The three BT channels will offer sports fans 38 Barclays Premier League matches per season, exclusive Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) coverage and 800 hours of live tennis, including the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships.
BT has also bought Disney’s ESPN channels, giving it access to US sports rights and the FA Cup. The channels will cease broadcasting in their current form at the end of July to make way for the new BT channels plus one ESPN branded channel.
Earlier this month BT announced its broadband customers with BT Vision, Sky+ boxes, PCs tablets and YouView boxes would all receive the channels at no additional cost when they launch in August.
Sky TV households who don’t have BT broadband will be able to buy the channels directly from BT for £12pm, or £15pm for the HD version.
However BT failed to announce any deal with Virgin Media and is currently using the channels to target its rival’s customers.
The absence of a deal, and the prospect of losing access to ESPN which Virgin currently offers free to customers taking its XL TV package, had prompted complaints from users.
However a notice on the Virgin Media website now appears to offer good news to the cable company’s customers. It promises that “BT Sport is coming to your living room” and that the channels will launch “on Virgin Media this summer”.
The website also invites users to sign up for more details and to “be the first to get BT Sport on Virgin Media”.
While Virgin’s website make no mention of prices, BT is unlikely to allow a rival to provide the channels for less than the rate it charges to non-BT broadband Sky households.
