Premier League Live Streaming Guide 2017/18: All the cheapest ways to watch

Premier League Live Stream: Watch this week’s fixtures

Premier League Live Streaming Guide 2017/18: We reveal the best deals and cheapest packages across Sky Sports, BT Sport and Virgin Media to help you watch the Premier League live on your TV, iPhone, iPad, Android device or PC. Here’s how to watch all this week’s available fixtures for less.

Navigating the complex world of TV bundles is difficult –  more difficult even than life as Paul Pogba’s barber. Is it better to go all in with one provider, or should you pick and mix? What 4K and streaming options are available? Is it worth switching broadband providers just to make sure you can catch every minute of the title chase?

Yes, it’s certainly complicated, but fear not, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to help you find the best and cheapest legal ways of watching all 168 televised Premier League games live, whatever your device.

Note that for the purposes of this guide, we’re going to be focussing on the cheapest ways to get access to the football – broadband-only and inclusive broadband plus TV deals will be covered in a separate guide, or added in a future update, but here we’re going to look at TV-only offers.

Why? Because we generally recommend shopping around for a broadband provider outside of your TV package, as there tend to be better bargains available, while big players like Sky and BT can quietly sting you with line rental charges and installation fees.

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Premier League Live Streaming: TV rights explained

First of all, let’s look at who has the rights to show the matches.

Back in February 2015, Sky and BT paid a combined £5.1 billion for the rights to show 168 games for three seasons beginning with the 2016-17 campaign – that’s over £10 million per game in case you were wondering.

Sky has the majority of the games and will show 126 matches this season, predominantly on Friday nights, Sunday afternoons, and Monday evenings. It’s also top dog when it comes to EFL coverage, and will show 127 matches across the Championship, League 1 and League 2 in 2017-18.

As was the case last year, BT has secured the rights to 42 games, most of which will be shown at the new 5pm kick-off time on Saturdays. It will also show six mid-week matches and has rights to Champions League, Serie A and FA Cup games.

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Premier League Live Streaming: Watch the Premier League in 4K

Sky and BT will both offering almost all of their games in 4K. Sky will be showing 124 games in Ultra HD, though this is only available through the top-tier of its Sky Q service.

Buy Now: Upgrade to Sky Q and enjoy the Premier League in 4K 

BT will show some of its allotted games in 4K, but to take advantage of this you will need a BT Ultra HD Entertainment Pack. This supposedly costs just £15 per month, but by the time your roll in the required BT Infinity broadband and line rental, you’re actually looking at more than £40 per month.

Dolby Atmos sound is also now supported by Sky Q, while BT Sport introduced the new ‘3D sound’ format earlier in the year.

Buy Now: BT Ultra HD Entertainment Pack

Premier League Live Streaming: Sky Sports breakdown

The most straightforward way to see the majority of the Premier League games is to sign up for Sky Sports. The cost, however, depends on whether you are new to Sky or not.

New to Sky – If you are not a Sky customer already and are looking to switch, then the broadcaster is offering some tasty deals including Sky Sports to entice you to sign up for a two year contract.

As part of its rebrand, you can now start building a Sky package from just £22 a month. Throw in an £18 a month Sky Sports Premier League subscription and you’re looking at £40 a month – a veritable bargain by Sky’s usually eye-watering standards. That said, the far better deal is to pay an extra £2 a month and opt for the £20 ‘Complete Sports Pack’, which gives you access to all the new Sky Sports channels.

You can opt to add Sky Broadband as well, should you choose – this will also entail a line rental charge – and there’s a £20 one-off charge for setting up your 1TB Sky Q box, but assuming you’ve got all the other pieces in place, you can get now on-board with Sky and Sky Sports from £40 a month.

Buy Now: Sky and Sky Sports bundle from just £40 a month

Note that this will only net you standard HD content – despite Sky Q being associated with all things 4K, the 1TB Sky Q box naughtily doesn’t offer 4K content. For that, you’ll need the 2TB Sky Q box, which entails a hefty £199 set-up fee.

Now that’s the Sky we know and love… 

Existing Sky customers – This year, Sky is offering its existing customers the chance to add Sky Sports to their package from £18 a month, or £10 a month if you already subscribe to Sky Cinema.

Sky Go – All Sky TV customers get access to the Sky Go app on smartphone, tablet and laptop allowing subscribers to watch live TV on up to two extra devices at once (or up to four if you sign up for Sky Go Extra).

Adding BT Sports – Whether you are a regular Sky customer or a Sky Q subscriber, to add BT Sport 1 and 2, as well as ESPN to your Sky package from £22.99 per month for SD or £27.99 for HD, plus a £20 activation fee.

Upgrade Now: Add BT Sport to your Sky package from £22.99 a month

Premier League Live Streaming: The Now TV option

Sky’s pay-as-you-go product, Now TV , is a very simple proposition.

Instead of signing up for – and being tied to – a lengthy Sky contract, you purchase passes for what you want to watch, when you want to watch it.

Sky Sports access via Now TV costs £6.99 for 24 hours, £10.99 per week, or £33.99 a month. The best deal, to our eye, is the Weekly Pass, as it’s only a couple of quid more than a Day Pass. If you’re tempted by the Month Pass at £34, you should probably just consider adding Sky Sports to your TV bundle, as you’ll probably be able to tack it on for less.

