The Cheapest Legal Way to Watch the Premier League (2026/27)

Watching every televised Premier League match legally this season costs about £598 — not the £730 figure widely quoted — and most people can spend far less than that without missing a game their team plays.

The catch is that “cheapest” has no single answer. It depends entirely on how much football you actually watch, and none of the comparison pages do that arithmetic for you. This one does.

What you need in 2026/27

Two services now cover every televised match between them, which is one fewer than in recent seasons:

• Sky Sports holds a minimum of 215 matches — most weekend fixtures, every Friday and Monday night game, three full midweek rounds, and all ten matches on the final day.
• TNT Sports holds 52 matches, including the exclusive Saturday 12:30pm kick-off and two full midweek rounds.

Amazon no longer holds a live package, so a Prime subscription buys you no Premier League football at all this season. If you were keeping Prime for the football, that’s a saving.

That’s 267 televised matches. The remaining fixtures fall under the 3pm Saturday blackout, which is still in force — those games aren’t shown live by anyone in the UK, and no service legal or otherwise changes that.

What it actually costs

Prices checked 29 October 2026. NOW memberships now include adverts on live sport and channels.

The two savings nobody mentions

Buy the Football plan, not All Sky Sports. NOW split Sky Sports into a Football membership and a Multi-Sport one. If you only want the football, the Football plan carries every Premier League match Sky shows for £4 a month less — £48 a year saved for no loss at all. Our NOW Football membership guide covers exactly what it does and doesn’t include.

Match the contract to the season. The Premier League runs from mid-August to late May — ten months, not twelve — so whether a 12-month saver is worth it depends on the service:

• NOW Football: the saver costs £287.88 for the year. Paying £30.99 flexibly for just the ten months of the season costs £309.90. The saver wins by £22.
• TNT on HBO Max: the saver costs £311.88 for the year. Paying £30.99 flexibly for ten months costs £309.90. That’s slightly cheaper, and you can walk away — so for TNT, the “saver” saves nothing.

Twelve months of NOW All Sky Sports plus the TNT saver comes to £731.76, which is where the widely quoted “£730 to watch every match” figure comes from. Take the NOW Football saver and TNT flexibly, cancelled over June and July, and the same football costs £597.78.

Find your cheapest route

Work out roughly how many match-days a month you watch, then read across.

You follow one team and catch them when you can

Around 10 to 15 of your team’s matches will be televised across the season, rarely more than one or two in the same month.

Cheapest route: NOW day memberships. At £14.99 each, twelve matches costs £180 for the season. A flexible Football membership across ten months would cost £310 for the same viewing.

The rule of thumb: from three match-days in a month, the £30.99 Football membership wins. Below that, day passes are cheaper. You can mix them — take a monthly membership in a busy fixture month, day passes the rest of the time.

You watch most weekends

Cheapest route: the NOW Football 12-month saver. £23.99 a month is £287.88 for the year. If you watch eight match-days a month through the season, that’s about £3.60 a match.

If you’d rather not commit for a year, the flexible Football plan cancelled over the summer costs £309.90 — £22 more for the freedom to stop at any point.

You’ll miss the 52 TNT games, including every Saturday lunchtime kick-off. Whether that matters depends on your team.

You want every televised match

Cheapest route: the NOW Football saver plus TNT on HBO Max, flexible, cancelled in summer. £287.88 plus £309.90 is £597.78 for 267 matches — £2.24 a match, which is the best per-match rate available legally.

You want the football and something to watch afterwards

TNT Sports bundled with HBO Max Standard is £40.98 rolling, against £30.99 for TNT alone. The HBO catalogue for a tenner is the better-value half of that bundle, and it saves a separate subscription elsewhere.

Six ways to cut the bill further

1. Pick Football, not All Sky Sports. Worth £48 a year if football is all you watch on Sky.
2. Don’t pay for TNT in June and July. A flexible membership left running through the summer is £62 for no football at all.
3. Buy day passes for standalone matches. Two or fewer match-days in a month means a monthly membership is money wasted.
4. Skip the boosts unless you need them. NOW Boost is £6 a month and Ultra Boost £9, for better picture and sound and more devices at once. Football is perfectly watchable without either.
5. Drop Prime if it was for the football. It no longer carries any Premier League matches.
6. Check your broadband before you blame the stream. Live sport needs a stable connection more than a fast one, and buffering blamed on NOW is very often the line. If yours struggles, comparing broadband deals is likely to fix more than any subscription change will.

What about a dodgy stick?

Worth addressing honestly, because the price gap is real and pretending otherwise helps nobody.

A modified Fire Stick typically costs £50 to £100 up front plus £10 to £20 a month — call it £150 to £300 across a season, against about £600 for the full legal equivalent. The illegal route is roughly half the price. It is not, as the sellers imply, free.

So the honest argument isn’t about money, it’s about what you’re buying with the difference:

• It works. Streams fail hardest during the biggest matches, when the servers are busiest. There’s no support line.
• Nobody writes to you. Broadcasters increasingly identify end users directly, and enforcement through 2026 has reached viewers, not just sellers.
• Your card details stay with a real company. Paying a stranger by bank transfer for an illegal service offers no refund route and no protection.

If half-price with those trade-offs still appeals, that’s your call to make — but make it knowing the actual numbers rather than the sales pitch. We cover the legal position in detail in are Fire Sticks illegal in the UK, and what these devices really are in what is a dodgy stick.

The short version

If you watch occasionally, buy day passes. If you watch most weekends, take the NOW Football saver. If you want everything, add TNT on HBO Max, cancel it over the summer, and expect about £598 across the season.

Whatever you choose, don’t leave a flexible membership running through June and July.