BT Sport makes its farewell with five hours of Champions League coverage and relentless TNT promos

What an explosive farewell to the Champions League on BT Sport, who screened their final final on Saturday night before rebranding as TNT next season. They bowed with fireworks on and off the field. And that was before kickoff, in an “opening ceremony” that existed solely to promote a sweet soda.

We were entertained by Anitta and Burna Boy, and apparently Adam Lallana on drums.

Jake Humphrey made his last hurray as BT Sport presenter after 10 years of service. As the 44-year-old broadcaster told us in a series of tweets last month, he is “taking a step back” after ten years at his “dream job” to spend more time with his Whisper Group production company and his High Performance podcast.

He opened Saturday night (checking notes) FIVE hours of coverage with the words, ‘First of all, are you okay? I hope so.’ As always, Jake checked in with his audience.

Okay, that’s totally made up. He actually started the coverage with: ‘Good evening and welcome to Istanbul, the vibrant beating heart of Turkey’.

Mario Balotelli was one of BT Sport’s main guests in the hours leading up to the final

Before the broadcast was three minutes old, Jake had ticked the ‘straddles Europe and Asia’ box from a rooftop terrace. Both Gallagher brothers had their say, as had Ricky Hutton and several other Blues celebrities. And there were several mentions of a Treble, and a joke about a city that waited years to host this and a city that waited longer for something big.

Technical issues left some viewers complaining of sporadic glitches, and as the pre-match atmosphere built, some experts were nearly outvoted.

Rio Ferdinand, Mario Balotelli, Cesc Fabregas and Joleon Lescott were the main guests among many, and in the midst of tons of filler we already had Rio interviewing Pep Guardiola before the first commercial break. Before an hour was up, Jake admitted he was a little emotional, but didn’t elaborate.

Jake not sharing it was as surprising as it was unsurprising that the news coverage failed to mention 115 Premier League charges against City over alleged financial irregularities. Why would there be? Football isn’t driven by money, is it?

Speaking of money, city owner Sheikh Mansour was in attendance. He is known to have fallen in love with City just before his seventh birthday in 1977, listening to the BBC’s World Service coverage of the club’s 3–2 win over Luton Town in a League second round replay Cup in the third round.

Tueart scored that day, and Channon, Kidd and the young king promised himself that he would buy this team for himself once he was a grown multi-billionaire plutocrat. (And 12 other teams around the world he loved too).

After taking over from City in 2008, he was so enthusiastic that just two years later he traveled to Manchester to see a match, a 3-0 win over Liverpool. And on Saturday night, after being so impressed with that game 13 years ago, he was back to see City play for a second time.

His heart would have clung to his throat when Erling Haaland and Bernardo Silva both flipped over within minutes of taking off. And distraught for Kevin De Bruyne as he exited a second CL final early.

BT Sport provided numerous interviews as they filled time during their five hour coverage

Man City owner Sheikh Mansour watched the club for the second time in 13 years

We reached halftime level, with co-comms Steve McManaman wondering if Inter could sustain this intensity.

The other big question of the night was whether the relentless promos for TNT – ‘New name, same sport’ – will keep everyone coming back for more next season?

With danger in mind, that’s a yes. Not so much without that.

You know what happened next.