As BT Sport prepares to hand baton to TNT Sports, how is picture so unclear?
The Guardian BT Sport will host its last big night on Saturday. The Champions League final in Istanbul will be the end for a brand that, over the past decade, extended live coverage of sport in the UK and became the first serious rival to Sky Sports. Taking its place will be TNT Sports, a channel that promises new name, same game. But with a month until it launches, viewers are still in the dark as to what exactly that will mean.
TNT Sports goes live on 18 July but does not yet have a website in the UK. The cost of watching it remains not entirely clear either. That the channels will roll over existing deals for the Premier League and Champions League, alongside Premiership rugby union and MotoGP among other sports, is guaranteed, but some programmes are being axed and who will present and analyse the action is not known. All of this comes against a backdrop of increasing turbulence in what was once known as the pay-TV industry, with TNT Sports UK and Ireland offering just one cog in a global wheel of content.
