For a time, Sky Sports seemed to have a complete monopoly over the broadcasting of Premier League football in the United Kingdom. Then a decision was made that said that this was unfair, so other broadcasters entered the fray. Although the likes of Amazon have been able to show matches at various points, the main rival to Sky Sports’ dominance has been TNT Sports, which began life as BT Sport and initially promised a level of coverage akin to Sky’s Monday Night Football, only to then hire Robbie Savage and appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Darren Fletcher
Born on the fifth of October 1972, you might recognise Darren Fletcher more if you hear the name that his colleagues refer to him as, which is ‘Fletch’. His broadcasting career began in 1993 when he worked at radio stations close to his hometown of Nottingham. He did enough to earn the attention of BBC Radio 5 Live, joining the broadcaster in 2004 and being part of the main commentary team for two World Cups as well as the intervening European Championship. He would often appear on 606, the phone-in show, joining the Match of the Day commentary team in 2010.
Three years later, he joined BT Sport, the insurgent broadcaster that was challenging Sky’s coverage of the Premier League. In 2014, he launched Fletch and Sav alongside Robbie Savage, with whom he has worked on 606. As the years progressed and BT Sport took on more and more football coverage, including the UEFA Champions League and certain FA Cup ties, ‘Fletch’ was the first-choice commentator for the network. On the 18th of July 2023, BT Sport rebranded to become TNT Sports, but Fletcher remained the main commentator.
Steve McManaman
If you want a former footballer with a wealth of experience to be able to offer insight into what it takes to compete at the top end of the game, then Steve McManaman may well be the person you’re after. Born in Bootle on Merseyside in 1972, he joined the youth team of Liverpool before breaking into the first team in 1990. He won the FA Cup and the League Cup with the Reds during nine years there, leaving to join Spanish giants Real Madrid. He won two La Liga and two Champions League titles there, amongst other trophies, ending his career at a pre-takeover Manchester City.
Part of the famed ‘Spice Boys’ era at Liverpool, McManaman knows what it’s like to be under the judgement of the media. That might be part of the reason why media organisations such as ITV and Setanta Sports decided to use him as a pundit, which eventually led to him joining the BT Sport team in 2012. He was a regular guest on shows like Premier League Tonight on the network and has been an all-but constant presence in the TNT Sports studio since. Although he also works for other networks, most notably ESPN, he is best known as being a TNT Sports pundit.
Lucy Ward
As much as it might upset the sexist knuckle-draggers out there, it isn’t just men who have plenty to offer in the way of insights thanks to their former years as a player. Lucy Ward was born in 1974 and joined the Leeds United Ladies team back when it was only a community side. She stayed with the club as it rose through the ranks to become one of England’s best women’s teams, moving to Doncaster Rovers Belles in 2002 for a year before returning to Leeds. For a time, she was the head of Education and Welfare at Leeds Academy, leaving in 2015 and later winning a sex discrimination and unfair dismissal case against the club.
Having also represented the England Under-21 team, Ward is well-placed to be able to offer comment on the sport. She retired in 2009, working for the BBC during the Women’s World Cup that was held in China that year. She also did so during the European Championship qualifiers that took place that year and was also used by the ‘Beeb’ as a pundit for both the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Women’s Euros the following year. When BT Sport launched, it began bringing in other voices and Lucy Ward’s was one of them, working on and off for the broadcaster ever since.
Simon Brotherton
There are numerous examples of people who work in a freelance capacity, moving between broadcasters depending on how and when they are needed. Simon Brotherton is an excellent example of just such a voice, working for the BBC on both Match of the Day as well as on BBC Radio 5 Live whilst also working for TNT Sports as one of the company’s main broadcasters. His media career actually began whilst he was still at school, working with BBC Local Radio before working with BBC Radio WM when studying at Birmingham University.
He has commentated on countless tournaments for the BBC, beginning with the FIFA World Cup in 1994 and working on virtually every major international tournament in the years that followed. Thanks to the manner in which BT Sport, later TNT Sports, needs numerous different people to work for the company, Brotherton has also commentated on the various competitions that they show. That means that his voice will doubtless be known to many who watch the likes of the Champions League and Europa League football that the broadcaster has the rights to show.
Ian Darke
Born in 1954, Ian Darke is amongst the most experienced of commentators used by TNT Sports. His career with the major broadcasters began with BBC Radio, covering the likes of boxing and athletics in addition to football. When Sky Sports won the Premier League coverage in 1992, Darke moved over to them in order to be the second-choice commentator behind Martin Tyler and was given the role of being the main man for the Monday Night Football programme. For a time, he was Sky’s main boxing commentator and his presence on football matches all but ended.
When boxing moved to ITV, Darke returned to Sky’s football coverage, working with ESPN for the 2010 World Cup. In 2013-2014, BT Sport won the rights to show some Premier League matches, with Darke joining their team as a commentator. He has worked with the company ever since, alongside being heard on the likes of the Premier League World Feed and for Fox Sports in America. Having once been one of the ‘Big Four’ voices at Sky Sports alongside Martin Tyler, Alan Parry and Rob Hawthorne, he is now often heard on TNT Sports if Darren Fletcher isn’t the commentator.
Steve Bower
Steve Bower was born in Cheshire in 1973 and attended Calday Grange Grammar School on the Wirral, joining Liverpool’s Radio City in 1991 in order to present the sports bulletin on the breakfast show during the week. Over time, he then offered commentary on the three local teams on Merseyside, Liverpool, Everton and Tranmere Rovers. He was given the role of Head of Sport at Manchester’s Piccadilly Radio in 1996, making him the youngest Sports Editor at an independent radio station in the United Kingdom at the time. From there, he got a role at Manchester United Television.
