This is a timeline of the history of Sky Sports.
1980s and 1990s 1989 5 February – Sky Television launches at 6.00pm. The channel line-up consists of a sports channel but is a pan-European service called Eurosport rather than a Sky-branded UK channel.
1990 January–March – Sky shows live coverage of England's cricketing tour to the West Indies. This is the first time that full live coverage of an overseas tour has been shown in the UK. The coverage is broadcast on Sky One. 11 February – Sky Movies broadcasts its first special event – the boxing fight between Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas, doing so six days after Sky Movies becomes the UK's first pay television channel. Sky Movies shows all of Sky's premium boxing fights until they transfer to Sky Sports after it becomes a pay channel in 1992. 27 March – BSB launches and among the channel line-up is a sports service called The Sports Channel. 2 November – Sky TV and BSB merge. The new company is called BSkyB. Two of BSB's five channels are closed immediately but The Sports Channel stays on air.
1991 January – The Sports Channel covers its first major tennis tournament since BSB and Sky merged when it broadcasts live coverage of the Australian Open. Sky Sports goes on to show the event until 1994. 20 April – Sky Sports launches, replacing the BSB Sports Channel. Spring – Sky Sports shows live coverage of the newly created World League of American Football. Channel 4 also covers the competition with a weekly Saturday morning highlights programme. 6–22 May – Eurosport briefly closes after the competing Screensport channel had filed a complaint to the European Commission over its corporate structure. TF1 Group subsequently steps in and replaces BSkyB as Eurosport's joint owners. 14–25 July – Sky Sports broadcasts full live coverage of the 1991 World Student Games, which are held in the UK. This is the only time that Sky has broadcast a multi-sport event. 26 August – Sky begins its coverage of the US Open (tennis) tournament, beginning a relationship with the event which lasts until 2015.
1992 22 February-25 March – Sky shows its first major cricket tournament when it broadcasts exclusive live coverage of the 1992 Cricket World Cup. This is the beginning of Sky's coverage of the event which continues to this day and is therefore the longest set of rights that Sky Sports holds. 18 May – Sky purchases the live rights to the newly formed football Premier League for £304 million.Premier League kicks off with £304m TV deal. Peter Ball. The Times, Tuesday, 19 May 1992 15 August – Sky Sports launches Sports Saturday. The programme follows the same format as the BBC's Grandstand programme featuring a mix of sporting action, concluding with the day's football results. 16 August – To mark the start of Sky Sports's coverage of the Premier League, the channel launches an afternoon-long football programme called Super Sunday. The first programme sees the first use of a score bug, a digital on-screen graphic displaying the current score. Initially only used for football coverage, it is soon extended to other sports coverage and is soon taken up by other broadcasters. 17 August – Monday Night Football makes its debut on Sky Sports as part of Sky's deal to show Premier League matches on Monday evenings. This is the first time that domestic football has been shown in the UK on Monday evenings. 31 August – Sky Sports broadcasts World Wrestling Federation's SummerSlam '92 in full. 1 September – Sky Sports becomes a subscription channel. Sky signs a deal with the newly formed World Darts Council, since renamed the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), to broadcast three of its tournaments.
1993 Following the Split in darts, Sky stops covering BDO tournaments. Sky begins providing live coverage of US PGA Golf. 26 December – Sky Sports covers the first PDC World Darts Championship and has broadcast the event every year ever since.
1994 Sky Sports broadcasts a home cricket one-day international for the first time. mid 1994 – Sky Sports acquires the rights to boxing fights promoted by Barry Hearn. 1–8 August – Sky Sports broadcasts the first World Matchplay (darts). Sky continues to show this event to this day. 19 August – Sky Sports 2 launches, initially as a weekend-only service. 20 August – The first edition of Saturday morning football-based comedy/talk show Soccer AM is broadcast.
1995 January – Sky Sports acquires the rights to Frank Warren's Sports Network fights. 8 April – After a three-year hiatus, the World League of American Football returns with live coverage being aired on Sky Sports. September – Sky begins showing a weekly game from the top division of England club rugby. This is the first time that a live match from domestic rugby union had been shown in the UK. Sky Sports starts showing a weekly game from the British Basketball League. Sky Sports start showing coverage from the NFL. 22–24 September – Sky Sports becomes the exclusive broadcaster of golf's Ryder Cup and has shown the event exclusive live ever since. 1 November – Sky Sports Gold launches. It broadcasts for three hours a night, three nights a week.
1996 Following an approach by Rupert Murdoch to British rugby league clubs to form a new Super League, the sport agrees to the proposals, which amongst other things sees the sport move from a winter to a summer season. 16 March – The boxing match between Frank Bruno and Mike Tyson is the UK's first pay-per-view event. June – Sky Sports increases its coverage of women's sport by broadcasting women's cricket and women's golf for the first time. 16 August – Sky Sports 3 launches. The new channel showcases the Football League, which Sky now holds the rights to. Sky Sports 3 also becomes the home to Sky's coverage of the Scottish Premier League. This is the first time that the SPL has been shown across the UK. The channel broadcasts part-time, from midday until midnight. Sky Sports is renamed Sky Sports 1 Sky Sports Gold closes although some of its programmes continue to be shown for a while on the other Sky Sports channels. 26 October – Sky's coverage of Major League Baseball ends after showing MLB for the past four years. November – Sky Sports begins showing live coverage of the England national rugby union team, replacing the BBC which had held the right for many decades.
