The first night special live show will feature most of the channels’ new presenters, experts, commentators and special guests. These include Jake Humphrey, Clare Balding, Craig Doyle, Michael Owen and Steve McManaman.
The show will take place in BT Sport’s brand new studios, which it says is the biggest purpose-built sports studios in Europe.
The show will simulcast on BT Sport 1 and BT Sport 2 until the two channels become independent when viewers will see Jake Humphrey heading to the football studio to cover the Audi Cup on BT Sport 1 and Craig Doyle in the BT Sport rugby studio covering the JP Morgan Asset Management 7s on BT Sport 2.
BT Sport will show 38 exclusively live football matches from the Barclays English Premier League – including 18 of the “top picks” - from August 2013 for three seasons. The channels will show live FA Cup with Budweiser, UEFA Europa League matches, top-tier live football from Germany, Italy, France and Scotland - with a further 10 Rangers matches - and action from the FA Women’s Super League.
There will also be 30 live football Conference matches from the Skrill Premier including the play offs and the Promotion final at Wembley. The channels will also feature WTA women’s tennis, action from the UFC, and Moto GP from 2014.
The new BT Sport website www.btsport.com also goes live today and will offer a range of free content, including sports news, features, a ‘Women in Sport’ section and full channel listings.
John Petter, managing director, BT Retail Consumer, said: “It’s finally a reality that ‘Great sport happens here’. It’s just over a year since we secured our Barclays Premier League rights and only six months since we started to build our exciting new studio in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. We have some tremendously talented presenters and experts who are passionate about sport.”