There has been a veritable bidding war for sporting events of late by media companies, and the way we watch sport is changing because of it. You can now get bitesize chunks of your favourite sports seemingly everywhere, but all of the choice can be a bit overwhelming. It also means you'll need large pockets if you want to subscribe to all the different channels.
However, what if you wanted to just watch some of your favourite sporting events on a one-off basis and avoid the hefty yearly subscription fees? Well now you can with pay-as-you-go services rising in popularity.
So who's offering what and how much will it cost?
To help you out, here's our breakdown of some of the most popular pay-as-you-go options available right now.
Sky Sports Pass with Now TV:
Price: €10 for one day, €15 for one week, or €39 for a whole month of access. Or €7 a month for the mobile-only pass. All on a no-contract basis.
Now you can get Sky Sports on a more flexible plan than ever before thanks to streaming service Now TV. You can buy a daily, weekly, or monthly pass meaning you can dip in and out of the sporting action as much as you please.
Events on Sky include 159 Premier League games and over 400 games over the 2018/19 season from the EFL and SPFL leagues as well as international football. Plus every day from the Open Championship and Masters Tournament, every race throughout the Formula 1 season, live Boxing and NFL, and exclusive GAA All-Ireland games.
Eurosport Player:
Price: €6.99 for one month, no contract, or €3.99 a month over a 12-month contract.
Yes that’s right, the channel you remember skipping over in your childhood because it was showing ski jumping or figure skating now has a subscription service.
This will be of much delight to fans of tennis, snooker, and winter sports.
So if you fancy signing up for one month just to catch the French Open in May, now you can.
ELEVEN Sports:
Price: €5.99 for one month. No contract.
The fledgling service is still finding its feet in the market, but 2019 is proving to be its biggest year yet.
La Liga, Serie A, UFC, NBA, and some Champions League games will all be shown and the subscription allows you to watch on up to four registered devices.
Virgin Media Sport
Price: Virgin Media's new sports channel is free for all Virgin TV customers and is a €5 add-on for broadband or mobile customers. If you're not a Virgin customer you can get it for €20 a month on a 30-day contract through the Virgin TV Anywhere App.
As well as sport you get access to Virgin Media One, Two, Three, and the Virgin Media Player.
The sport available on this channel includes all Champions League games, all Europa League games, and Ireland's Euro 2020 qualifiers.
Amazon Prime:
Price: Seven-day free trial, then €2.99 a month for six months then €5.99 after that. No contract.
Amazon got in on the sporting action last year by announcing that for the 2019/20 season they'll stream 20 Premier League matches in the UK.
If you're in Ireland though and are a tennis fan you'll be delighted to hear that the streaming giant also has the rights to broadcast the US Open for the next five years here as well as most of the top-level tournaments from the men's ATP tour.
This is probably just a start for the service though, so expect more sporting deals to be announced in the months and years ahead.
Prefer the traditional route?
If you fancy going the traditional route you can check out all the broadband and TV price plans and sporting options on bonkers.ie right now.
