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BT announce Champions League and Europa League coverage details

BT announce Champions League and Europa League coverage details

BT Sport Football - Michael Owen, Jake Humphrey and David James

BT Sport have announced an array of new signings ahead of their exclusive Champions League and Europa League coverage from August 2015, as well as a new channel.

Gary Lineker, fresh off signing a new non-exclusive contract with the BBC, will present Champions League coverage alongside regular presenter Jake Humphrey. New signings include Glen Hoddle from rivals Sky, Rio Ferdinand and former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard. Also joining the team will be former QPR, Tottenham and Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp and former Premier League ref Howard Webb. These pundits are alongside staff already on the books including Paul Scholes, Michael Owen, Steve McManaman and Owen Hargreaves.

Popular presenter on European Football on BT Sport, James Richardson, will front a ‘goals’ show – keeping abreast of all the action during the 8 games each night in the Champions League.

It’s a big shift for the Uefa club competitons with BT swooping up the rights for around a billion pounds for both competitions. Sky Sports chief Barney Francis took a dig at BT by saying the Champions League: “was not the valuable asset it once was”.

BT are setting up a dedicated BT Sport Europe channel with the champions league action with all games in HD via BT TV customers through the connected tv system. Also all games are available to subscribers on their website. The new channel and look will cost £5 a month for BT broadband customers. Free for those with BT broadband and BT TV. A BT ‘Lite’ option will still be free for those with broadband who don’t want the new channel. For those not on BT, no price has been announced yet.

BT will make some matches available for everyone to watch, whether a subscriber or not, via a new, free-to-air channel on digital TV and freeview. The channel id called BT Sport Showcase, this channel will show a minimum of 12 UEFA Champions League matches and 14 UEFA Europa League matches and these will be available to anyone to watch for free. Each participating British team will be shown at least once. The final of both competitions will be shown FTA too.

Also announced by BT is that in August it will also launch the first Ultra HD (4K) channel in Europe, BT Sport Ultra HD, and will also introduce a new BT TV Ultra HD set top box.

The Community Shield will be the first broadcast, with other live events shown throughout the season, including selected games from the UEFA Champions League, Barclays Premier League, FA Cup and Aviva Premiership Rugby.

BT Sport

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