BT Sport will provide football fans with the perfect companion to this summer’s FIFA World Cup with a raft of special shows and live warm-up matches.
Headlining the pay-TV sports channel’s World Cup support programming will be two new shows – ‘Baker & Kelly Not in Rio’ and ‘The Football’s On’.
Hosted by Danny Baker and Danny Kelly, ‘Baker & Kelly Not in Rio’ will be broadcast live each evening throughout the tournament, offering fans their unique insight and comment on the big, little and unusual stories unfolding in Brazil.
The show will provide lively studio discussion with football stars, football-loving showbiz guests and interaction from the audience.
It will also include tournament news and reports from Brazil, alongside special features in the entertaining spontaneous style viewers of ‘Baker & Kelly’s V.S.P.O’ will have becomes accustomed to during the course of this season.
With a nod to ‘Paul the Octopus’, the Germany-based octopus who became an unlikely star of the 2010 FIFA World Cup for correctly predicting the results of games in the tournament, each show will also see Danny and Danny use different methods to predict results in a spin-off from their Premier League Toaster Predictor.
The first show airs on BT Sport 1 on Thursday, June 12 from 7.00pm, just a couple of hours before the tournament itself kicks off with Brazil facing Croatia in the opening match.
Each broadcast of Baker and Kelly’s World Cup show will also be available to view for free via the BT Sport website – btsport.com.
‘The Football’s On’ is a one-hour comedy-themed show that will air throughout May and June, which puts the boot into the beautiful game and has a laugh about it.
Award-winning comedian and Arsenal fan Ian Stone will host and be joined by some of the countryʼs top football-mad comedians to dissect World Cup antics from on and off the pitch.
Its starting line-up features household names including Alan Davies, Jason Manford, David Baddiel, Frankie Boyle and Mickey Flanagan. Rising comic and actor Doc Brown will be a mainstay guest on the show alongside Ian and the celebrity guests.
The show is designed to become an essential take on everything that moves in Brazil this summer and everything that happens in the world of football, with the next episode airing on BT Sport on Friday, May 16 at 11.00pm.
There will also be a 90-minute FIFA World Cup special from Life’s A Pitch, the show where guests from football and beyond join host and renowned broadcaster Des Kelly as he provides viewers with a fresh, unique take on the beautiful game.
Airing on June 5 at 9.00pm on BT Sport 1, the World Cup special show will bring fans a mix of debate, a multi-national panel of guests, live music, plus features on World Cup-related matters and tournament predictions from celebrities.
Complementing the mix of studio-based shows, BT Sport will broadcast more than a dozen World Cup warm-up matches involving the likes of hosts Brazil, Germany, Belgium, France and the USA.
BT’s live friendlies before the World Cup include Germany v Cameroon (June 1), Brazil v Serbia (June 5) and France v Jamaica (June 8).
Supplementing BT Sport’s TV shows will be an extensive World Cup section on the BT Sport website – btsport.com/worldcup – which will contain video, news, scores, fixtures and other statistics from Rio.
Live rights to all 64 matches at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil will be shared exclusively between the BBC and ITV, with the tournament kicking off on June 12.
.
| WORLD CUP WARM-UP MATCHES LIVE ON BT SPORT |
.
| MONDAY 26th MAY |
| Australia v South Africa International Friendly | 10:30 |
|
| TUESDAY 27th MAY |
| France v Norway International Friendly | 20:00 |
|
| United States v Azerbaijan International Friendly | 00:00 (Wed) |  |
| SUNDAY 1st JUNE |
| Germany v Cameroon International Friendly | 17:00 |
|
| United States v Turkey International Friendly | 19:00 | |
| France v Paraguay International Friendly | 19:45 | |
| THURSDAY 5th JUNE |
| Brazil v Serbia International Friendly | 01:00 (Fri) |
|
| FRIDAY 6th JUNE |
| Germany v Armenia International Friendly | 19:45 |
|
| Croatia v Australia International Friendly | 01:00 (Sat) | |
| SATURDAY 7th JUNE |
| United States v Nigeria International Friendly | 23:00 |
|
| SUNDAY 8th JUNE |
| France v Jamaica International Friendly | 20:00 |
|
