The cheapest way to watch sport!

There are loads of different TV packages to choose from if you want to watch sport - John Fitzsimons rounds up those that offer the best value!

If you're of a certain generation, the idea of having to pay to watch sport on the box probably still rankles. It's not that long ago that you could watch The Big Match on ITV, or Test matches on the Beeb.

And if you were feeling a bit cultural, you could flick over to Channel 4 for coverage of Italian football on a Sunday afternoon.

All that has changed now, with most of the major sports only covered live on satellite or cable television. Yes, the terrestrial channels get the odd international, a few golf tournaments here and there, and of course Wimbledon, but on the whole, if you want to watch the biggest sporting events, the terrestrial channels just won't cut it.

And with illegal pirate websites that broadcast coverage of British sporting events being closed down at a rate of knots, if you want to watch sport on TV, everything really does need to be kept above board.

So where should you start?

Who shows what?

Before you do anything, it helps to know which channels show which sports. There are two mainstream broadcasters - Sky and ESPN - and a host of smaller outfits which cater for some of the less popular sports.

The lists below are by no means comprehensive, but hopefully will give you an idea of what you can expect.

With Sky, you get coverage of the following:

• The majority of live English Premier League games
• Champions League
• The majority of the Football League games
• International cricket
• Domestic cricket
• Ryder Cup
• Boxing
• International & domestic Rugby Union
• Darts
• Snooker

And with ESPN, you can watch the following

• A selection of of live English Premier League games
• Scottish Premier League football
• Serie A
• Bundesliga
• Major League Soccer
• Ultimate Fighting Championship
• French Rugby Championship
• A number of US sports, including National Hockey League and Major League Baseball.

Channels like Eurosport tend to cover some of the sports that perhaps don't get much attention from most other channels, including swimming, athletics and rally driving.

The Murdoch Family

The obvious place to begin is with the biggest broadcaster of sport, Sky. And unsurprisingly, they have a host of different packages you can choose from.

I've put together a table outlining the various packages you can get from Sky - and how much they will set you back.

The variety pack (a range of channels including Sky 1) is compulsory with Sky, hence why it is included in each option. Of course, if you want to have both sports channels, and other packs (News, Music, Film, etc) then that will cost you even more each month. And I haven't included the one-off cost of having Sky installed, or the going for a Sky+ box.

With all that in mind, Sky presents a pretty expensive option. Can its less stellar rivals put up a better fight?

Virgin Media

One thing to always remember with Virgin is that you will need to get a Virgin phone line, and pay £11 a month for that line, in addition to any package you pick.

Here are the four packages you can choose from

You can add the Sky Sports channels to your package after 30 days, but it will set you back. If you want to get all four Sky Sports channels, it will cost you an additional £26 a month on the M package, £24 on M+, £24 on L or £20.50 on XL.

So if you went for the XL package, with all of the Sky channels as well, you would be shelling out £53 a month, including the line rental. Ouch.

The best of the rest

The other main providers of digital television are BT Vision, Tiscali and TopUpTV. However, with each of them you will not be able to sign up to television alone, but also tag on at least broadband internet.

BT's package is not the easiest to work out, as it combines some programming that is already available on Freeview packages, but with additional 'on-demand' content. The ordinary packages include 242 'near live' Premier League games, TNA Wrestling, and archive sporting content. However, for a one off payment of £9.78, you will also get ESPN, so you can at least watch some football matches live!

For existing customers, the cheapest BT package works out at £7.34 a month for first three months, £14.68 thereafter, while if you're a new customer it will set you back £15.12 a month for the first three months, £30.33 thereafter.

With Tiscali, it's a similar story, except that you have to pay for both a phone line AND broadband in addition to your digital TV package. However, unlike BT, you can receive the various Sky Sports channels, though at an extra cost.

All packages come with the variety pack, which is basically a stack of channels that you get on Freeview (with a few additions), only for £19.99 a month. For an extra £9.99 a month you can get ESPN, while you can get Sky Sports 1 or Sky Sports 2 for £23 a month, or stump up an additional £28 for Sky Sports 1-3, Sky Sports Xtra.

Meanwhile, with topuptv you can get ESPN for £9.99 a month, in addition to the usual selection of Freeview channels.

Where to go

It's clear that watching sport on telly is far from cheap.

Sadly, unless you are also in need of phone and broadband services, it's unlikely that the packages on offer from Sky's rival providers will work out at the best value for you.

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