BT Sport Score is set to come to an end this season after staff were told the decision had been taken to scrap the popular show.
The programme has run on Saturday afternoons since August 2016 as a direct challenger to Sky Sports’ long-running show Soccer Saturday and the BBC ’s Final Score programme. It has become a key fixture in the broadcaster’s sports offering, providing score updates and analysis from a range of pundits.
Presented by Jules Breach, it regularly features the likes of Robbie Savage, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Sutton, Jermaine Jenas, Steve Sidwell, Rachel Brown-Finnis and Karen Carney. But none of them will return for the 2023/24 season, after the show was axed.
From July, the BT Sport brand will cease to exist after the company was bought by Warner Bros Discovery. While it will have much of the same content, it will relaunch as TNT Sports and the channel’s coverage will undergo a revamp, which includes the loss of hundreds of jobs – and the cutting of Score from the schedule.
Pundits will lose their jobs on BT Sport Score, but may continue to be employed by TNT Sports on other programmes. A spokesperson for Warner Bros Discovery Sports told The Sun : "Editorial reviews are undertaken as a matter of course in preparation for every new season.
"For next season, this includes considering the programming that will continue, as the channel becomes TNT Sports, and as part of the line-up supporting the same live sport fans enjoy on BT Sport today. As part of this process, we have confirmed to staff that BT Sport Score will not be continuing next season."
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The Sun reports that there is some anger behind the scenes at BT because, while stars like Breach, Savage and Sutton have been informed of the changes, production staff remain unclear over their futures. That dynamic has reportedly created an ‘awkward’ atmosphere on set as the 2022/23 season nears its end.
BT Sport has the rights to broadcast Premier League matches until 2025, but the final two years of its existing deal will look very different following the merger with Warner Bros.
BT and Warner Bros Discovery entered talks in February 2022. The deal, which will also see Eurosport rebranded by 2026, was announced a year later, in February 2023. The merger means BT Sport’s current offering and Warner Bros’ – which includes Eurosport – will be rolled into a single streaming platform.
“The new brand has to honour what BT Sport has built over the past ten years and what Eurosport has done for three decades,” said Andrew Georgiou, president and managing director of WBD Sports Europe.
“We don’t want to change that fundamental proposition and what it means to audiences – especially BT given it has content which appeals to a broader range of local consumers. The brand has to be flexible enough to apply to portfolios while also signifying change.”
