As the Premier League kicks off for another season, TNT Sports has announced its live Premier League build-up show EKO will be streamed live and free via YouTube for the first time,
The show, hosted by Olivia Buzaglo and Liam MacDevitt, will feature familiar faces from TNT Sports’ football coverage, including pundits such as Steven Gerrard. Starting at 11am, it will also be available on TNT Sports and HBO Max.
EKO complements, rather than replaces TNT Sports’ usual one-hour match build-up, which remains at 11.30am ahead of the traditional 12.30pm Saturday kick-off.
The move aims to deepen engagement with existing TNT Sports football fans while reaching new audiences who may not yet have discovered its Premier League coverage.
Streaming the show on YouTube gives TNT Sports the ability to focus not just on that week’s game, but also the fandom around football, said Scott Young, EVP, Warner Bros Discovery Sports. “You’ll see, as we progress through the season, different ways in which we’re engaging with fans and their clubs. But as storytellers of all sport and particularly the Premier League, the story is going to start on YouTube.
“It’s important not just to take standard Premier League content that we would make for linear television and expect it to work on YouTube,” added Young.
“I think YouTube has a different narrative, and we’ve seen very successfully the programmes that are made for YouTube with a narrative around an audience that wants shorter content. You could argue that 30 minutes is already a bit too long for that format, but on YouTube, we’re allowed to test different lengths of content.”
The move to YouTube also enables viewers who are out and about on a Saturday morning to get involved with the build-up. “You might be playing sport, you might be travelling around. It’s reminding people that our coverage is about to start. It’s not taking away from what we do from 11.30. Our build-up programme is still very much the purpose of what we do.”
