BT Sport Ultimate 4K Finally Coming To Sky – With A Catch

BT Sport Ultimate, which airs sporting events in Ultra HD (4K) / HDR, is finally coming to Sky Q and Sky Glass devices, just in time for the Premier League’s return.

Customers (with the appropriate subscription) will be able to enjoy BT Sport Ultimate on Premier League’s opening day, with the Fulham vs Liverpool match.

However, while BT Sport Ultimate is available as a separate, standalone channel on BT Sport – Sky’s customers will only be able to access BT’s UHD content via the Red Button platform.

So along with making it more cumbersome to reach, watching BT Sport’s 4K matches via Red Button means you can’t pause and rewind mid-game, according to Sky’s help documents.

It’s also likely you won’t be able to “record” Red Button 4K broadcasts on Sky Glass (Sky’s streaming TV), unlike regular broadcasts from BT Sport, which can be recorded.

• August Update: At the last minute, Sky announced that the addition of BT Sport UHD via the Red Button had been postponed. We have repeatedly tried to get a new timeframe from both Sky and BT, but both companies have declined to comment. We’ll update once more information is available.

BT Sport On Sky

For years, BT Sport was only available as an add-on to traditional pay-TV subscriptions like Sky, or BT’s own BT Broadband customers.

In 2019, a monthly, contract-free streaming version of BT Sport was finally introduced, at a monthly cost of £25 (See our complete guide on how to watch BT Sport online – even for free).

Sky’s customers, however, do not get the full BT Sport app – the one which is available on streaming devices, or on BT Sport’s own set-top boxes. 

Instead, BT Sport’s channels are “baked” into your regular TV channels on both Sky Q and Sky Glass, assuming you’re subscribed to it via Sky.

BT Sport Ultimate, however – the channel that adds 4K (UHD) / HDR and Dolby Atmos to select BT Sport broadcasts – was never available for Sky customers – until now.

Starting from August 4 2022, BT Sport Ultimate UHD is being added to Sky Q and Sky Glass, with the first 4K event being the Fulham vs Liverpool match on August 6, at 12:30.

Curiously, there were no big announcements for this addition so far – instead, it was just listed on Sky’s Community Forum.

If you’re subscribed to BT Sport via Sky (normally it costs £24/month, but check Sky’s current offers), you will first need to access the regular BT Sport channel on your Sky device, and then access the UHD feed by pressing and choosing it on the Red Button screen.

Originally, the Red Button’s main goal was to add interactive elements and information to existing broadcasts. In recent years, however, it’s been used more and more for extra feeds and channels.

“Hiding” BT Sport’s 4K feed inside the Red Button platform is a bit peculiar, especially with Sky recently launching a dedicated 4K Main Event channel for their own Sky Sports broadcasts.

As always, for a 4K broadcast, you also need a TV that supports 4K (such as Sky Glass), and – in addition to a BT Sport subscription on Sky – you’ll need Sky’s Ultra HD add-on.

BT Sport Changing Soon

BT Sport UHD coming to Sky is happening shortly before the big merger between BT Sport and Eurosport/Discovery+, which is due “within weeks”. 

At first, the upcoming merger won’t bring any big changes to Sky’s subscribers, as BT Sport and Eurosport are planning to leave their separate brands intact, for now.

In the future, however, they will be merged into a single platform – and it remains to be seen how that will affect BT Sport on Sky.

Furthermore, BT Sport customers are due to receive a Discovery+ subscription for free – but customers who subscribe to BT Sport via 3rd party platforms – such as Virgin Media and Sky – will not be part of this deal, and will not be getting Discovery+ and Eurosport for free.