Ey up.


With The Ashes just around the corner I have noticed that in the interests of competition to benefit the consumer (ha!) BT Sports now have rights to the Ashes.

However, I was absolutely stunned to see the price of adding BT Sport to my Sky package.

My question is - does anyone know a cheaper way of watching BT Sports on Sky than paying the 'sky' high price quoted on their website?

PS - why isn't the women's Ashes called 'The Gashes'?

If you are on EE, you can get BTSport free for 3 months, then £5 a month afterwards - Not sure if this can be transferred to your sky account etc.

Or, install Mobdro (if on Android) and enjoy for free - obviously not on sky but still.

Or, go down the streaming route......

Foulthrow wrote:However, I was absolutely stunned to see the price of adding BT Sport to my Sky package

I saw the pricing somewhere recently and was beyond stunned. Won’t be any late nights for me this winter watching the cricket.

If you join the barmy army you get BT Sports free.

Not sure of prices to join or what you have been quoted but worth checking it out.

streaming it for free.

ClaretTony wrote:I saw the pricing somewhere recently and was beyond stunned. Won’t be any late nights for me this winter watching the cricket.

Definitely not with what the state pension payment is..

It's £31 a month for HD or £26 SD. Incredible. I couldn't believe it was so much - after all - you get about one Premier League game a week (which I'd usually miss if I'm at the Burnley game) and Champions League/Europa League (which is bobbins and used to be free). I can't believe it is so expensive. No way I can justify that.

And I'd rather not go down the streaming route if possible. You can guarantee it would drop out every time there is a wicket.

Rather frustratingly the Aussie coverage from Channel 9 is kept free-to-air.

Does anyone know if there are any free-to-air highlights on (please God, not the awful 30 minutes of that smug git Mark Nicholas from Channel 5)?

Quickenthetempo wrote:If you join the barmy army you get BT Sports free.

Not sure of prices to join or what you have been quoted but worth checking it out.

Didn't know that.

How do they examine your mental capacity though before allowing you to join? Can I expect to join the officer corps or will I be a lowly private?

Those are the prices I saw. Not something I’ve considered because most of the Premier League they show is when I’m not watching and I can live without the Champions League.

I wouldn't touch BT Sport. I sometimes watch it if the pub I'm in, happen to have it, but for what they offer and with having the handicap of the likes of Michael Owen, it's worth to me about £5 a month.

Here is said offer. I'm not a mathe-magician so how much will that cost in total?

https://www.barmyarmy.com/news-not-head ... -on-2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Foulthrow wrote:Didn't know that.

How do they examine your mental capacity though before allowing you to join? Can I expect to join the officer corps or will I be a lowly private?

They test you on how long it takes you to learn the words to Jerusalem and we've all s###### matilda.

Foulthrow wrote:Didn't know that.

How do they examine your mental capacity though before allowing you to join? Can I expect to join the officer corps or will I be a lowly private?

Just by applying to join tells them that you're obviously not all there!

Still looks like it will cost you about £15 a month.

I didn’t realise how much BT is. I pay 20quid a month for all sky sports channels. There sports service is far better

Luckily I get BT Sports free through Virgiñ.

Streaming should be quite good if it's on two separate channels and the middle of the night here.

It's shocking. As FactualFrank says - it's worth about a fiver tops.

I'm really peed off about this. The only reason I got Sky was when they got exclusive rights to cricket. Now if I want to keep watching I have to pay a King's ransom. And get no sleep. Bonkers.

IPTV £80/year all in. Sports. Movies. Music. 3pm Saturday games. Pay per view boxing. The lot

BT are the top players now.

Champions league, more premier league games and the Ashes now.

Sky are going to have to up their game.

Quickenthetempo wrote:BT are the top players now.

Champions league, more premier league games and the Ashes now.

Sky are going to have to up their game.

Don’t come close to Sky for Premier League. They also have no rights to cricket other than games played in Australia so the Ashes in England is still exclusively Sky.

Champions League they have got but it hasn’t worked for them apparently. Take up and viewing figures for those games is very low.

