How to watch the EFL in 2018/19

Ahead of the new season kicking off on Friday 3 August, the EFL have clarified how fans can follow their teams throughout the upcoming campaign.

Sky

Throughout the course of the 2018/19 season, Sky Sports will exclusively show 127 live Sky Bet EFL matches - including the drama of the Play-Offs in May.

Games will be shown regularly on Friday nights and Saturday evenings on Sky Sports Football - plus there will be more midweek matches than ever before.

Derby’s visit to Reading on Friday is the first of 30 matches already announced in the first three months of the season.

Quest

Quest, the Discovery-owned free-to-air TV channel powered by Eurosport, is the new home of football highlights for the Sky Bet Championship, Sky Bet League One, Sky Bet League Two, Carabao Cup and Checkatrade Trophy.

Kicking-off from the 2018/19 season, the four-year deal will see Quest provide 90 minutes of extensive match highlights, hosted by Colin Murray, in primetime at 9pm every Saturday night. 

Quest is available across Freeview, Freesat, Sky, Virgin Media and BT TV and it was confirmed in July that the show will be available to watch in HD on Sky, Virgin and Freesat.

Alongside its comprehensive TV coverage, Quest aims to engage more fans than ever before with a dedicated social media show. EFL: The Reaction, whilst an interactive, fan-centric Facebook LIVE programme hosted by Colin Murray will broadcast at 6pm every Saturday on Quest’s UK Facebook page.

iFollow

Following iFollow’s successful introduction in 2017/18 for supporters based overseas, enhancements are being introduced to the live streaming platform ahead of the start of the new campaign at no extra cost to viewers.

  • International Season Pass - £110
  • International Match Pass - £5

In a second development, and in what is a first for English football, some Sky Bet EFL matches will also be made available to watch to supporters within the UK and Ireland throughout the 2018/19 season via iFollow.

Access to domestic live streaming must be bought on a match-to-match basis at a cost of £10 per fixture.

This development has been made possible due to the new broadcast agreement with Sky which was agreed last year, whereby EFL Clubs have been granted the rights to stream games to a domestic audience, in addition to their followers overseas which has been available since the start of 2017/18.

EFL Clubs will be able to live-stream in the UK and Ireland any league match via their respective iFollow (or equivalent) service that takes place outside the blocked hours of 14.45-17.15 on Saturday afternoons and that is not broadcast live on Sky Sports.

Fixtures taking place on Bank Holidays or Easter will be unavailable for streaming. Sky Sports will have the right to stream the same Championship fixtures to subscribers across their interactive and digital services.

Radio

Once again in 2018/19, the talkSPORT network will be the only place to hear 110 regular season EFL matches as well as the Play-Off Semi-Finals and Finals.

The broadcaster also has the rights to air commentaries of up to 25 Carabao Cup fixtures per season, including the Final, and exclusive rights to the Checkatrade Trophy.

International TV

In addition to matches being available to overseas viewers via the iFollow platform, EFL matches are also broadcast in over 150 territories around the world by international broadcasters.

BeIN Sports will be broadcasting live EFL coverage in the Middle East, as well as Australia and New Zealand, whilst Viacom 18 Media and ssports.com will be supplying match action from India and China, respectively.

In the United States, ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN 3 and BamTech will be covering all three divisions of the EFL, as the expansion of the English game to overseas audiences continues. 

A full list of who has the rights where is available via www.efl.com/iFollow/international-broadcasters/

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