ITV, TNT, Sky, YouTube, and now Paramount? It doesn't need to be this confusing to watch football
ITV, TNT, Sky, YouTube, and now Paramount? If only we could afford to go to a football stadium
It is one plot twist too many. Paramount’s entry into the football broadcasting arena has now created a tangled web of rights deals that is so complicated that my mind has gone on strike.
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The latest development - and I am going to write this to the best of my understanding - is that Paramount has bought Warner Bros Discovery, the parent company of TNT Sports.
TNT Sports, formerly BT Sports, has won the rights to show Champions League football in the UK for four years, starting with the 2027 season. But to watch it, viewers will need to tune into a new channel called HBO Max, rather than the old Discovery+. However, the branding on Discovery+ and, later, HBO Max will advertise TNT Sports to make it look like a different channel.
And now Uefa, which operates the Champions League, is now investigating to see if this is all above board with regard to any potential monopoly issue that may come from this - or if it’s actually fine because the plucky independent underdogs that are Amazon Prime are still showing the odd game here and there.
Such a complicated plotline would be dismissed out of hand as a premise for any drama that Paramount might broadcast on one of its many entities. But may I remind you, this is just the Champions League. If you want to do a quick, and fiendishly hard, football quiz:
Q. How can you watch the Premier League?
A. Sky Sports and TNT Sports, with highlights on the BBC - which is also broadcasting FA Cup games in a job share with TNT.
Q. How can you watch the League Cup?
A. This is split between Sky Sports and ITV.
Q. How can I watch women’s football?
A. The WSL is on Sky and the BBC, the League Cup is on YouTube, the FA Cup is partly on Channel 4 and TNT, and the Women’s Champions League is on ESPN - which can be accessed via Disney+.
And all this to watch Arsenal just about bundle the ball over the line from corners?
Is it worth it? Not when fans need to fork out £140 per month to now watch all the big games, an amount that has risen 60 per cent in five years - according to the Guardian. And having to pay for at least half a dozen packages also burdens viewers with so much TV content that would likely be unnecessary. Of course, many fans are priced out from going to matches with season ticket prices skyrocketing. Not even every match is broadcast across these many, many channels - with England still having a broadcasting blackout when most games are on at 3pm on Saturdays.
So, is it therefore any wonder that more and more fans are reportedly turning to VPNs, geohacks and illegal / semi-legal streaming services to watch the games?
This has gone too far. It should not have to be this confusing or hard to watch football.
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William Mata is a writer and SEO editor for LBC.
LBC Opinion, which provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.
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