Not sure in which areas you think Sky need to up their game.

Sky have 3+ Premier League games per weekend and they fill any slots with decent Championship games, if BT are showing a Prem game. For darts fans such as myself, Sky Sports also have the likes of Premier League Darts, the World's and Grand Slam of Darts (starting on Saturday afternoon).

It's free with my broadband and £5 a month for HD.

Blame the Labour government for forcing Sky and the Premier league to sell to other media companies "to provide competition", choice and better value for money.

Yeah great, been paying twice for the same thing now since 2008 or whenever it was.

Can't get BT broadband on the island so only option for me is through Sky. I rang BT and told them I was only interested on the Motorsport and not prepared to pay the price. They offered it to me for £13.99 per month fixed for 18 months so happy with that.

If you have your broadband with plusnet the BT Sports app is £2.50 per month for all channels plus Box Nation.


Brian

Also if your with plusnet for broadband you can add bt sports to your sky package for £10 a month
You get bt sports 1,2,3 ,ESPN and box nation

I think you can get a similar deal if your with bt broadband too

ClaretTony wrote:Don’t come close to Sky for Premier League. They also have no rights to cricket other than games played in Australia so the Ashes in England is still exclusively Sky.

Champions League they have got but it hasn’t worked for them apparently. Take up and viewing figures for those games is very low.

Not sure in which areas you think Sky need to up their game.

With the money paid for Sky they should have the top sporting events on their channels.

If I was to choose at the moment between the two then BT would win hands down.

Viewing figures should be better for Sky as they simply have more subscribers.

Quickenthetempo wrote:With the money paid for Sky they should have the top sporting events on their channels.

If I was to choose at the moment between the two then BT would win hands down.

Viewing figures should be better for Sky as they simply have more subscribers.

You were suggesting they were bettering Sky even with more Premier League football. That’s nowhere near the case. Can’t see any reason why anyone would choose BT unless their priority was the Champions League.

I enjoyed watching the CL on occasion, when SKY had it. Barring the odd game that I’d have liked to have watched, I’ve not missed it and I’m not paying for another sports channel that I won’t watch much.

I’m hoping BT decide it’s not worth it with their viewing figures and it’s all soon back in one providers hands. We will probably never have a decent free to air football deal ever again, so the sooner it’s a single provider the better for the consumer.

DCWat wrote:I enjoyed watching the CL on occasion, when SKY had it. Barring the odd game that I’d have liked to have watched, I’ve not missed it and I’m not paying for another sports channel that I won’t watch much.

I’m hoping BT decide it’s not worth it with their viewing figures and it’s all soon back in one providers hands. We will probably never have a decent free to air football deal ever again, so the sooner it’s a single provider the better for the consumer.

Totally agree - I’ve not missed the Champions League.

DCWat wrote:I enjoyed watching the CL on occasion, when SKY had it. Barring the odd game that I’d have liked to have watched, I’ve not missed it and I’m not paying for another sports channel that I won’t watch much.

I’m hoping BT decide it’s not worth it with their viewing figures and it’s all soon back in one providers hands. We will probably never have a decent free to air football deal ever again, so the sooner it’s a single provider the better for the consumer.

I think everyone would like all the elite sports on one provider.

I've enjoyed the champions league this year, it helps you can pick any game you want.

The Chelsea/Roma and City/Napoli were as good a games as you could watch.

Unfortunately there's only City worth watching in the premier league these days as a neutral.

DCWat wrote:I enjoyed watching the CL on occasion, when SKY had it. Barring the odd game that I’d have liked to have watched, I’ve not missed it and I’m not paying for another sports channel that I won’t watch much.

I’m hoping BT decide it’s not worth it with their viewing figures and it’s all soon back in one providers hands. We will probably never have a decent free to air football deal ever again, so the sooner it’s a single provider the better for the consumer.

Unlikely, BT has invested billions in this and unless they get the PL bidding wrong, or get outbid by another player coming in, they are here to stay. Even then (no PL) they will still have the smaller sports rights packages. Their entire business is underpinned by the sports/TV strategy now, mainly because a few years ago they saw that Sky was eating their very profitable lunch, namely broadband and voice subscriptions.