Buy Now: Sky Sports Week Pass for just £10.99

Now TV also has the benefit of being accessible not just through the official set-top box, but on a huge range of apps, devices and operating systems, including: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, YouView, Roku, EE TV, Apple TV, LG Smart TV, Google Chromecast, Kindle Fire HD and Blu-ray players – you can watch the Premier League via Now TV pretty much wherever you are.

Buy Now: Sky Sports Week Pass for just £10.99

Premier League Live Streaming: Sky Sports Mobile TV

If you only want to watch the Premier League on a mobile device, you can save even more of your hard earned coppers.

The Sky Sports Mobile TV app is available on iOS and Android and costs £5.99 a month for a pack that gives you mobile access to Live TV on a handful of Sky Sports channels including, crucially, Sky Sports Premier League.

Buy Now: Sky Sports Mobile TV for £5.99 a month

Vodafone mobile customers can also get access to the Sky Sports Mobile TV app for free, depending on their contract. You can learn more about that deal here.

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Premier League Live Streaming: BT breakdown

BT offers similar bundles to Sky. By signing up for the Starter + BT Sport pack, you get access to 80 Freeview TV channels, plus free access to BT Sport 1, 2, 3 and ESPN for 12 months – thereafter, it cost is £16.75 a month for SD.

Upgrading to HD is free for three months, then costs £5 a month. And if you want access to the BT Sport 4K Ultra HD channel, you’ll need a Max bundle. These start at £44.99 a month but will also include activation fees, line rental and the other unwanted trimmings.

Buy Now: Starter TV + BT Sport bundle from £29.99 a month

Adding Sky Sports – You can add Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Extra to any BT TV bundle. They cost £22 a month for SD or £27.99 for HD – the same as getting the boost to BT Sport with Sky, in fact.

BT Sport App – When it comes to streaming on-the-go, all BT TV customers can access the BT Sport App for free or mobile or desktop. If you’re not a BT subscriber, you can sign up to access the app for £5 per month. EE customers can also enjoy a free three month trial.

 

Premier League Live Streaming: Virgin Media breakdown

Virgin Media offers customers the option of adding both Sky Sports and BT Sports to their subscription, and has a couple of TV-only options worth considering.

However, to put it in the simplest possible terms, getting Sky Sports Premier League will usually mean adding the full Sky Sports bundle on top of your package, which costs an extra £31.75 a month. A side order of BT Sport will set you back an additional £18 a month, making the cheapest Virgin Media package to feature both Sky Sport and BT Sport Prem action £54.75 (Virgin Player TV + Sky Sports + BT Sport).

That gets you a miserly 13 channels on top of the normal Freeview offering, though – most of which are just the HD equivalents of terrestrial channels.

The first is Virgin Mix, which has a base cost of £22 a month and features a handful of genuinely premium channels like Comedy Central, MTV and Sky 1. Adding Sky Sports is pegged at an extra £31.75, while BT Sport is listed as an extra £18 – except if you select both, you’ll notice that only an extra £1.25 gets added to your package cost, which will total £55.

 

Buy Now: Virgin Media TV package with Sky Sports and BT Sport from £55

 

That’s great value, especially if you’re content with SD quality. HD footy will cost you an additional £7 a month for Sky Sports, while you need to ante up to the pricier Full House package to get BT Sport in HD – aspiring TV snobs are going to be looking at a monthly bill of over £70 with Virgin to get both in HD. (4K and you’ll need the VIP bundle from £90+ a month, but we honestly wouldn’t recommend going there – Sky is, frankly, a better option for Ultra HD content).

If you want a ‘one-stop shop’ to procure all the football you can, Virgin does more than just serve a purpose – it offers extremely competitive pricing.

Buy Now: Virgin Media TV package with Sky Sports and BT Sport from £55

Premier League Streaming: What’s the best deal?

Which more or less brings up full circle: what’s the best cheap way to stream all the football?

Well, it depends if you’re purely interested in streaming, or also want to settle down in front of your TV occasionally.

If you’re only going to be watching on a mobile device – by which we mean a smartphone or a tablet – then a £5.99 Sky Sports Mobile TV monthly app subscription gives you the bulk of the Premier League matches for a ridiculously low cost. Plus, you cord cutters out there will already know there are plenty of ways to beam the mobile action to your TV – that’s yet another guide, perhaps.

Buy Now: Sky Sports Mobile TV for £5.99 a month

If you want to settle down in front of the box and watch on-the-go with minimal hassle, then we’d recommend first trying out the Now TV deal currently on offer, which will give you most matches during the first two months of the season for just £20 a month, provided you’re already equipped with the necessary hardware.

This is simply a great value way to test the waters and see just how much football you actually watch – and where you watch it.

Get Deal: Sky Sports month pass for just £19.99 – save 40%

Should you discover that, yes, you really should go to some form of rehab for your football addiction and are watching nearly every match available, then you’ll probably want to get some kind of full-fat Sky Sports package.

As you’d expect, it’s cheapest to go through Sky for this and you can get all the Sky Sports channels plus essentials like Sky Atlantic from £40.

Buy Now: Sky and Sky Sports bundle from just £40 a month

Really can’t miss a match and need to add BT Sport? This is where things get both complicated and expensive, but having run the numbers – and speaking purely in terms of what’s the cheapest, not what’s necessarily the best value overall TV package – then Virgin Media offers the best value at £55, provided you’re happy with SD quality.

Buy Now: Virgin Media TV package with Sky Sports and BT Sports from £55

That’s all for now, but stay tuned, as we’ll be featuring plenty more money saving guides in the weeks and months to come.