UPDATE: These changes and full details have now been confirmed - FULL STORY
Sky Sports is to launch two new dedicated football channels in a huge shake-up of it service which could see sport subscriptions available from as little as £18 a month.
The Guardian is reporting that Sky is to scrap its numbered offerings - Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 - and replace them with sport-specific themed channels.
Provisional schedules suggest the new channels will begin on Tuesday, July 18 although it's not clear when the new pricing structure will be confirmed.
Sky have yet to confirm the move or the channel names, but speculation suggests the line up would be as follows:
> Sky Sports main channel (the very top events from all sports including simulcasts of the biggest events from the other channels)
> Sky Sports Football 1 (possibly branded as Sky Sports Premier League with live games, archive and magazine programmes)
> Sky Sports Football 2 (likely to be the home of EFL, SPFL and Sky's other non-Premier League football rights)
> Sky Sports Cricket
> Sky Sports Golf
> Sky Sports F1
> Sky Sports Arena (other sports such as darts, boxing, tennis and rugby)
> Sky Sports Mix (a selection of all sports above on a channel available to ALL Sky subscribers regardless of their package)
> Sky Sports News
It's believed the new set up is to enable Sky customers to pick and choose which channels they want at a cheaper price than having to folk out a high price for sports they don't ever intend watching. It seems the new set-up would allow you to only subscribe to the football channels if you wanted.
Sky have had a dedicated F1 channel for some time and also change channel names to coincide with big events.
The Guardian report HERE backs up a similar report earlier in the year in the Daily Mail HERE