Sky doesn't publish a price list for pubs, and nor does TNT Sports. Both price each pub off its rateable value. Real Sky bills that have made it into print run from £754 a month at a village pub to a quote of about £30,000 a year in Croydon, and a TNT Sports letter seen by the Morning Advertiser in August 2026 showed a rate card price of £871.92 a month before VAT. At about £2.23 of gross profit a pint, every £100 a week of subscription needs around 45 extra pints a week just to break even. Here are the numbers in print, what the 2026 revaluation does to your bill, and how to measure whether yours earns its keep. Last updated 17 October 2026.
How the bill is built
The core input is your rateable value, the same Valuation Office Agency figure your business rates hang off. Sky has said pricing also reflects size, location and food offer, with partnership discounts of up to 50% available. The consequence licensees keep running into: two pubs showing the identical match pay wildly different money, and when the VOA moves your rateable value, your Sky bill can move too. In 2023 the Morning Advertiser reported licensees campaigning on exactly that, after finding rateable value cuts didn't automatically cut the subscription. One Northamptonshire licensee had seen his pub's RV nearly halve while his £754.38 a month carried on regardless.
Your rateable value is public and checkable on the VOA site, and if it's wrong you can challenge it, which helps your rates bill as well as your negotiating position. The business rates relief guide covers that side.
What the 2026 revaluation does to the bill
New rateable values took effect for business rates in April 2026, and because both broadcasters price off RV, licensees started asking in the summer what that meant for the football. The Morning Advertiser put it to both of them in August 2026.
| TNT Sports | Sky Business | |
|---|---|---|
| How it prices | Rateable value. Tailored to each pub's own RV, not bands | RV is "one of several factors" |
| If your RV went up | The increase is phased over three years, once your current contract ends | Existing agreements honoured on 2023 rateable values |
| If your RV went down | You move to the lower price when your contract ends | Not stated |
| If you win an RV challenge | Price adjusted | Not stated |
| Other 2026 change | 3.1% inflationary increase from 1 September 2026, in the letter seen by the MA | Says it reviews pricing regularly and tells customers before rises take effect |
The TNT letter is the most useful real number published this year: a new rate card price of £871.92 a month excluding VAT, with a transitional price of £492.17 a month for 12 months. That's one pub, not a price list, but it shows how big the gap between the rate card and what you actually pay can be in the first year.
The practical point is the same for both. Check your new rateable value on the VOA site before your renewal lands. If it's wrong, challenging it helps your rates bill and, on TNT's own statement, your subscription too.
The bills that have made it into print
| Pub | Reported bill | Per week |
|---|---|---|
| Red Lion, Northamptonshire (2023) | £754.38/month | £174 |
| Royal Dyche, Burnley (2023) | ~£1,000/month, Sky alone | ~£231 |
| Coach House, Humberston (2023) | ~£1,200/month, plus £1,600 to other providers | ~£277 |
| Unnamed pub, Croydon (2025) | £1,062 rising to £2,433, a 129% increase (period not stated in the report) | £561 if monthly |
| Builders Arms, Croydon (2025) | Quoted ~£30,000/year, ~£35,000 with VAT | ~£577 |
The Builders Arms answer to that quote was to stop showing Sky altogether from the end of September 2025. That's not a failure, that's a pub doing the arithmetic. Which brings us to the arithmetic.
The pints-per-week sum
An average standard lager is £4.89 on the Morning Advertiser's 2026 survey, and at a 55% wet GP there's about £2.23 of gross profit in it once VAT and the cost of the beer come out, the same sum I used in the wage-rise guide. So each £100 a week of subscription needs about 45 extra pints a week to wash its face. Run it against the real bills:
| Bill | Per week | Extra pints/week to break even |
|---|---|---|
| £754/month | £174 | 78 |
| £1,000/month | £231 | 104 |
| £1,200/month | £277 | 124 |
| £492.17/month (TNT transitional, 2026) | £114 | 51 |
| £871.92/month (TNT rate card, 2026) | £201 | 90 |
| £2,433 (if monthly) | £561 | 252 |
| £30,000/year | £577 | 259 |
The word doing all the work in that table is extra. The regulars who'd be on the same stools with the racing on don't count. Food riding along with the match counts partly. What counts cleanly is trade that walks in because the game is on and walks past if it isn't, and almost nobody measures it, they go by how busy Saturday felt. Busy isn't a number.
