This article is about the Portuguese sports network. For the similarly named and themed network in Brazil, see SporTV. For sports television in general, see broadcasting of sports events.
Sport TV is a Portuguese sports-oriented premiumcable and satellite televisionnetwork with seven premium channels in Portugal, one sports news channel and one channel in Portuguese-speaking Africa. The first channel, then only known as Sport TV, was launched on 16 September 1998. It is owned by Altice Portugal, NOS, Vodafone Portugal and Global Media Group (and originally had the participation of RTP). It is available in almost all television distribution operators in Portugal as a premium subscription channel.
All Primeira Liga matches are exclusively broadcast by Sport TV, with the exception of Benfica home matches, which are broadcast on the club's channel, BTV.
History
SportTV's first logo, until June 2008SportTV's second logo, from June 2008 until August 2016
On 16 September 2005, seven years after the opening of the first channel, Sport TV launched a second channel, SportTV 2. It regularly broadcasts alternative sports such as mountaineering, cycling and radical sports. The channel was available only through ZON TV Funtastic Life package, but the model did not work. They relaunched the channel as a premium channel, also available on Cabovisão and Portugal Telecom'sMEO. This was followed in June 2008 by SportTV 3.
On 22 January 2010 the thematic golf channel SPORT.TV Golfe and its HD simulcast, SPORT.TV Golfe HD were launched.
On 13 August 2010 they launched SPORT.TV Liga Inglesa, a HD channel dedicated to the Premier League, broadcasting 380 games and 400 highlights per season, made by the Premier League (also broadcasting on other countries).
On 7 January 2011 SPORT.TV1, SPORT.TV2 and SPORT.TV3 started to broadcast in 16:9.
On 13 August 2011 all of the SportTV main channels started to broadcast in HD and it was launched a new channel, SPORT.TV4, that also is available in HD. At the same time, the Sport TV HD channel ended its two-year run.
On 5 June 2013 Sport TV stopped broadcasting in the United States.
On 1 August 2013 SPORT TV launched a new channel, SPORT.TV Live, replacing SPORT.TV4.
On 14 August 2014 SPORT.TV Live was renamed to SPORT.TV4 again (there's also SPORT.TV4 HD). SPORT.TV Golfe was renamed to SPORT.TV5, which is also available in HD.
A 2003 contract to create new Sport TV channels was rejected by RTP,[2]
Sport TV is widely regarded as anti-competitive, since it is the only group of channels in Portugal with the rights to broadcast the Primeira Liga matches (except Benfica home games, which air on their in-house channel Benfica TV).[3][4]
In September 2007, Sport TV sent a cease and desist to a Portuguese live TV streaming website tvtuga.com because the latter was providing links to streams of UEFA Champions League matches that only SPORT TV had the rights to broadcast in Portugal. This has caused great public concern with regard to the monopoly abuse status of the SPORT TV channels.[5]
On 17 January 2011, Sport TV was criticized by Benfica after a match against Académica. Benfica's director of communications at the time, João Gabriel, accused the channel commentators of bias against the club.[6][7]
^"Mário Figueiredo arrasa Olivedesportos" [Mário Figueiredo devastates Olivedesportos]. Correio da Manhã (in Portuguese). 1 November 2013. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
