TNT Sports (United Kingdom)
TNT Sports (United Kingdom)
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TNT Sports (United Kingdom)

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TNT Sports (United Kingdom)

TNT Sports, formerly BT Sport, is a British sportscasting pay television channel brand owned by BT Group and Warner Bros. Discovery, first launched on 1 August 2013 and serves the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Based at the Warner Bros. Discovery complex in Chiswick Business Park, London since July 2023, having relocated from its original home at Here East, the former International Broadcast Centre in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, the brand’s channels are available on EE TV, Sky and Virgin Media in the UK and Sky and Vodafone TV in the Ireland.

BT Group established the brand after acquiring rights to the English Premier League; it also acquired the operations of previous rightsholder, ESPN UK, prior to launch, integrating them with BT Sport as BT Sport 4 (now TNT Sports 4). On 11 May 2022, BT Group announced an agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery to form a joint venture that would eventually merge BT Sport with its local Eurosport business, which was approved two months later. BT Sport rebranded as TNT Sports on 18 July 2023 and absorbed Eurosport UK on 28 February 2025.

News of BT's first foray into sports broadcasting first came about on 12 June 2012, when it was announced that it had won the rights to 38 live Premier League matches for three seasons from the 2013–14 season, beating ESPN UK, which had held the shared rights with Sky Sports the previous season. BT announced at the same time that it would be launching its own channel for its new football coverage. The news followed speculation that ESPN was reconsidering its position in the UK. The following months also saw BT win rights to Premiership Rugby and its associated 7s Series, as well as American, Brazilian, French and Italian top-flight football.

On 25 February 2013, BT announced an agreement to acquire ESPN's television networks in the UK and Ireland, including ESPN and international sports channel ESPN America; this agreement gave BT rights to the FA Cup beginning in 2013–14, the Bundesliga and UEFA Europa League through 2015, and the Scottish Premier League through 2017, as well as other international event rights licensed through ESPN. The value of the deal was not disclosed, but BT was understood to be paying "low tens of millions". The deal was expected to close by 31 July, and BT was expected to operate at least one ESPN-branded channel as part of the BT Sport service.

BT made other notable rights deals ahead of BT Sport's launch, including UFC mixed martial arts under a three-year deal, and MotoGP beginning in 2014, under a five-year deal. In May 2013, BT announced that BT Sport would be offered for free to its internet subscribers via streaming. Media analyst Steve Hewlett felt that BT's entry into the sport market was an effort to help strengthen its triple play business and, in particular, help retain internet subscribers lost to Sky (which he believed would result in greater financial loss than those that would be sustained by operating BT Sport).

BT Sport launched on 1 August 2013. On 12 August, BT reported that over 1,000,000 households had subscribed to the service ahead of the start of the 2013–14 Premier League, although admitting that the majority of them were BT internet subscribers.

The interactive service BT Sport Extra launched in 2014. In January 2015, BT Sport renewed its licensing agreement with ESPN International under a seven-year deal, allowing it to continue operating an ESPN-branded network as part of BT Sport, and hold rights to ESPN original programming, and event broadcast rights that are distributed internationally by ESPN.

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