Remote Control Wars: The Football and TV Clashes Most Likely to Start a Row
by Liam Reaney
10 minutes read /
As the nights start to draw in, we’re all about to spend a lot more time on the sofa in front of the telly. And that’s bound to lead to some arguments over who has the remote control and who’s relegated to watching on the tablet.
With the Premier League and Champions League in full swing, and some of Britain’s most popular reality shows returning, the team at Best Betting Sites wanted to find which evenings posed the biggest threat to peace in living rooms across the country.
We looked at every TV listing and sport event between now and the end of the year to find the biggest clashes in terms of viewing figures.
Every sport v telly clash this autumn
28 clashes from 24 October to 31 December, ranked by the most UK households where one person could want the sport and another the show.
| # | When | Sport | Against | Overlap | Households (up to) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sun 15 Nov 19:45–20:20 |   Spain v England 5.5m viewers |  Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 35 min | 487k |
| 2 | Wed 25 Nov 21:00–22:00 |   Sporting CP v Manchester United   + Club Brugge v Liverpool · TNT Sports · 2.1m 4.2m viewers combined |  I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! 9.0m viewers | 60 min | 402k |
| 3 | Tue 24 Nov 21:00–22:00 |   Arsenal v Borussia Dortmund   + Manchester City v Napoli · TNT Sports · 2.0m 4.2m viewers combined | I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! 9.0m viewers | 60 min | 401k |
| 4 | Tue 3 Nov 20:00–21:15 |  Manchester United v Roma   + Barcelona v Aston Villa · TNT Sports · 2.0m 4.3m viewers combined |  The Great British Bake Off 7.0m viewers | 75 min | 320k |
| 5 | Tue 24 Nov 20:00–21:30 | Arsenal v Borussia Dortmund + Manchester City v Napoli · TNT Sports · 2.0m 4.2m viewers combined | The Great British Bake Off 7.0m viewers | 90 min | 312k |
| 6 | Sat 19 Dec 18:30–19:30 |  Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur 2.5m viewers | Strictly Come Dancing – Grand Final 8.4m viewers | 60 min | 221k |
| 7 | Sat 12 Dec 18:45–19:30 |  Manchester City v Chelsea 2.3m viewers | Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 45 min | 205k |
| 8 | Sat 24 Oct 18:45–19:30 | Chelsea v Tottenham Hotspur 2.2m viewers | Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 45 min | 194k |
| 9 | Sun 25 Oct 19:00–20:20 |  United States Grand Prix (Austin) 1.3m viewers | Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 80 min | 115k |
| 10 | Sun 1 Nov 20:00–20:20 | Mexico City Grand Prix 1.3m viewers | Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 20 min | 115k |
| 11 | Sun 8 Nov 18:45–19:00 | São Paulo Grand Prix 1.3m viewers | Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 15 min | 115k |
| 12 | Sat 14 Nov 20:10–20:20 |   Ireland v Fiji 1.2m viewers | Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 10 min | 106k |
| 13 | Sat 21 Nov 20:10–20:20 |   Wales v Australia 1.2m viewers | Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 10 min | 106k |
| 14 | Mon 16 Nov 21:00–21:45 |   Switzerland v Scotland 700k viewers | I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! 9.0m viewers | 45 min | 67k |
| 15 | Fri 27 Nov 22:15–23:00 |  UK Championship, York Barbican (50th edition) 600k viewers | I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! 9.0m viewers | 45 min | 58k |
| 16 | Tue 17 Nov 21:00–21:45 |   Wales v Portugal 500k viewers | I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! 9.0m viewers | 45 min | 48k |
| 17 | Tue 3 Nov 21:00–22:00 | Manchester United v Roma + Barcelona v Aston Villa · TNT Sports · 2.0m 4.3m viewers combined |  Big Brother 900k viewers | 60 min | 41k |
| 18 | Thu 26 Nov 21:00–22:00 |   Torreense v Celtic 430k viewers | I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! 9.0m viewers | 60 min | 41k |
| 19 | Tue 17 Nov 20:00–21:15 | Wales v Portugal 500k viewers | The Great British Bake Off 7.0m viewers | 75 min | 37k |
| 20 | Wed 4 Nov 21:00–22:00 |  RB Leipzig v Manchester City  + Slavia Prague v Arsenal · TNT Sports · 1.9m 3.9m viewers combined | Big Brother 900k viewers | 60 min | 37k |
