TNT Sports, home of LIV Golf in the UK, set to move to HBO Max from Thursday 26 March

TNT Sports, the only place to watch LIV Golf in the UK, is set to move to HBO Max when the Premier Global streaming service from Warner Bros. Discovery launches on Thursday 26 March, it was announced today.

After just shy of 3 years, TNT Sports is leaving Discovery+ and will be only available on HBO Max, when the streaming service launches in the UK on Thursday 26 March. TNT Sports has recently acquired the UK rights to LIV Golf, broadcasting the first event of the season from Riyadh last week to great acclaim from those who watched. The event was also streamed on Discovery+, which was great because you could watch from the start if you came in after play had begun, but from next month the new home of TNT Sports and LIV Golf will be HBO Max.

TNT Sports is also the home of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Conference League, 52 Premier League games, Emirates FA Cup, Adobe WFA Cup, Serie A, Olympic Games, Winter Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Prem Rugby, Moto GP, British Superbikes, Australian Open Tennis, French Open Tennis, Laver Cup Tennis, FIS Winter sport World Cups, Le Mans 24, UFC, Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana, Giro D'Italia, UCI World Tour Cycling, World Snooker Tour including the Triple Crown and much more. The price for TNT Sports will remain the same, £30.99 per month, which is great value for what is offered, however it comes with a change on HBO Max.

Currently subscribers to the TNT Sports plan on Discovery+ also get all Discovery linear channels and on-demand content from Discovery's broadcast brands including Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC among others. On HBO Max, subscribers to TNT Sports will have to add a subscription to HBO Max on top. Which means a basic plan including TNT Sports will go from costing £30.99 per month to a minimum of £35.98 per month, and users will not have access to recent movie releases following their theatrical release window.

To receive movies that first stream on the service following their theatrical release window in addition to TNT Sports the price rises to £36.98 per month, with further elevated tiers which would increase your monthly outlay on HBO Max to £40.98 and an eye-watering £45.98 per month. Full details and prices can be found at the end of this article.

There are also two pretty huge things to note too.

TNT Sports, it was recently announced, have lost the rights to the UEFA Champions League to Paramount Skydance in the UK, with the majority of games being streamed on Paramount+ from the start of the 2027-28 season. TNT Sports have also lost the rights to the UEFA Europa League and UEFA Conference League to Sky Sports from the start of the 2027-28 season, meaning the loss of 533 matches per season across the three competitions.

Netflix is also in negotiations with Warner Bros Discovery to purchase Warner Bros studios, HBO, and HBO Max. It is expected that the deal will take up to two years to go through, but what does that mean for HBO Max? Will it be folded into Netflix from 2028, and does that mean that TNT Sports will end up on Netflix? There surely is absolutely no logic in Netflix offering competing Streaming Services.

As a long-term user of Discovery+ I am disappointed that HBO Max will not be carrying the Discovery linear channels and on-demand content, and that Discovery+ will be continuing as a standalone offering, priced at £3.99 per month. If I wanted to keep Discovery+ and subscribe to TNT Sports and HBO Max's basic tier my monthly outlay would increase from £30.99 per month to more than £40 per month. The cost of entertainment in this country is spiralling out of control, and with Netflix, NOW, DAZN, Premier Sports and Prime Video the competition is pushing the price up, not down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEjLL_sW_oQ

TNT Sports loss of UEFA football may free up money to make significant rights acquisitions elsewhere, and I would suggest that they will need to do so to retain subscribers to HBO Max in the future. One of the competitors in the UK space is Premier Sports, who have the rights to a lot of Rugby, La Liga football and the football leagues in Brazil and Argentina. You have to wonder if TNT Sports could look to acquire Premier Sports in the UK and assume their broadcast rights, giving them almost all of the top Rugby and further diversifying their football content.

The Premier League rights cycle ends in 3 years, could TNT Sports look to acquire additional packages, perhaps Package C which includes 60-70 matches on Sunday at 14:00. There is also the potential of the Saturday 3pm blackout being ended, opening up the possibility for them to bid for that package. It is possible that Netflix, once they have purchased Warner Bros will look to build out HBO Max as its premier global destination for sports and premium content, and challenge DAZN as the global home of sport. If they do that then the streaming wars will enter a new era, with only the biggest surviving.

It remains to be seen what this will do for prices and whether it is good for consumers, and sports fans.

For now, the LIV Golf season continues on TNT Sports and Discovery+, with round one of LIV Golf Adelaide getting underway on Wednesday night into Thursday morning at 12.30am. The first LIV Golf event to be streamed on HBO Max will be LIV Golf Mexico City from 16-19 April.

SHANK, by Matt Hooper

HBO MAX UK PLANS

These are the four packages that will be available on HBO Max:

Basic with Ads – £4.99 per month

Stream on 2 devices in Full HD

No downloading

No recent movie releases following their theatrical release window

Standard with Ads – £5.99 per month

Stream on 2 devices in Full HD

Limit of 30 downloads per month

Includes movies that first stream on the service following their theatrical release window

Standard – £9.99 per month

Stream on 2 devices in Full HD

Limit of 30 downloads per month

Includes movies that first stream on the service following their theatrical release window

Premium – £14.99 per month

Stream on 4 devices in 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Atmos

Limit of 100 downloads per month

Includes movies that first stream on the service following their theatrical release window

And the sports plan includes:

TNT Sports Plan – £30.99 per month

Including TNT Sports 1-4, TNT Sports Ultimate, live event feeds and TNT Sports Original Documentaries

Limited to two of your available streams

Can be purchased within the UK as a standalone plan or in addition to select entertainment plans

Discovery+ will remain a standalone service as part of the move, costing £3.99 a month for entertainment.