Sport on TV Sport on digital
Digital TV offers sports fans a number of sporting channels covering a wide range of events. Your choice of channels depends on the service and package you go for. Some channels are included in basic digital packages; others you have to pay extra for.
Sky and Virgin Media have the most sport channels by far in terms of premium sports content.
Basic channels
- Free-to-air channels such as BBC and ITV are shown on Freesat and Freeview. Most Freeview channels come as standard in the basic packages with other TV services.
- Subscription packages Digital services such as Sky and Virgin Media offer several premium sports packages on a pay-monthly basis.
Though pay TV providers such as Sky are often able to outbid free-to-air channels for sporting rights, some popular events still have wide coverage on BBC and ITV.
The BBC shows live coverage of Formula 1 motor racing, Six Nations rugby union championships, the Wimbledon tennis championships, the World Snooker Championships and most athletics events, including the Olympics and World Championships.
ITV has live rights to some Champions League matches, UEFA Cup matches, FA Cup matches, boxing matches and cycling tours, including Le Tour de France.
Some sports have better coverage on free-to-air services than others: most cricket, rugby league, boxing and golf events are only available live on Sky Sports.
Sky tends to get live rights to many league championships, such as Premier League football, Super league rugby and ATP World tennis matches.
Premium channels
The Ryder Cup remains on free-to-air
Premium channels cost extra, but offer the widest range of live sports. Premium channels such as Sky Sports own exclusive rights to many key sporting events, and sports coverage runs 24 hours a day on some channels.
- Sports packages Sky and Virgin Media show the range of Sky Sports channels.
- Pay-per-view Some events, such as boxing, are available on Sky Box Office on a pay-per-view basis. BT Vision has also launched a non-live pay on-demand service for pre-recorded football matches and golf events.
High definition sports on TV
High definition (HD) offers you a more detailed and life-like picture than standard TV. Sky Sports' main channels are all available in HD.
Sky is broadcasting all its Premiership matches in HD, as well as a selection of matches from the Football League, Carling Cup and UEFA Champions League. Watching HD sports isn’t cheap – you’ll need to sign up to Sky’s HD service on top of your standard subscription.
You can watch a limited amount of sports content on BBC HD and ITV HD channels for free if you have Freesat or Freeview HD.
BT Vision and Virgin Media both have a selection of HD films available on a pay-per-view basis as part of their on-demand content.
In order to watch any content in HD, you'll also need an HDTV.
See how the latest models do in our independent lab tests in the Which? TV reviews.
