You can watch both abroad with your own subscriptions and a UK residential IP. Between them, Sky Sports and TNT Sports carry the lion's share of live UK sport — and both geo-block the moment you leave the country. A UK residential IP makes your device look like an ordinary British home, so the subscriptions you already pay for keep working overseas.
Here's how each service is delivered now, why they shut you out abroad, and how to get both up and running before you travel.
If you follow British sport, almost everything lives in one of two places: Sky Sports and TNT Sports. Between them they hold most of the marquee rights — the Premier League, European football, F1, cricket, rugby, golf, tennis and more. The catch is that they're delivered through different apps, so watching everything means having both, and keeping both working when you're away.
The short version of how you get each one:
Sky Sports is the bigger of the two homes. It carries the majority of live Premier League matches, along with Formula 1, England and international cricket, golf, tennis, the EFL and plenty more across its channels.
You don't need a satellite dish to get it. Sky Go (the streaming app in your Sky subscription) works on a computer, phone or tablet, and a Sky Stream puck works too — kept on one of our routers the whole time, it travels with you — but the simplest route for most people abroad is a NOW Sports membership — it streams the same Sky Sports channels over the internet, with no dish and no long contract. Whichever you choose, the licence is for the UK, which is where the trouble starts once you travel.
TNT Sports holds the other big slice of UK sport. It carries a selection of Premier League games, the UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, plus rugby and cycling — including the Tour de France.
The important change is where you find it. On 26 March 2026, Warner Bros. Discovery moved TNT Sports into the HBO Max app in the UK, replacing its old home on discovery+. So if you want TNT Sports now, you watch it through your own HBO Max subscription rather than a separate sports app.
One thing worth being clear about: TNT carries a selection of Premier League matches, not all of them. Sky holds the majority, TNT a smaller share, and the BBC shows highlights — so between Sky Sports and TNT Sports you'll reach most, though not every single, live UK top-flight game.
Both services are licensed for the UK, so both check your IP address the moment you open the app overseas. See a foreign location and they stop the stream — it doesn't matter that you're the one paying for the subscription.
Reaching for a mainstream VPN rarely helps for long. Sky Sports (via NOW) and HBO Max both actively look for the commercial data-centre IP addresses that ordinary VPN apps use, and they block those on sight and update their detection constantly. So your valid UK subscriptions simply won't play on an everyday connection abroad.
The difference comes down to the type of IP address you connect through. Data-centre IPs are easy to spot and easy to block. A UK residential IP is a genuine home-broadband address — the same kind of connection a real household in Britain uses.
Our routers connect through UK residential broadband IPs, so to Sky Sports and to HBO Max your device looks like an ordinary UK home rather than a VPN. Your own subscriptions carry on working while the data-centre VPNs get shut out. If you'd like the background on how this differs from a standard VPN, our guide to what a pre-configured SmartHub VPN router is walks through it.
There's nothing to configure and no codes to enter. The router supplies the UK connection; your apps do the rest.
Because both services now live in ordinary streaming apps, you can reach them together on the right hardware. The Netgem PLEIO Freely box runs both the NOW app and the HBO Max app, so with valid subscriptions you get Sky Sports and TNT Sports on a single box — plus Freely's live UK channels for everything else. Its sibling, the Manhattan Aero, runs HBO Max but not NOW, so it covers TNT Sports only.
And because the router provides the UK connection, every device on that network benefits, not just one box. TVs, phones, tablets, laptops and streaming sticks can all stream at the same time, each looking like it's in the UK — handy when there's a Champions League night on TNT and a Premier League game on Sky at once.
With Sky Go, a Sky Stream puck or a NOW Sports membership — paired with a UK residential IP. Sky Sports is UK-licensed, so it geo-blocks you overseas and detects VPNs; a residential IP makes your device look like an ordinary UK home, so your subscription keeps working.
TNT Sports moved into the HBO Max app in the UK on 26 March 2026, so you watch it through your own HBO Max subscription. Abroad, HBO Max blocks UK sport and tends to reject ordinary VPNs — a UK residential IP lets your HBO Max app stream TNT Sports overseas just as it does at home.
Yes. The Netgem PLEIO Freely box runs both the NOW and HBO Max apps, so with valid subscriptions you can reach Sky Sports and TNT Sports on one device. The Manhattan Aero runs HBO Max but not NOW, so it covers TNT Sports only.
Usually not for long. Both services block the data-centre IPs that mainstream VPN apps use and refresh their detection often. A UK residential IP is a real home-broadband address, so it isn't flagged the same way, which makes it the more reliable route.
Between them, Sky Sports and TNT Sports hold most of the live UK sport worth watching, and there's no reason to lose either when you travel. With your own subscriptions and a UK residential IP, both stream abroad much as they do at home, across every device on the network. Set the router up before you go and you'll be ready for kick-off wherever you land.
