# Sport TV

Sport TV is a Portuguese sports-oriented premium cable and satellite television network with seven premium channels in Portugal, one sports news channel and one channel in Portuguese-speaking Africa. The first channel, then only known as Sport TV, was launched on 16 September 1998. It is owned by Altice Portugal, NOS, Vodafone Portugal and Global Media Group (and originally had the participation of RTP). It is available in almost all television distribution operators in Portugal as a premium subscription channel.
Sport TV broadcasts mainly association football, basketball, volleyball, futsal, rugby, surf, golf, athletics, wrestling, and American sports, combat sports, auto racing, and tennis. It also features debates, news, and sports reports.
All Primeira Liga matches are exclusively broadcast by Sport TV, with the exception of Benfica home matches, which are broadcast on the club's channel, BTV.

## History

On 16 September 2005, seven years after the opening of the first channel, Sport TV launched a second channel, SportTV 2. It regularly broadcasts alternative sports such as mountaineering, cycling and radical sports. The channel was available only through ZON TV Funtastic Life package, but the model did not work. They relaunched the channel as a premium channel, also available on Cabovisão and Portugal Telecom's MEO. This was followed in June 2008 by SportTV 3.
Sport TV shown UEFA Euro 2008 in HD, through ZON TV.
On 22 January 2010 the thematic golf channel SPORT.TV Golfe and its HD simulcast, SPORT.TV Golfe HD were launched.
On 13 August 2010 they launched SPORT.TV Liga Inglesa, an HD channel dedicated to the Premier League, broadcasting 380 games and 400 highlights per season, made by the Premier League (also broadcasting on other countries).
On 7 January 2011 SPORT.TV1, SPORT.TV2 and SPORT.TV3 started to broadcast in 16:9.
On 13 August 2011 all of the SportTV main channels started to broadcast in HD and it was launched a new channel, SPORT.TV4, that also is available in HD. At the same time, the Sport TV HD channel ended its two-year run.
On 5 June 2013 Sport TV stopped broadcasting in the United States.
On 1 August 2013 SPORT TV launched a new channel, SPORT.TV Live, replacing SPORT.TV4.
On 14 August 2014 SPORT.TV Live was renamed to SPORT.TV4 again (there's also SPORT.TV4 HD). SPORT.TV Golfe was renamed to SPORT.TV5, which is also available in HD.

## Broadcasting rights
### Football
#### International competitions

* FIFA World Cup
* FIFA Club World Cup
* UEFA Nations League
* UEFA European Qualifiers
* UEFA Champions League
* UEFA Europa League
* UEFA Conference League
* UEFA Super Cup
* Copa América
* CONMEBOL Libertadores
* CONMEBOL Sudamericana
* CONMEBOL Recopa

#### National competitions

* Primera División
* Copa do Brasil
* FA Cup
* FA Community Shield
* EFL Cup
* Ligue 1
* Serie A
* Coppa Italia
* Supercoppa Italiana
* Eredivisie
* Liga Portugal 1 (except SL Benfica home matches)
* Liga Portugal 2 (except SL Benfica B, FC Porto B, Sporting CP B, Vitória SC B and SC Braga B home matches)
* Taça de Portugal
* Taça da Liga
* Saudi Pro League
* Copa del Rey
* Supercopa de España
* Süper Lig

### Basketball

* Euroleague
* NBA

### Rugby union

* 2023 Rugby World Cup
* RBS Six Nations
* European Rugby Champions Cup
* Campeonato Português de Rugby

### Motorsports

* Formula One
* MotoGP
* WRC
* International GT Open
* FIA GT Championship
* DTM
* IndyCar Series
* Others, including Portuguese Rally Championship and Weekly magazines (SBK, etc.)

### Ice hockey

* NHL

### MMA

* UFC

### Golf

* Ryder Cup
* U.S. Masters
* U.S. Open
* British Open
* European Tour
* PGA Championship
* PGA Tour
* World Golf Championships

### Tennis

* Davis Cup
* Billie Jean King Cup
* Wimbledon
* ATP World Tour Masters 1000
* ATP World Tour

## Channels
### Current channels

* sport.tv +
Nos/Meo Channel Number: 20
* sport.tv 1 (formerly SPORT.TV)
Nos/Meo Channel Number: 21
* sport.tv 2
Nos/Meo Channel Number: 22
* sport.tv 3
Nos/Meo Channel Number: 23
* sport.tv 4
Nos/Meo Channel Number: 24
* sport.tv 5
Nos/Meo Channel Number: 25
* sport.tv 6
Nos/Meo Channel Number: 26
* sport.tv 7
Nos/Meo Channel Number: 27
* NBA TV (sponsor by sport.tv)
Nos/Meo Channel Number: 110
* sport.tv áfrica HD (for angola and mozambique)
Zap Channel Number: 25

### Former channels

* SPORT.TV HD
* SPORT.TV LIGA INGLESA
* SPORT.TV LIVE
* SPORT.TV AMÉRICAS
* SPORT.TV ÁFRICA 1 HD
* SPORT.TV ÁFRICA 2 HD
* SPORT.TV 4K UHD

## Controversies

A 2003 contract to create new Sport TV channels was rejected by RTP,
Sport TV is widely regarded as anti-competitive, since it is the only group of channels in Portugal with the rights to broadcast the Primeira Liga matches (except Benfica home games, which air on their in-house channel Benfica TV).
In September 2007, Sport TV sent a cease and desist to a Portuguese live TV streaming website tvtuga.com because the latter was providing links to streams of UEFA Champions League matches that only SPORT TV had the rights to broadcast in Portugal. This has caused great public concern with regard to the monopoly abuse status of the SPORT TV channels.
On 17 January 2011, Sport TV was criticized by Benfica after a match against Académica. Benfica's director of communications at the time, João Gabriel, accused the channel commentators of bias against the club.