Measure the uplift before renewal, not after
The method is a month of comparisons. Take your match days and set each against the same weekday without a match: wet takings from the till, and what actually poured from your stock movement. Do it across four or five fixtures including a midweek game, because a Tuesday Champions League crowd is a different animal from a Saturday 3pm that would've been half full anyway. The gap between match day and plain day, in pints, is your uplift. Compare it with the table above and the renewal decision makes itself.
The till alone half-answers it, but tills flatter you, they count money without saying which lines earned it. Stock movement per day is the honest half: a daily spot check on match days takes a few minutes and gives you the poured figure to set against the till. That's the routine StockTap's spot checks were built for, and the fixture list means you always know when to run one.
If the uplift clears the bar, pay the bill happily, it's stock you sell at full margin without hiring anyone. If it doesn't, you have options: negotiate with the uplift numbers in hand, check your rateable value is right, drop to fewer boxes, or join the pubs deciding the quiz and the darts board pay better than the Premier League. What you shouldn't do is renew a four-figure monthly bill on a feeling. The same marginal-cost thinking applies to whole nights, which I've worked through in should a pub close on quiet nights.
What the subscription doesn't buy you
It doesn't buy you 3pm on a Saturday. No live football goes out on UK television from 2.45pm to 5.15pm, in pubs or anywhere else, so the biggest kick-off slot of the week is never on your screens whoever you pay. Plan the day around the early and late games instead. The Saturday 3pm blackout explained covers what you can show in that window and how to make it pay.
And it has to be a commercial agreement in the pub's name. A home subscription doesn't cover a pub, and nor do customers casting Sky Go from their phones to your TV: a Scottish court found that infringed Sky's copyright in 2024. Sky says it visits thousands of pubs every season to check. Your other big fixed costs are in electricity per pint and card machine fees, worked the same way.
The honest limits
I can't tell you what your quote will be, only Sky or TNT can, and the 2023 bills in the table are three years old with a revaluation since. What doesn't change is the shape of the decision: a fixed cost against a measurable uplift, and only one side of it arrives on headed paper. Get the other side from your own tills and your own cellar, and the biggest discretionary bill in the pub stops being a leap of faith either way.
Common questions
How much does Sky Sports cost a pub per month?
There's no public price list, every venue is quoted individually. Published real bills run from £754 a month at a small village pub to around £30,000 a year quoted to one Croydon pub, and another Croydon publican reported a 129% rise. Most pubs sit somewhere between, and the only way to know yours is to get the quote.
How does Sky work out what a pub pays?
The core input is your rateable value, set by the Valuation Office Agency, with venue size, location and your food offer feeding in, and partnership discounts Sky says can reach 50%. Two pubs showing the same match can pay wildly different money, and a revaluation of your premises can move the bill.
Can I show Sky Sports in my pub on a domestic subscription?
No. A domestic subscription doesn't licence commercial premises, and Sky actively pursues pubs doing it. If the football is on your wall, it needs a commercial agreement in the pub's name.
How much does TNT Sports cost a pub?
TNT Sports doesn't publish a price list either. It prices each pub off its own rateable value. A letter seen by the Morning Advertiser in August 2026 showed a rate card price of £871.92 a month excluding VAT, with a transitional £492.17 a month for the first 12 months, and a 3.1% inflationary rise from 1 September 2026. Rises caused by a higher 2026 rateable value are phased over three years once your contract ends.
How do I know if Sky is paying for itself?
Measure the uplift, not the takings. Compare wet sales on match days against the same weekday without a match, over a month, and count only the difference. A £1,000-a-month bill needs roughly 104 extra pints a week of gross profit to break even. If the uplift is real it shows up in the till and in stock movement; if it isn't, you're sponsoring Sky.
Sources
- Morning Advertiser, 9 August 2023: pubs urge Sky to change fee calculation: rateable value basis, the Red Lion, Royal Dyche and Coach House bills, and Sky’s statement on pricing factors and discounts.
- Inside Croydon, 28 August 2025: the ~£30,000 quote at the Builders Arms, and an unnamed publican's £1,062 to £2,433 bill, a 129% increase (the report doesn't give the period).
- Morning Advertiser pint price survey, 21 May 2026: £4.89 average standard lager price. Full breakdown in our price of a pint guide.
- Morning Advertiser, 20 August 2026: TNT Sports to phase pub price rises over three years: RV pricing not banded, three-year phasing, £871.92 rate card and £492.17 transitional example, 3.1% rise from 1 September 2026, Sky honouring existing agreements on 2023 RVs. Checked 17 October 2026.
- Sky v Airlie [2024] CSOH 22 and Sky's pub visits: sources in my 3pm blackout guide.
- Author’s arithmetic: gross profit per pint at a 55% wet GP and the pints-per-week break-even figures.