In the UK this season, Sky Sports is showing at least 215 live Premier League matches and TNT Sports 52. There are no live league games on free-to-air television, the BBC has the highlights, and BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT share live radio commentary. Saturday 3pm kick-offs still cannot be shown live anywhere in the UK. If you follow Liverpool or Everton from the sofa, that is the whole map in four sentences. The rest of this piece is about the details that catch people out.
Who shows what
The Premier League confirmed the split when it released the 2026/27 fixtures in June. The current four-year UK deals with Sky Sports and TNT Sports began last season, so the arrangement will feel familiar.
Sky Sports
Sky has the bigger share: Sunday afternoons, Monday Night Football, most of the midweek rounds and Boxing Day, according to Flashscore’s guide to this season’s broadcasters. You can watch through a Sky TV subscription or through NOW, Sky’s streaming service, on a monthly pass.
TNT Sports
TNT is built around the Saturday 12.30pm slot, plus some Saturday evening and Sunday games. The Merseyside derby at the Hill Dickinson on Sunday 29 November is a TNT game, which shows that the “Saturday lunchtime only” rule of thumb is not watertight. TNT can be bought direct, through a TV provider or via streaming apps.
Amazon
Prime Video no longer shows live Premier League games. If you still have a Prime subscription for the football, it is worth checking whether you are using it for anything else.
The 3pm blackout, explained
Matches kicking off at 3pm on Saturdays are not broadcast live in the UK. The rule exists to protect attendances further down the pyramid, so that a Saturday afternoon at your local non-league ground is not competing with live top-flight football on every pub screen.
In practice that means if Liverpool or Everton are given a 3pm Saturday kick-off, your options are to be there, follow the radio, or wait for the highlights. Every season people are caught out by sites that claim to stream these games. They are not licensed in the UK, they are often riddled with malware and pop-up scams.
Highlights and radio
The BBC holds highlights rights to all 380 fixtures. Match of the Day goes out on Saturday nights on BBC One and iPlayer, and Match of the Day 2 covers Sunday’s games. For Merseyside supporters who grew up on Saturday night highlights, this is the one bit of the television landscape that has not moved.
Radio is underrated. BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT hold the national live audio rights. For a 3pm game you cannot get to, the radio is the only legal live option in the UK, and a good commentator on a cold Saturday is worth a lot.
Working out what you actually need
Few people need everything. Some questions worth asking before you sign up to anything:
- How many of your club’s games are on each channel? Check the fixture list for the next couple of months and count. One club might have most of its televised games on Sky over winter; the other might have several TNT lunchtimes.
- Do you go to home games? Season ticket holders often only need TV for away matches, which changes the sums.
- Are you happy with monthly passes? Streaming passes let you pay for the busy months and drop out in the quiet ones. Long contracts tend to be cheaper per month but are harder to leave.
- Do you watch with others? The pub or a mate’s front room is a perfectly good option for the occasional game.
Black Friday and Christmas deals
Late November and December bring bundle offers from TV and broadband providers. A few things to check before you commit:
- the full contract length and what the price rises to after any introductory period;
- whether the “sports” element includes both Sky Sports and TNT Sports or only one;
- whether you can watch on more than one device at once, if the household is split between two matches;
- the cancellation terms if you move house or the deal stops suiting you.
Prices change constantly, so we are not listing them here. Compare the providers’ own pages on the day you are buying.
Fixture changes and television picks
Being on television moves games. The league aims to give at least six weeks’ notice of changes up to the end of December, and five weeks from January. That is how a Saturday 3pm derby becomes a Sunday noon kick-off. If you are travelling to a game, check the date again after the television picks are announced.
For the festive run, our Christmas fixtures guide lists both clubs’ games from Boxing Day onwards.
The bigger picture
It is worth stepping back for a moment. Following one club on television now usually means paying two broadcasters, on top of whatever you spend going to games. For many households on Merseyside that is a real choice in a winter of high bills, and it is part of the reason fans keep asking whether the league is run with them in mind. We put that question directly in Who Is the Premier League Actually For? The broadcast deals pay for a lot of what makes the league strong. They also move kick-offs, raise costs and leave the 3pm game unseen. All of that can be true at once.
Watching in a mixed household
A red and blue household with one television on a busy Sunday is its own small derby. Our earlier column on the derby inside families was about the emotions; the practical answer is usually a second screen on a legitimate app and a firm rule about who controls the remote. Whatever you pay for, it will still be cheaper than a Saturday at the match, and you will not have to queue for a pie.