| 21 | Fri 13 Nov 19:45–21:45 |  Scotland v North Macedonia 700k viewers |  Children in Need 2026 3.9m viewers | 120 min | 29k |
| 22 | Sat 31 Oct 18:45–19:30 |   Rangers v Aberdeen 300k viewers | Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 45 min | 27k |
| 23 | Sat 7 Nov 19:00–20:20 |  Grand Slam of Darts, Aldersley Wolverhampton 300k viewers | Strictly Come Dancing 8.3m viewers | 80 min | 27k |
| 24 | Wed 28 Oct 21:00–21:45 | Liverpool v Chelsea 1.9m viewers | Big Brother 900k viewers | 45 min | 18k |
| 25 | Sun 1 Nov 21:00–22:00 | Mexico City Grand Prix 1.3m viewers | Big Brother 900k viewers | 60 min | 12k |
| 26 | Sat 7 Nov 17:00–18:40 |  Wales v Japan 1.2m viewers |  WWE Crown Jewel 300k viewers | 100 min | 4k |
| 27 | Thu 5 Nov 21:00–22:00 |   Sunderland v Dinamo Zagreb 410k viewers | Big Brother 900k viewers | 60 min | 4k |
| 28 | Sat 24 Oct 22:00–22:45 | Dalton Smith v Alberto Puello 200k viewers |  Saturday Night Live UK 300k viewers | 45 min | 1k |
Households is a worst-case estimate of homes where two people want different programmes, using each show’s peak audience and counting any overlap in full. Each clash is one sport against one show: where two sports overlap the same show, only the bigger clash is listed. Champions League games played at the same time are added together. A home can appear in more than one clash, so the figures rank clashes against each other rather than counting individual homes.
The clash calendar
Every night from 24 October to 31 December with a sport v telly clash (22 in all), shaded by its biggest clash. Hover over a night to see its clash; every clash is listed in the table above.
October 4 clash nights
November 16 clash nights
December 2 clash nights
Under 75k 75k–150k 150k–300k 300k+ homes
How we worked it out
Only things you have to watch live are counted. On the television side that means shows that go out live, or where a result, vote or elimination is spoiled within minutes of airing: Strictly Come Dancing, The Celebrity Traitors, The Great British Bake Off, I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, Big Brother, Children in Need, BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Saturday Night Live UK, WWE Crown Jewel and WWE Survivor Series: WarGames. Drama and documentary are left out however big the audience, because nothing is lost by watching on catch-up.
Only football a household would argue over is counted. That means England and home-nation internationals, Champions League and Europa League nights with a British club, big-six meetings, the major derbies, and cup semi-finals and finals, which leaves 42 fixtures. Other live sport, such as Formula One, darts, snooker and boxing, is counted too.
A clash means the clocks overlap. We compare real start and finish times, not just dates. A 20:00 kick-off running to 22:00 clashes with a 21:00 show; a show that ends before kick-off clashes with nothing. Once both are on, the argument has started, so any overlap counts as a full clash.
Each clash is scored by the households it could split, at worst. We take each show’s peak audience (its most-watched episode of the last series) and each match’s average UK audience as a share of the 60.6 million people aged four and over, work out the chance that two people in the same home want different ones, and apply that to the 19.6 million UK households with two or more people. For the top clash, Spain v England (5.5m viewers) against Strictly Come Dancing (8.3m) on Sunday 15 November, that comes to up to 487,000 households.
Analysis by BestBettingSites.co.uk, 21 October 2026. Audience figures from BARB-derived reporting, broadcaster press releases and published industry data. Fixture times from the Premier League, EFL, SPFL, UEFA and broadcaster schedules.
The Team Behind This Study
BestBettingSites.co.uk is a comparison website operating in the online betting and gambling world for over ten years. We strive to provide fair and safe advice to players looking for trusted UK bookmakers and online casinos as well as the latest sports betting news.
