25 February 2013
BT agrees to buy ESPN’s UK and Ireland channels business. The sale completes on 31 July 2013.
Most guides tell British readers that ESPN is blocked here. It is not blocked. It was sold to BT in 2013 and the streaming service shut in 2023. That difference changes what a US IP address is for.
There is no British ESPN service to unblock. ESPN’s UK channels were sold to BT in 2013 and ESPN Player closed on 18 August 2023. The games that used to be on ESPN are now split between Sky Sports and DAZN. A residential US IP is only useful here if what you actually want is the American ESPN service, which is a separate product sold in the United States.
This matters because “unblocking” and “reviving” are different problems, and only one of them has a solution.
BT agrees to buy ESPN’s UK and Ireland channels business. The sale completes on 31 July 2013.
ESPN Classic and ESPN America cease transmission at midnight.
ESPN Player shuts down. The direct streaming route in the UK stops existing — it is not geo-blocked, it is gone.
A service that has been switched off cannot be reached from any IP address, British or American. If a guide tells you a VPN will restore ESPN Player, it is describing a service that closed three years ago.
What a US IP can reach is the American ESPN service — ESPN Select or ESPN Unlimited — which is a different product with different content and its own account requirements.
Took ESPN programming at roughly three games per week per sport during the regular season.
Signed a multi-year deal for ESPN-broadcast games, at a substantially higher volume than the Sky arrangement.
BT Sport became TNT Sports in 2023. The channel that carried the ESPN name until 2015 lives on under a different brand.
If the specific thing you want is a fixture that DAZN or Sky holds in the UK, a US IP address is the wrong tool: those rights are British, and the American ESPN does not carry them either.
ESPN’s terms describe a United States service. That is not a restriction imposed on British viewers after the fact — it is the shape of the business the UK channels were sold out of.
“The ESPN and Hulu Services are only available in the United States and certain of its territories.”
Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu Subscriber Agreement, effective 5 February 2026
Read alongside the 2013 sale, that sentence stops being a barrier and starts being an explanation. ESPN did not withdraw from Britain and keep a locked door behind it; it sold the British business and kept the American one.
The agreement’s travel clause is about Disney+ rather than ESPN, and the distinction is worth noticing:
“This Agreement applies if you purchase a subscription to the Disney+ Service in the U.S. and any supported U.S. territories and use it in other geographic locations where the Disney+ Service is made available.”
Same agreement, effective 5 February 2026
So even the clause that contemplates travelling with a subscription names the Disney+ Service, not ESPN. This page quotes selectively; the full agreement is linked in the sources and is short enough to read.
ESPN Player is gone. These are the two plans that still exist, and neither is a British product.
$139.99 per year
$319.99 per year
These are ESPN’s standalone US prices, checked 20 September 2026. They rose on 17 September 2026; subscribers from before 20 August 2026 keep the old price until their first billing date after that.
Neither of these carries the British rights that Sky Sports and DAZN hold. If you are comparing prices against a DAZN subscription, you are comparing two different catalogues that happen to share some fixtures.
Because the British service closed rather than locked, the useful question is narrower than usual: it is about reaching America, not about getting back in here.
Note what is being tested here: the American service, not a British one. There is no British ESPN service to test.
If the fixture is a British broadcast, stop here — those rights sit with Sky Sports or DAZN and no connection reaches them from an American service.
A private window on a computer. The UK app stores will happily install the ESPN app and then refuse to sign you in, which tells you nothing useful.
Confirm the address reads as United States before you load anything. Checking only after a failure leaves you guessing which layer refused you.
A location message, an account message and a blackout notice are three different answers. Which one you get tells you what to fix.
British app stores carry the ESPN app. That is the part that misleads people: installing it is easy, and installing it proves nothing.
The honest first test, because the browser has no store in front of it.
Same order of operations; Safari and Chrome can behave differently at playback.
A UK Apple Account will install the app and then hit the account layer, not the network layer.
Google Play’s country is tied to payment history rather than to where you are sitting.
A successful install from a UK store is not evidence that the American service will accept your account.
These four walkthroughs were recorded in October 2022 and show the ESPN+ signup flow — the plan now sold as ESPN Select. The order of operations still holds; the screens do not.
One residential US connection, three lengths. For a single fixture a month is usually enough; for a season it is not.
1 Month Pass
€9.99 each month after the 3-day trial.
6 Month Pass
Billed €44.94 every six months after the 3-day trial.
12 Month Pass
Billed €71.88 each year after the 3-day trial.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back guarantee · cancel any time
You can reach the American ESPN service, which is what a US IP is for. You cannot reach a British ESPN service, because there is not one. Whether the American service then plays depends on your account, your payment method and the blackout status of the specific event.
No. ESPN+ was renamed, and the two plans sold directly today are ESPN Select and ESPN Unlimited. British guides written before the rename — and the four videos on this page — still say ESPN+.
The agreement is linked in full in the sources below. This page quotes it selectively and does not paraphrase what it permits; the clauses that matter are the ones covering your own account.
No. ESPN Player closed on 18 August 2023. It is not geo-blocked from the UK; it does not exist anywhere. No network route reaches a service that has been switched off.
No. ESPN’s UK channels were sold to BT in 2013 and rebranded; what Sky carried from November 2023 was ESPN programming under a supply arrangement, not the American ESPN service.
Split. Sky Sports took ESPN programming from November 2023 at around three games per week per sport, and from the 2025/26 season DAZN holds a multi-year deal for ESPN-broadcast games at a much higher volume.
Not in the way Australia does. The ESPN tile that Disney+ added in Australia and New Zealand in March 2025 is a market-specific arrangement, and the UK is not one of those markets.
Every load-bearing claim on this page links to the page it came from. Prices and rights move; the sources are the thing to trust.
ESPN’s own current standalone monthly and annual prices.
Open ESPN Support →The full agreement, effective 5 February 2026, including the availability clause quoted above.
Read the agreement →Where ESPN-broadcast games sit in the UK from the 2025/26 season.
Open DAZN →ESPN, Disney+ and Hulu are third-party services and are not affiliated with USip VPN. Prices, availability, devices and content rights can change.