UK telecommunications company BT has announced its pay-television broadcaster BT Sport will be available to view free-of-charge over a number of dates this month.
Viewers can access the channel for free during the weeks of October 7 and October 14, along with the weekend of October 26-27.
The channel will be open to those with access to the company’s BT television service, digital-terrestrial platform Freeview, and pay-television platforms BSkyB and Virgin Media.
The initial two weeks will include live football coverage such as the 2014 Fifa World Cup qualifier between Spain and Belarus, the Uefa U21 qualifier between England and Lithuania and the German Bundesliga game between 1899 Hoffenheim and Bayer Leverkusen.
The weekend of October 26-27 will include live English Premiership rugby union games including Bath v Gloucester, Northampton v Saracens and Wasps v Leicester. The weekend will also see Crystal Palace take on Arsenal in the Premier League.
Meanwhile, BT has rejected claims that it has contributed to plans for leading clubs from the Heineken Cup rugby union club competition to form a breakaway tournament, according to the Times newspaper.
In September 2012, BT announced a four-year deal, from 2013-14 to 2016-17, for domestic rights to English Premiership matches plus rights to a summer rugby sevens tournament, with the agreement including coverage of Premiership teams’ matches in a mooted European tournament that would replace the existing Heineken Cup, in a three-year deal, from 2014-15 to 2016-17.
Speculation of a breakaway competition has increased over recent days, however BT chief executive Marc Watson has defended the company’s conduct.
“We are comfortable we didn't cause the issues that are there,” Watson told The Times newspaper. “It is presented as us having a role in the problems with that tournament. Those problems clearly pre-existed. We are not involved in the conversations. We have deliberately wanted to step back. We have said what we would like, we have set out the investment we are prepared to make and we hope we will be able to be involved.”