NOW, reviewed

NOW is Sky for people who don’t want to talk to Sky. The same channels arrive over your broadband, on an app, on whatever you already own. No dish, no puck, no engineer standing in your hall asking where the socket is.

It is also the reason this site exists. Most of what a dodgy box promises, NOW sells by the day.

What you get

Four memberships, bought separately or together:

• Sports is all twelve Sky Sports channels: Main Event, Premier League, Football, Golf, Cricket, F1, Tennis, Racing, Action, Mix, News and Sky Sports+. See Premier League and F1 for what that covers.
• Sports Extra is a different thing entirely: TNT Sports 1 to 4 and Premier Sports 1 and 2, so the Champions League, the URC, a slice of the Premier League, UFC, snooker, cycling and MotoGP. It does not include Sky Sports, and it’s Republic of Ireland only. See club rugby and boxing and UFC.
• Entertainment is Sky Atlantic, Sky Max and the rest of the box-set channels, with adverts on demand unless you add Boost.
• Cinema is the Sky Cinema channels and film library, with a 7-day free trial.

Sports and Sports Extra also come as 24-hour Day memberships. One fight, one final, one Sunday, done.

Boost is a small monthly add-on that removes the adverts on demand, lifts the picture to Full HD, adds Dolby 5.1 and lets two devices stream at once. Ultra Boost does the same in UHD. NOW says it runs on over 60 devices: smart TVs, Fire TV, Google TV, Apple TV, the consoles and the web. Any of the streaming sticks we recommend will do.

What it costs

Prices checked 2026-11-10 on the service's Irish pricing page.

The intro offers change monthly. The ones in the table were live on 19 September 2026, and the standard price is what you pay once the offer runs out.

The catch

Three of them. Without Boost you’re watching in 720p on one device with adverts on the on-demand stuff. The cheap intro prices are only cheap because they tie you in for 6 or 12 months, which is the contract you came here to avoid. And Sports Extra sounds like an upgrade to Sports but isn’t; it’s a different set of channels, and if you want both you need both.

The small print

When to have it, when to cancel

• Football season, August to May: Sports Month. At the rolling price you can drop it for June and July. At the intro price you can’t, but twelve months at the offer rate can still cost less than ten at full whack. The finder does that sum for you.
• One big night: a Day membership. Buy it an hour before the fight, let it lapse.
• The Champions League and the rugby: Sports Extra, or the Saver Bundle if you want the Sky channels too.
• A box set: Entertainment for a month, then cancel. Nobody’s watching you.
• Cinema: take the trial the week a film you want lands.

Verdict

NOW is the cheapest way to get Sky Sports in Ireland without a contract, and the Day membership is the single best answer to “sure it’s only for the one match”. If you want every Sky channel all year with Netflix thrown in, Sky’s own bundles can work out cheaper on paper. Check the finder before you decide. It lists the cheapest legal option first, even when that option pays us nothing.

See also what Sky Sports costs in Ireland, which sets NOW against Sky and Virgin, and how to cancel when the season ends.