The law of unintended consequences is that the EU regulated years ago that no one provider could have access to all the PL rights. This was meant to be good for & protect consumers. What actually happened was that the bidding spiralled (some would say gradually out of control), the retail costs to the consumer spiralled (some would say gradually out of control) and that consumers now had to buy two packages. It was the classic case of some educated economists reading their manuals and getting it wrong.

I believe this particular EU remedy/regulation has now expired and that in theory Sky or a single other player could buy all Premier League rights. But the cost is at such a level now that it may be out of reach even for those businesses with very deep pockets. Interesting times.

As you say, all about broadband for BT.

Someone further up the thread was blaming the Labour government. I thought it was a EU directive. Thanks for confirming that.

It will be very interesting to see who bids for the next Premier League deal (2019 to 2022).

Amazon, Google, Facebook?

There are constant rumours about those companies but in reality they are global companies not UK specific ones and I think their interest would be in combined UK + International rights that the PL do not yet offer.

The interesting approach would be if the PL chose to go it alone at some point and offer a global service. They could technically do this at lower cost to the consumer, but for more cash than they get today, and also probably partly eliminate piracy too (not completely but certainly lessen it).

Hard to see though when the value of the rights continues to increase and the exposure gets passed on to other companies..

DCWat wrote:Amazon, Google, Facebook?

Disney

DCWat wrote:Amazon, Google, Facebook?

Amazon & Facebook are the two I’ve heard mentioned.

starting_11 wrote:It's free with my broadband and £5 a month for HD.

Same, though I keep complaining in order to get the HD for free.

Shappie wrote:IPTV £80/year all in. Sports. Movies. Music. 3pm Saturday games. Pay per view boxing. The lot

What's the best IPTV package to sign up to ?

100percentclaret wrote:What's the best IPTV package to sign up to ?

I use perfect player on my amazon box.

ClaretTony wrote:Totally agree - I’ve not missed the Champions League.

What about next season when we are in the Champions League will you subscribe then?

Steve1956 wrote:What about next season when we are in the Champions League will you subscribe then?

No - I'll just go to the games

Just watching the Ashes classics on BT Sports now from the 80s.

Showing how needed the review system was needed back then for away teams.

Foulthrow wrote:It's £31 a month for HD or £26 SD. Incredible. I couldn't believe it was so much - after all - you get about one Premier League game a week (which I'd usually miss if I'm at the Burnley game) and Champions League/Europa League (which is bobbins and used to be free). I can't believe it is so expensive. No way I can justify that.

And I'd rather not go down the streaming route if possible. You can guarantee it would drop out every time there is a wicket.

Rather frustratingly the Aussie coverage from Channel 9 is kept free-to-air.

Does anyone know if there are any free-to-air highlights on (please God, not the awful 30 minutes of that smug git Mark Nicholas from Channel 5)?

Can you not watch it on channel 9 through their online player.

For anyone who's interested there's currently an offer on Groupon where you can add BT Sport to a sky subscription for half price over 12 months.

Can you not just pay per test match? We don't have Sky (we actually have BT funnily enough) but during the summer we paid something like £11 per test match to Sky to have it for the duration of each game, which tbh isn't bad value at just over £2.00 a day. Maybe BT do a similar thing?? The added bonus was that when the cricket had finished for the day we still had access to Sky sports.

BurningBeard wrote:For anyone who's interested there's currently an offer on Groupon where you can add BT Sport to a sky subscription for half price over 12 months.

Have you a link to this? Has it expired already?

Thanks

Shappie wrote:I use perfect player on my amazon box.

Perfect Player isn't an IPTV service, its the application you use to watch the IPTV.

Flawless Hosting is popular. Also Sportsmania but you will need a VPN to watch PL games

I have a BT contract including Sport. The Sky add on is £27.50 per month. It used to Sky Sports 1 and 2. Now the greedy gets have reorganised so that we have access to Sky Main only. It will be interesting to see over a year what impact the change has had on Sky subscriptions.