wrestlemania, SummerSlam, Royal Rumble
Where they overlap
Less than you''d think. The two broadcasters split rights cleanly — there are no Premier League matches available on both. Where they touch is some boxing pay-per-views (Sky promotes Matchroom while TNT broadcasts certain Frank Warren cards) and a few one-off events. For 95% of viewing decisions, you''re picking which broadcaster, not avoiding double-counting.
The honest annual costs
This is the part the bundle marketing buries. Real prices in pounds for a UK viewer in 2026:
- NOW Sports Membership — £34.99/month rolling = £420/year (full Sky Sports app-based)
- NOW Sports Day Pass — £14.99/day, only sensible for a one-off match
- Sky Q + Sky Sports — £55-£70/month depending on bundle = £660-£840/year (TV box route)
- TNT Sports via discovery+ — £30.99/month = £372/year (Champions + 52 PL matches)
- Sky + TNT both, app-based — £790/year
- Sky + TNT both, full TV box — £1,000+/year
- BT Mobile / EE Smart Plan — TNT Sports included free if you''re already an EE customer on the right plan
NOW and discovery+ — the cheaper-than-you-think tier
Both broadcasters offer rolling app-based subscriptions that let you skip the satellite/fibre TV box. NOW (Sky''s streaming arm) gives you full Sky Sports through the NOW app on Smart TVs, Firesticks and phones. discovery+ Premium does the same for TNT Sports. They''re cheaper than the linear TV boxes, no contract, and you can pause for the off-season. Most UK readers under 35 are on these app routes already.
The catch: NOW caps streaming at 1080p, no 4K. Sky Sports F1 in 4K UHD only works on the Sky box, not on NOW. discovery+ does support 4K on premium-quality matches but the live encoding is hit-and-miss.
Where PREMRED SHOW fits
PREMRED carries Sky Sports and TNT Sports feeds — plus the international feeds Sky and TNT licence to broadcasters in other countries — in 4K HDR. The trade-off is that you''re relying on the broadcaster, not on Sky''s direct customer support. If you''ve been on Sky for 15 years and the box is a comfort thing, no IPTV is going to replace that. If you''re looking at a £790-a-year combined Sky+TNT bill and asking whether there''s a saner price, this is what the saner price looks like.
- Every Premier League match — Sky games, TNT games, and the international feeds for the 3pm Saturday blackout matches
- All 204 Champions League matches plus Europa and Conference
- Sky Sports F1 in 4K UHD — every session, every Grand Prix
- Sky Sports Cricket including Tests and The Hundred
- TNT Sports including all the rugby — Premiership and European
- NFL via Sky Sports — every Super Bowl, every primetime game
- Multi-language commentary where the international rightsholders provide it
- Catch-up of 7 days on every channel
A real-world example
Take an Arsenal fan in Manchester who follows the Premier League, watches Champions League nights, occasionally puts F1 on a Sunday afternoon and has the cricket on in the background through the summer. Their Sky Sports + TNT bill app-based is £790/year. PREMRED 12-month plan: £40. The difference — £750 — is the price of an iPhone in their pocket every year. The catch: they have to install IPTV Smarters or TiviMate from the Amazon Appstore, paste their credentials once, and accept that customer support is a WhatsApp chat instead of a Sky call centre.
How to set up on Sky Stream, Firestick or Smart TV
Sky Stream and Sky Glass run Android TV — IPTV Smarters and TiviMate install from the Google Play Store. Fire TV Stick: install IPTV Smarters from the Amazon Appstore, paste the Xtream Codes, set the EPG region to UK. Samsung Tizen and LG webOS: install Smart IPTV from the official store. Apple TV 4K runs the apps natively in 4K HDR. The whole process takes about five minutes.
"I was paying £62 a month for Sky Q with the sports add-on. Now I pay £40 a year, the channels are the same, and I can watch the F1 in 4K on the Apple TV in the kitchen too — Sky never let you do that."
Bottom line
If Sky Sports gets used heavily in your house — kids watching, partner watching, F1 every other weekend — and £700-£800 a year doesn''t make you flinch, the official route is fine. If you''re increasingly looking at the bill and wondering, the maths is what it is: £790 vs £40 is the trade for one weekend of light setup. PREMRED has a 24-hour test for £2, so you can confirm the streams are what you''d want before committing. After that, if it''s not for you, no charge.
