TNT Sports (United Kingdom)


TNT Sports, formerly BT Sport, is a British sportscasting pay television channel brand owned by BT Group and Warner Bros. Discovery, first launched on 1 August 2013 and serves the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Based at the Warner Bros. Discovery complex in Chiswick Business Park, London since July 2023, having relocated from its original home at Here East, the former International Broadcast Centre in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, the brand’s channels are available on EE TV, Sky and Virgin Media in the UK and Sky and Vodafone TV in Ireland.
BT Group established the brand after acquiring rights to the English Premier League; it also acquired the operations of previous rightsholder, ESPN UK, prior to launch, integrating them with BT Sport as BT Sport 4. On 11 May 2022, BT Group announced an agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery to form a joint venture that would eventually merge BT Sport with its local Eurosport business, which was approved two months later. BT Sport rebranded as TNT Sports on 18 July 2023 and absorbed Eurosport UK on 28 February 2025.

History

Premier League deal, launch

News of BT's first foray into sports broadcasting first came about on 12 June 2012, when it was announced that it had won the rights to 38 live Premier League matches for three seasons from the 2013–14 season, beating ESPN UK, which had held the shared rights with Sky Sports the previous season. BT announced at the same time that it would be launching its own channel for its new football coverage. The news followed speculation that ESPN was reconsidering its position in the UK. The following months also saw BT win rights to Premiership Rugby and its associated 7s Series, as well as American, Brazilian, French and Italian top-flight football.
On 25 February 2013, BT announced an agreement to acquire ESPN's television networks in the UK and Ireland, including ESPN and international sports channel ESPN America; this agreement gave BT rights to the FA Cup beginning in 2013–14, the Bundesliga and UEFA Europa League through 2015, and the Scottish Premier League through 2017, as well as other international event rights licensed through ESPN. The value of the deal was not disclosed, but BT was understood to be paying "low tens of millions". The deal was expected to close by 31 July, and BT was expected to operate at least one ESPN-branded channel as part of the BT Sport service.
BT made other notable rights deals ahead of BT Sport's launch, including UFC mixed martial arts under a three-year deal, and MotoGP beginning in 2014, under a five-year deal. In May 2013, BT announced that BT Sport would be offered for free to its internet subscribers via streaming. Media analyst Steve Hewlett felt that BT's entry into the sport market was an effort to help strengthen its triple play business and, in particular, help retain internet subscribers lost to Sky.
BT Sport launched on 1 August 2013. On 12 August, BT reported that over 1,000,000 households had subscribed to the service ahead of the start of the 2013–14 Premier League, although admitting that the majority of them were BT internet subscribers.
The interactive service BT Sport Extra launched in 2014. In January 2015, BT Sport renewed its licensing agreement with ESPN International under a seven-year deal, allowing it to continue operating an ESPN-branded network as part of BT Sport, and hold rights to ESPN original programming, and event broadcast rights that are distributed internationally by ESPN.

UEFA deal, expansion

On 9 November 2013, BT Sport announced that it had acquired the rights to the UEFA Champions League and Europa League beginning in 2015–16, under a three-year deal valued at £897 million, replacing Sky and ITV.
On 9 June 2015, BT announced it would launch a new channel, BT Sport Europe, which would carry all UEFA Champions League and Europa League matches. Concurrently it was announced that only the BT Sport 1 channel would be free to BT internet subscribers, and that BT Sport 2, Europe and ESPN would require viewers to subscribe for £5 extra. BT also announced a Freeview HD channel known as BT Sport Showcase, which would carry 12 Champions League matches and 14 Europa League matches per season on a free-to-air basis, including at least one match per-round, each English club appearing at least once per-season, and coverage of the Champions League and Europa League finals.
BT Sport also announced that it would launch BT Sport Ultra HD, the first 4K sports channel in the UK, on 2 August for the 2015 FA Community Shield. The channel would initially be exclusive to BT TV on BT Infinity, with a 4K service package and compatible YouView set-top box. In 2016, BT Sport Europe was renamed BT Sport 3.
In 2017, BT Sport began an agreement with boxing promoter Frank Warren, under which Warren's channel BoxNation would be distributed as part of the BT Sport service, and that BT Sport and BoxNation would co-produce and simulcast 20 cards per-year on Saturday nights. In April 2018, BT Sport announced a pay-per-view service, BT Sport Box Office, with an intent to broadcast premium boxing events. On 2 August 2019, BT Sport relaunched its 4K channel as BT Sport Ultimate, and began to offer Dolby Atmos sound and high dynamic range on supported devices.
On 20 June 2019, BT Sport announced an agreement to carry the programming and pay-per-views of U.S. professional wrestling promotion WWE, ending a relationship with Sky Sports that dated back to the network's launch in 1989.

Joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery, TNT Sports

In April 2021, it was reported that BT was exploring a sale of all or part of BT Sport, in order to focus more on its fibreoptic services. Rumoured suitors included Amazon.com Inc., the sports streaming provider DAZN, and ESPN majority-owner Disney. By September 2021, DAZN was reported to be in "advanced talks" with BT. However, in December, it was reported that negotiations had stalled, and that Discovery Inc.—who owns competitor Eurosport and was preparing to merge with WarnerMedia to form Warner Bros. Discovery —was negotiating a joint venture with BT to combine their respective networks. In February 2022, the two companies entered exclusive negotiations.
On 11 May 2022 Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA announced that it had reached an agreement to combine its Eurosport UK business with BT Sport in a 50/50 joint venture, in a transaction scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022 pending approval from regulators and sports bodies. Under the agreement, WBD would assume the operations of BT Sport, and merge them with Eurosport under a new brand at a later date. WBD will pay £93 million to BT over three years; if performance targets are met, WBD will pay a bonus of up to £540 million. The company will also have the option to buy out more of BT's stake in the venture. As part of the agreement, BT agreed to distribute Warner Bros. Discovery's factual streaming service Discovery+—which is the streaming platform of Eurosport—at no charge to most BT TV subscribers, and those who subscribe to BT Sport via the company directly.
The venture was approved by the Competition and Markets Authority on 22 July 2022, and the merger was completed on 1 September. On 1 August 2022, BT Sport ESPN was rebranded as BT Sport 4, while the BT Sport Extra overflow channels were rebranded as BT Sport 5 through 10.
On 21 February 2023, it was announced that BT Sport would rebrand as TNT Sports on 18 July 2023, ahead of the 2023–24 football season; the branding is derived from WBD's American general entertainment channel TNT, and has also been used by WarnerMedia sports networks in Latin and South America. It was stated that the Eurosport UK channels would be folded into TNT Sports no later than the 2026 Winter Olympics. The network's new brand identity was developed by DixonBaxi, using a "viewfinder" formed from rotated "T" letters as a visual motif, and using the "N" from the logo as a homophone of "and" to join pairs of concepts.
In January 2025, WBD announced that Eurosport would be discontinued in the UK and Ireland on 28 February, with its content to be folded into TNT Sports platforms afterward.
On 17 May 2025, the Financial Times reported that WBD was preparing to invoke its option to acquire BT's stake in TNT Sports.
In June 2025, it was reported that WBD would be ending an agreement with Red Bee Media to handle playout for the TNT Sports channels in August 2025, and re-locating these operations in-house at a WBD facility in Atlanta, United States.

Availability

In the UK, TNT Sports is available in standard definition with all BT TV packages for BT Broadband customers. The 4K channel TNT Sports Ultimate is also available to BT Superfast Fibre customers for an additional fee. TNT Sports operates six part-time overflow channels, originally branded as BT Sport Extra, but branded since July 2023 as TNT Sports 5–10. They are carried via the red button on Sky and Virgin Media, and displayed as individual channels on the BT EPG. TNT Sports is also available to EE mobile phone contract customers to view via TNT Sports & Discovery+ apps or to stream via Discovery Plus' website. This can be streamed on a laptop or PC which is a stark contrast to how BT Sports used to work.
On Sky, TNT Sports 1 only is currently offered for free to broadband subscribers as 'TNT Sports Lite', regardless of what subscription they have. Plusnet TV also offered the same until 1 November 2021 when their TV brand was discontinued, however, TNT Sports is still available to Plusnet customers via the app service. Customers who wish to view the remaining channels can subscribe to the 'TNT Sports Pack' in either standard or high definition. BT also provide broadband subscribers access to the channels via the Discovery+ app.
Virgin Media customers receive TNT Sports 1, 2, 3, 4, and Ultimate as part of their "Full House" bundle however, they do not receive AMC from BT.
TalkTalk TV customers subscribed to the TNT Sports Pack in order to receive the entire range of channels.
In addition, Freeview HD customers received BT Sport Showcase and Virgin Media customers received BT Sport Free. They closed on 30 June 2018.
On 4 December 2018, the SD versions of BT Sport and BT Sport ESPN stopped broadcasting on Virgin Media.
On 6 February 2019, BT Sport released the app for Xbox One. It was later released for PlayStation 4 on 31 May 2019. On 8 September 2020, BT Sport also launched on Fire TV, Android TV and Roku TV. On 18 July 2023, following the rebrand to TNT Sports, the channels became available on the Discovery+ service for viewers in the UK, with the BT Sport application discontinued on all platforms from 12 October 2023.