Bt Sport Officially Launches Dedicated Channels
BT Sport is set to officially launch its two new sports channels in the United Kingdom at 6pm on Thursday evening to anyone with Freeview and TV from BT or Sky.
Last summer, the telecommunications company paid £738 million for three seasons of Barclays Premier League action, with two dedicated channels set to show one game a week throughout the next three football seasons, as well as Europa League, the FA Cup, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Serie A and Copa Libertadores.
The first ever Barclays Premier League game to be shown on the new channel will be the lunchtime kick-off between Liverpool and Stoke City at Anfield on the opening day of the season, 17th August.
Eleven further fixtures have been announced up until 30th November, including Tottenham v Chelsea, Manchester City v Everton, Everton v Liverpool and Tottenham v Manchester United. All will kick off at 12:45 on a Saturday.
Former BBC Formula One host Jake Humphrey will front the channel’s Premier League coverage, while Owen Hargreaves, Steve McManaman and David James are amongst the pundit lineup.
Commentators Ian Darke and Darren Fletcher will be assisted by Michael Owen, while former referee Mark Halsey and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand will provide further insight.
Ray Stubbs and James Richardson will also have roles, as well as Darrell Currie, Derek Rae and Gary McAllister who will front Scottish Premier League coverage.
As well as presenting talent BT Sport, which will also run ESPN, has secured the services of a number of prominent journalists and former sportspeople including Clare Balding, Des Kelly, Tim Lovejoy, Matt Dawson and Neil Warnock, who will contribute to various debate shows such as BT Sports Panel and Life’s A Pitch.
Rugby union, women’s tour tennis, UFC, Baseball X Games and MotoGP will also be covered across BT Sport 1 and 2.
The new BT Sport website, www.btsport.com also goes live from today and will offer a range of free content, including sports news, features, a ‘Women in Sport’ section and full channel listings.
BT Broadband customers who have signed up to BT Sport will be able to stream the channels live to their PC or Mac and be able to watch content again. There will be ‘match centres’ for BT Sport’s live Barclay’s Premier League games with live text commentary and match statistics.
Also available from today is the new BT Sport app, which will offer live streams, highlights, news and features.
John Petter, managing director, BT Retail Consumer, said: ‘It’s finally a reality that ‘Great sport happens here’. It’s just over a year since we secured our Barclays Premier League rights and only six months since we started to build our exciting new studio in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. We have some tremendously talented presenters and experts who are passionate about sport.’
‘The customers are the ones that matter and now they will be able to see the programmes for themselves. We’re convinced they’re going to like what they see, and we’re absolutely committed to making BT Sport fun, innovative and a firm favourite with the fans.’
