Premier League Fixtures: what’s the cheapest way to watch your team?

Talk Talk's latest deal is the cheapest way to watch whoever you support on Sky Sports and BT Sport – but you may still be better off heading to the pub.

Whether or not you think the Premier League's the greatest league in the world, it's certainly the most expensive.

Take the first fixture for the 2018/19 season, Arsenal vs Manchester City, where a squad worth £440 million takes on a squad worth £880m (the full fixture list is available here).

Whilst much of this money comes from American sports magnates and Arabian sheikhs, a sizeable proportion still comes from you, the great British football TV subscriber.

Although Sky Sports still takes the lions' share of matches, BT Sport, and from 2019, Amazon Prime will further complicate the picture.

With the help of comparison site uSwitch, we've put together a guide to the cheapest way to watch Sky Sports, BT Sport or both, including how to get cheap broadband as part of the deal.

We've also considered whether you'd be better off spending your hard earned cash at your local.

Mo Salah, who lit up the 2017/19 season (image: PA)

Sky Sports

If you love the Premier League, it's difficult to avoid Sky Sports: the broadcaster will show 126 out of 380 taking place in the 2018/19 season.

It also has first dibs on the most exciting matches - whether that turns out to be Manchester City vs Spurs on 20 April, or Liverpool vs Man Utd on 15 December.

However, given that TV rights are allocated in tranches, it's currently impossible to know who'll get which match - the broadcasters for August and September are only revealed in July.

Sky Sports has recently been simplified and divided into various channels - Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Main Event being the main channels, although the others are still worth considering.

Day pass

If you’ve got NOW TV, you can get a Sky Sports day pass for £7.99 a day or £12.99 a week.

To be able to purchase a day pass, get a NOW TV USB stick to plug into your TV, with a month of Sky Sports for £29.99 (then add the cost of the pass after a month).

Or, get NOW broadband and line rental, starting at £15 for 12 months, plus a £24.99 set-up charge (then add the cost of the pass).

Sports aren't the only advantage of NOW TV: read our full guide here

Whole season

Oddly enough, the cheapest way to access Sky Sports isn't with Sky itself.

Talk Talk is offering Sky Sports Premier League for £15 extra a month for 9 months as an add-on, or as part of a £39.50 fibre broadband and TV 24 month subscription for new customers who subscribe before the 16th August.

A word of warning here: Talk Talk is one of the UK's consistently most complained-about broadband suppliers.

If you’re already with Sky, add Premier League for £18 a month; if you’re with BT, it costs £27.50 (but you only get the Main Event and Extra channels), and with Virgin, you get eight Sky Sports channels for £31.75 a month.

If you're starting from scratch and already have broadband, the cheapest way to watch a whole season is getting Sky’s Entertainment and Q Box, then adding Sky Sports Premier League, on an 18-month contract.

Is this the year Paul Pogba finally steps up for Man Utd? (image: PA)

BT Sport

Although it has fewer Premier League games (42), BT Sport is still well worth considering.

That's because it will also be showing every Champions League and Europa League game, as well as 24 FA Cup matches. If you resented watching Gareth Bale's sensational overhead kick on a flickering low-resolution YouTube channel, it may be time to shell out on a proper subscription.

BT Sport is available as an app and as a fully-fledged TV subscription, with varying prices to match.

App only

If you’re already with BT TV, you can get the BT Sport for £6 a month, or £9 with BT broadband – but check your contract first, as it may already be included.

Otherwise, Plusnet broadband customers can get the app for £2.50 for six months then £5 thereafter, and EE customers can get it free for three months then £5 thereafter.

Starting from scratch, the cheapest way to get the BT Sport app is to get an EE Multi-Sim on a 12-month contract. This costs £11 a month + the app cost, so £155 over the year, although note you only get a paltry 250MB of data a month.

Whole season

If you’re a Virgin Media customer, you can add BT Sport to your TV for £18 a month, or if you’re a Talk Talk customer for £27.99 a month.

Starting from scratch, BT’s Superfast Fibre, Unlimited, Weekend Calls & Starter + BT Sport Package costs £37.99 a month with a £59.99 setup cost on an 18-month contract.

However, it comes with a £130 BT reward prepaid card, bringing the total cost down to £613.81.

Whether you're new to BT or an existing customer, here's how to keep costs low

Will new Arsenal boss Unai Emery make it to the end of the season? (image: PA)

How to get both

The cheapest way to watch both channels is by getting Talk Talk's abovementioned 24-month fibre broadband/TV/Sky Sports deal and then adding BT Sports. This would cost £67.49 a month.

Alternately you could go for Virgin Media’s Full House Sports Bundle, Unlimited Ultrafast Fibre Broadband & Phone package.

This costs £75 per month on a 12-month contract, with a £20 set up charge (total cost £920).

With an average speed of 213MB, the broadband in this package should be substantially faster than the other packages mentioned above, and you're not tied into such a long contract.

loveMONEY on...how to save money on your Virgin Media bill

Go to the pub

With the cost of having both TV networks so high, it could make more sense to walk down to your local.

According to myvoucherscodes.com, even supporters of the teams with the most televised games – Manchester Utd and Arsenal – will end up shelling out £30.71 per game for TV subscriptions, the equivalent of eight pints.

For the less-televised teams, the costs become astronomical.

Unlucky Burnley fans looking to watch their team will pay £122.86 per game – you could watch the match from the Turf Moor stands for a third of that.

Or you could go to your local and drink the equivalent of 34 pints (a course of action loveMONEY would not recommend).

For once, you could actually save money by going to the pub (image: Shutterstock)

If you don’t want to pay anything

Short of visiting a friend's house, your options to watch games without paying a penny are severely limited.

However, you can easily listen to games, on BBC 5Live and talkSPORT.

You can also follow games via live updates, with pictures, on BBC Sport and the Guardian, among many other publications.

Finally, there's always the old stalwart Match of the Day on BBC One and BBC iPlayer - but don't forget you'll need a TV license, costing £150.50.

Still want to shell out for the new season? We've put together a full guide to switching TV and broadband supplier.