Cheapest Way to Watch Premier League Matches (UK, Legal)
Following the Premier League on TV can cost £60+ a month if you just accept the default subscriptions. But with a bit of strategy, you can watch legally for a fraction of that — or even free. Here’s the cheapest way to watch Premier League matches in the UK, ranked from free to full-price.
1. Free: BBC, radio and the pub
Match of the Day (BBC One, Saturday nights) remains the best free football TV in Britain — extended highlights of every game, free with your TV licence. Add BBC 5 Live and talkSPORT for live radio commentary of matches as they happen, and BBC Sport online for clips and analysis. Total cost: £0 beyond the licence fee you pay anyway. For the occasional big game, the pub shows Sky/TNT — a couple of pints is cheaper than any subscription if you only watch monthly.
2. Amazon Prime’s fixtures — ~£8.99/month (or £0)
Amazon shows a small set of Premier League games each December (usually two full rounds including Boxing Day). If you already have Prime for delivery, these are effectively free. Not a season solution, but a nice bonus — and Prime’s £95/year annual plan works out at £7.92/month.
3. NOW Sports on offer — £14.99-£21.99/month, no contract
The sweet spot for most fans. NOW’s Sports membership includes all 11 Sky Sports channels (128+ PL games) and there’s perpetually a discounted offer running — never pay the £34.99 headline price. No contract, so subscribe August-May and cancel for the summer. Effective annual cost if you’re disciplined: ~£150-£220.
4. Club streaming for specific matches
Premier League clubs don’t stream 3pm Saturday games domestically (blackout), but some offer audio passes and international fans get full streaming. For UK-based supporters of EFL clubs, iFollow-style passes (£10/match) are relevant — but for the Premier League specifically, this route is limited. Worth knowing about, not a primary solution.
5. TNT Sports — only if you need it
TNT has 52 PL games plus the Champions League. At ~£30.99/month via Discovery+, it’s expensive as a PL-only purchase. The cheap play: subscribe only for months with games you care about, or for the Champions League knockout stages, then cancel. Don’t keep it year-round for 52 games.
6. Share within the household
Sky Go, NOW and Discovery+ all allow multiple simultaneous streams and profiles on one account for a household. A NOW subscription split informally across a household (within the terms — same household) halves the per-person cost. Just stay within the actual terms of service.
7. The full-season cheapest stack
For a fan who wants most televised games: NOW Sports on offer (£14.99-£21.99, 10 months) + Prime (for Amazon’s games) + iPlayer (MOTD). Skip TNT except for key months. Annual total: roughly £170-£250 — versus £500-£700 for Sky + TNT on full contracts. That’s a £300-£400 saving for 90% of the same football.
What NOT to do
- Don’t pay NOW’s headline £34.99. The discounted offer is always available — check before subscribing.
- Don’t keep subscriptions year-round. June and July have no Premier League. Cancel.
- Don’t forget the 3pm blackout. No legal subscription shows Saturday 3pm games in the UK. Anyone selling you one is selling piracy.
- Don’t use illegal streams. Beyond the legal risk: malware, terrible quality, and streams dying at crucial moments. The legal cheap options above are better in every way.
The free-to-cheap entertainment stack
Football is one line in the entertainment budget. The same rotate-and-cancel discipline works for streaming generally — and there’s world-class free entertainment in London if you know where to look, from cinema ticket prices (cheaper than you think off-peak) to average concert ticket costs for planning live music spending.
The cheapest way to watch Premier League matches: the seasonal playbook
Football viewing has seasons within the season — and smart fans subscribe around them. August-November: the season’s fresh, every game feels vital. NOW Sports on offer (£14.99-£21.99) is worth it. December: the fixture pile-up — Amazon Prime’s games (included with Prime) plus your NOW subscription cover the madness. This is peak value month.
January: transfer window drama, FA Cup third round (BBC/ITV have games free). Keep NOW if your club’s in a title race; consider pausing if mid-table obscurity beckons. February-May: the run-in. This is when every game matters — keep NOW, and add TNT for one month (£30.99) covering the Champions League semis and final if your team (or your interest) is still in it.
June-July: cancel everything. No Premier League, no obligation. This two-month pause saves £30-£70 depending on your stack, every single year, for zero missed football. Set a phone reminder for the final day of the season: “cancel sports subscriptions.” It takes three minutes.
International breaks (roughly one a month in autumn) are natural pause points too — a week with no club football is a week you don’t need the subscription. And the 3pm blackout means Saturday afternoons are radio time regardless: 5 Live’s coverage is excellent, free, and weirdly atmospheric — there’s a case that a blackout Saturday with the radio and a pub is more enjoyable than the televised games anyway.
The meta-principle: subscriptions are for months, not for life. The providers count on inertia — on you keeping NOW through June “just in case.” There is no case. Cancel, enjoy the summer, resubscribe in August when the offers are fresh. The Premier League fixtures page shows exactly when the games that matter to you are scheduled, so you can plan subscriptions with precision rather than paying for hope.
A note on VPNs and “cheap” Premier League streams
You’ll see advice about using VPNs to access cheaper foreign broadcasts of Premier League games. Be clear-eyed about this: the Premier League’s UK broadcast rights are exclusive, and accessing geo-blocked streams via VPN to watch 3pm games breaches the broadcaster’s terms of service. Beyond the terms issue, these setups are unreliable — streams get blocked mid-season, quality is poor, and you’re paying for a VPN plus a foreign subscription for a worse experience than the legal options above. The legitimate cheap routes (NOW on offer, pub, radio) are better in every way that matters.
The takeaway
Cheapest legal Premier League viewing: Match of the Day + radio for free; NOW Sports at £14.99-£21.99 (on offer, no contract) for the full Sky package; add Prime for Amazon’s games; rotate TNT for Champions League months only. Total: under £250/year versus £600+ on default contracts. The blackout means no subscription covers everything — accept it, and optimise around it.