1997 24 May – Sky Sports takes over as broadcaster of the British and Irish Lions when it shows full live coverage of the 1997 British Lions tour to South Africa. In addition to the test matches, Sky also broadcasts live coverage of the tour matches. 1 September – Sky Sports 2 becomes a full-time service. 28 October – Sky Sports takes over as broadcaster of greyhound racing's TV Trophy.
1998 February – Sky Sports broadcasts matches from the Six Nations championships for the first time as part of its contract to show England's rugby union games. It does so until 2001. 15 August – On the first day of the 1998–99 football season, the first edition of Soccer Saturday is broadcast. The afternoon-long football scores and results service replaces Sports Saturday. 1 October – Sky Digital launches and this is marked by the launch of the UK's first rolling sports news channel Sky Sports News. 15 November – Rival digital television service OnDigital launches. Sky had originally been a partner in the venture but was forced to pull out by the Independent Television Commission. However, some Sky channels, including two Sky Sports channels (Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 3 – Sky Sports 2 is added later – do appear on the service.
1999 April – Sky Sports launches its interactive service Sky Sports Active. Sky Sports broadcasts a home cricket Test Match live for the first time as part of a joint deal with Channel 4. This arrangement continues until 2005. 22 August – Sky Sports Xtra launches, initially primarily as an interactive service. Sunday Supplement launches, providing a Sunday morning discussion of the previous day's football. Sky Sports increases its coverage of greyhound racing and shows major events on Tuesday nights, including the Springbok and the Grand National.
2000s 2000 10 April – Sky Sports News is renamed Sky Sports.com TV. Goals on Sunday launches. October – Sky Sports covers the Rugby League World Cup for the first time, sharing the rights with the BBC.
2001 Sky's exclusive live coverage of the England football team ends following the rights transferring to the BBC. Sky had held the rights since the days of BSB's Sports Channel. May – Sky loses the rights to the British Basketball League to ITV. 1 July – The Sky Sports.com TV brand is scrapped and the channel reverts to its original name of Sky Sports News. 18 August – PremPlus launches. The channel's is the home to Sky's venture into pay-per-view football.
2002 1 March – F1 Digital+ launches. It offers enhanced multi-screen coverage of Formula One on a pay-per-view basis. May – Sky Sports' coverage of the Scottish Premier League ends after four seasons. 4–7 July – Sky Sports shows the first edition of a new overseas darts tournament, the Las Vegas Desert Classic. Sky continues to show the event until it ends in 2009. August – Coverage of the Football League reverts to Sky Sports after one season with ITV, which the broadcaster had intended would kick-start the ITV Sport Channel which failed due to the massive price that ITV had paid for the rights. Following the collapse on ITV Digital, Sky Sports takes over as broadcaster of tennis’ ATP tour. 30 October – Sky Sports News begins broadcasting on the new Freeview platform. 12 December – After just one season, F1 Digital+ closes.
2003 30 May-3 June – Sky Sports shows the first edition of darts' UK Open. Sky continues to show the event until 2013. Sky Sports shows games from the UEFA Champions League for the first time. 22 October – Sky becomes the new broadcaster of rugby union's European clubs tournament Heineken Cup.
2004 11 June – At the Races relaunches as a stand-alone venture. Between 2000 and 2003 the channel had been on air in conjunction with Channel 4. August – Football First launches. The programme allows viewers to choose the game they want to watch.
2005 8 January – Premier League Snooker is relaunched with Sky Sports being the broadcaster of the event, which takes place over a four-month period. 20 January – Sky Sports shows the first night of a new tournament Premier League Darts. The League is a new format and is played over a number of one-off nights, generally every Thursday. Sky continues to show the event to this day.
2006 Sky Sports becomes the exclusive broadcaster of all live cricket matches in the UK following the ECB awarding Sky exclusive coverage of all of England's home tests, one-day internationals and Twenty20 Internationals.BSkyB lands England Test coverage BBC Sport, 15 December 2004 May – The first edition of Cricket AM is broadcast on Sky Sports and Sky One. Based on its successful football-related counterpart Soccer AM, it broadcasts during the footballing off-season. 22 May – Sky launches its high definition service when Sky One HD and Sky Sports 1 HD being broadcasting. July – Sky Sports 2HD launches. August – The European Union objects to what it saw as a monopoly on television football rights and demands the 2007 contract be split into separate packages of 23 games. Consequently, Sky wins four of the six available packages, with the other two are taken by Setanta Sports. Sky starts showing weekly ice hockey game from the Elite Ice Hockey League. December – Sky's 13 years of covering golf's PGA Tour ends due to Setanta Sports winning the rights to coverage of the tour from the start of 2007.
2007 6 May – PremPlus closes. May – After 15 seasons, Monday Night Football ends its first run due to Sky losing the rights to Monday evening Premiership matches to Setanta Sports.
2008