Having worked there for nearly nine years, he moved to Setanta Sports when it launched, commentating on Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Cup matches. When the company went into administration in 2009, Bower became freelance and worked for numerous different channels, taking up a role at BT Sport when the company launched in 2013. He has worked for the channel on and off, including since the rebrand to TNT Sports, being the company’s second choice commentator for Europa League matches as well as coverage of the Bundesliga and Ligue 1.
Rio Ferdinand
There is something rather comical about Rio Ferdinand as a pundit, insofar as whatever he suggests is likely to happen, the opposite is more likely to come true. Having been a member of the West Ham United youth system before joining the team proper, he was transferred to Leeds United in 2000 and impressed enough there to be signed by Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United two years later. He won virtually everything there was to win with the Red Devils, including six Premier League titles and the Champions League, seeing out his career at Queens Park Rangers.
It is perhaps his success at Old Trafford that caused BT Sport to hire him as a pundit in 2015, remaining with the broadcaster ever since. Often seen in the studio or pitch side when the company that has now become TNT Sports covers the Champions League, Premier League or Europa League, Ferdinand’s image can occasionally be seen on social media if he has said or done something stupid. Manchester United defeated Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, for example, and Ferdinand said that the club should give him whatever he wanted to be manager. They did and he was terrible.
Laura Woods
Born in Dagenham in 1987, Laura Woods studied print journalism at Kingston University and became a runner at Sky Sports after graduating. That was in 2009, with Woods making her way through the system at Sky in order to become an editorial assistant before switching to the production side of the business. From there, she eventually became a producer and started doing behind-the-scenes interviews on Sky Sports’ coverage of the darts for the channel’s YouTube account, which eventually led to a role on the kids’ TV show Game Changers on a Saturday morning.
By 2018, she had become a regular for Sky Sports’ Super Sunday Premier League coverage, then in 2022 she made the decision to leave Sky in order to work for ITV on the company’s NFL coverage. A year after that, she signed with what was then known as BT Sport, becoming the lead presenter of the channel’s boxing and Champions League coverage. She has remained in the role ever since, also covering the Premier League and other football competitions that TNT Sports offers, becoming the lead presenter of the channel’s female-fronted presentation team.
Reshmin Chowdhury
Reshmin Chowdhury was born and brought up in London, living in an ‘extremely open-minded’ Bengali Muslim community. She went to Woodford County High School for Girls and studied Politics with Economics at the University of Bath before doing a Post-Graduate Diploma in Newspaper Journalism at Harlow College. During her time at university, she worked at Reuters TB News and worked in numerous countries around the world. She joined ITN in 2005 and then in 2008 spent two seasons as one of the presenters on Real Madrid TV in Spain.
What a game, what a pleasure! Great to hear from superstar Lamine Yamal – is there a more exciting talent on the planet right now?! He even talks as fast as he runs #BarcaInter @footballontnt @ChampionsLeague pic.twitter.com/c9E0KJynhe
— Reshmin Chowdhury (@ReshminTV) April 30, 2025
In 2010, Chowdhury became part of the BBC Sport team, covering football on the likes of BBC News and Match of the Day 2. She made the move to BT Sport in the August of 2014, presenting a weekly news round-up show called SportsHUB and doing well enough in the position to mean that the company increased her workload in the years that followed. She is one of the main presenters used by TNT Sports for Europa League and Europa Conference League matches, as well as the FA Cup and numerous different women’s football competitions.
Lynsey Hipgrave
Born as Lynsey Horn in 1979, Lynsey Hipgrave got a break in broadcasting on Galaxy 102, the Manchester-based radio station, presenting the breakfast show. From there, she was given a job as a travel reporter on Radio 5 Live, eventually co-presenting the Saturday morning show on the channel with Danny Baker until July 2016. In 2010, Hipgrave made the move to television thanks to working with Al Jazeera on the company’s English language channel, working with Gary Lineker. She joined Setanta Sports News when the channel launched, as well as on Challenge Jackpot.
When TNT Sports launched as BT Sport ahead of the 2013-2014 Premier League season, Hipgrave was one of a number of different names brought in to work with the channel. She was initially one of the main presenters for the coverage of women’s tennis and football, moving over to the men’s game in order to present coverage of the major competitions covered by what is now TNT Sports. She will be known to viewers of the Champions League and Europa League in particular, as well as TNT Sports’ coverage of the FA Cup when the channel offers it.
Many Different Voices
The reality of TNT Sports is such that the company has numerous different people working for it in its football coverage. There will no doubt be some people that you really like, making you wonder why it is that we haven’t mentioned them. Peter Crouch is a great personality, for example, boasting a jovial personality and an ability to take the Mickey out of himself whilst also being able to offer informed discussion of footballing matters. Michael Owen definitely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but you will struggle to find anyone better when discussing the decisions made in the moment by forwards.
Part of the problem with the broadcaster in general is that there is a wealth of different voices needed to cover so much football, which means that the quality control isn’t necessarily there. Although Robbie Savage doesn’t work for TNT Sports as much anymore since becoming the manager of Macclesfield FC, he is indicative of a company that doesn’t know whether it wants to offer genuine insight into footballing matters or ‘banter’ for the masses. Joe Cole has little to offer in the way of analysis, yet is regularly seen on TNT Sports’ coverage of Premier League games.
From Ally McCoist to Owen Hargreaves, Paul Scholes to Joleon Lescott, there are countless different former footballers who are used as pundits or co-commentators for TNT Sports matches regardless of whether they’ve actually got anything interesting to say. The good news is that the broadcaster has worked hard to put women’s voices at the forefront of its coverage, which is why names like that of Laura Woods and Lyndsey Hipgrave can also be seen alongside the likes of Jules Breach and Karen Carney, all of whom have something interesting to say having had to work harder than their male counterparts to get the job in the first place.