Can you get Sky Sports without any other packages?

[cheesyboy]

Basically, I don't really watch much TV, but I'm pretty keen on boxing. The only place in UK to watch boxing is SkySports, but it appears that you can only get that with a £41/month subscription, which is a bit steep for me given that I would watch maybe 5-10 hours of boxing per month and not a lot else. I used to have a Setanta Sports subscription (£10/month) as they showed a lot of boxing, but that went belly-up. Since I don't generally care much for TV, I'm a bit out of touch with what is out there now, so hoped someone could point me in the right direction.

Ideally, I would like some sort of subscription to something where I could watch fights on-demand (since much of it is middle-of-the-night) - on PC would be fine.

So, my question is - is there a service out there which fits my needs without costing as much as a Sky Sports sub (and does Sky Sports offer an on-demand service?)

Mod Edit: Please do not discuss obtaining pirated material on HEXUS

[jim]

Could be tricky. I don't watch any boxing, but on the basis of football:

Sky Sports is a pain, but depending on which channels you want it can be cheaper to acquire it from Virgin Media. By the looks of it, you could get Sky Sports 1 from Virgin for £30 per month. Of course though, if you need Sky Sports 2, then it gets more expensive, and you'd be better off with Sky. And I don't even know if you can get Sky Sports 3. All depends what channel the boxing happens to be shown on.

Whilst Setanta have gone, they've been effectively replaced by ESPN. Now that's currently £22 per month on Virgin, and you may be able to get it on Sky without the Sky Sports package, which I'm guessing would be around £25. Again, I have no idea if they show boxing.

Where this gets interesting, however, is that ESPN's channel has been bought by BT, and I would imagine that it will be shown via BT Vision in the semi-near future, which might be a third alternative.

There do seem to be some PPV options, like http://www.primetimeboxing.co.uk/ which is apparently available online, via Sky, and via VirginMedia.

[cheesyboy]

Thanks for the response Snootyjim. It looks like there's no price-efficient way for me to get SkySports but, having looked around a bit, I see that Frank Warren's Boxing channel, BoxNation, is available for £10/month, and it streams online so no need to invest in any digital boxes. I'll need to check out the fight schedule, though, it might be all second rate stuff....

[BatXDude]

I believe they are starting to roll out pay as you go Sky Sports in the UK.

[JimmyBoy]

I'm guessing your looking more into streaming as you said you don't watch much tv and said about not having to invest in any boxes, so have you looked at sky go? The streaming thing? I'm sure they offer streaming only packages including sky sports, not sure if it works out within budget though. You could look into streaming Abu Dhabi TV as they show all football but I'm not entirely sure about boxing, I'd expect they do though but this would require a season pass and access to a decent VPN as it isn't technically available over here but both would still be reasonably priced, I intend to do it for the footie next season

[Smudger]

I was paying an extra £25 a month for Sky Sports 1,2 and 3 on Virgin and got ESPN free, as well as the F1 channel, which obviously involved a base cost, but I thought you could subscribe via freeview/freesat now? Or do you have to get a YouView box?

[JimmyBoy]

Sky sports 1 and 2 show up on freeview but are obviously encrypted, I don't know if they are accessible through top up TV? But if your boxing ends up being shown on 3 or 4, you'll miss it anyway

[Smudger]

I've just heard an advert from NowTV, where you can pay £9.99 to get Sky Sports for the day, and it allows you to get it on iPad, PC, etc. Not sure if that gets you all the Sky Sports channels though.

Edit: Here you go: http://www.nowtv.com/sports

24hr pass, all 6 channels, and you can view it on XBox, Roku, PC, tablet, mobile phone, etc.

[cheesyboy]

Yeah I saw that. £9.99 feels a bit steep for 24 hours, but if there were a big event I was particularly keen on then it would be handy.

It's a shame they didn't come in at £4.99 - I reckon that would have been the sweet-spot for me. I'll certainly consider it for occasional use even at £9.99, though.