Every medal and every event of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games is being delivered to viewers by Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) TNT Sports and HBO Max brands for the first time.

With more than 600 hours of live coverage from 23 July to 2 August, the complete Glasgow 2026 experience is available live on all HBO Max subscription plans, combined with comprehensive coverage across TNT Sports channels. HBO Max is the new streaming home of TNT Sports.

In addition, TNT Sports announced a new partnership with UK public service broadcaster Channel 5 to help bring the event to the widest possible audiences. 5 is presenting extensive daily highlights as the exclusive English language free-to-air partner for this summer’s Games, in a deal along the same lines as it had with WBD for the Tour de France. 

First time fun

On why WBD decided to secure the rights for the Commonwealth Games for the first time, WBD Sports Europe executive vice president Scott Young says: “I think it’s come from a genuine passion of being an Olympic Games broadcaster and taking our editorial expertise and knowledge matched also with how we broadcast the Olympics, and applying that to the second largest multisports event in the world, which is the Commonwealth Games.

“We saw an opportunity,” he continues. “[The Commonwealth Games is on at] the time of the year when sport is at that curve where we know there is an audience around looking to enjoy live sport. We know how to communicate to an audience that loves watching multisport events on our streaming platform, so it seemed like the right idea at the time. A quick conversation with Commonwealth Sport about our ambition and how we were going to bring this to life on not only TNT Sports, but primarily HBO Max, and that’s led us to where we are today.”

The Commonwealth Games rights acquisition is an extension of WBD’s cycling and athletics prowess. Young explains: “There’s a link there towards cycling. We are the home of cycling across nearly every discipline. So when we get into the track cycling part of Glasgow 2026, obviously the expertise that we’re going to bring in, spearheaded by Chris Hoy, will be a muscle memory for us because we know cycling very well. We’ve got real passionate cycling producers who are fans of the sport within our team. The same applies for athletics. Athletics for us is not only the Olympic Games, but the World Championships as well, which we continue to broadcast.

“I think this is a collective sports fan base that knows when they come on to HBO Max and TNT Sports and we say we’re going to give the same treatment [that we provide for the Olympics and World Championships] for Glasgow ’26, they know what to expect. That 600 hours of coverage means every moment of the games, both in para and able-bodied competition which run side by side, with storytelling [of that] group that represent 162 medals, I think when you put all that together, it becomes a pretty interesting proposition.”

State-of-the-art studio

The TNT Sports state-of-the-art on-site studio, supported by augmented reality (AR) graphics and cutting-edge analysis tools, is ensuring enhanced storytelling. A comprehensive team of reporters and roaming crews are stationed across competition venues in and around Glasgow, delivering breaking news, updates and athlete interviews, which is being anchored from the studio itself.

TNT Sports’ main live broadcast studio for the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games is located at The Hydro, which is within the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) precinct. The Hydro is a major entertainment arena in Glasgow, right on the River Clyde. It hosted the Games’ Opening Ceremony and is the base for the netball competition.

Young says that as this Games is not widely spread out, having a central studio location means it is relatively easy to get athletes and pundits back to the studio for interviews: “The size of the entire area, even out to where the swimming athletics is, means everyone can come back through to the studio so they can be a part of that on air team throughout the day.

“We made a decision very early doors that we wanted to be onsite for our on air team to be able to bring their stories and their experiences back. Having so many athletes who have competed and been successful in the Commonwealth Games, we just know that emotion that comes back when our storytellers are part of the broadcast means it’s really important to be hosting on site.

“So we’ve got an amazing backdrop in the precinct and the sporting complex where we are. The studio is both indoor and outdoor, so we’re ready for anything that the environment throws at us. That obviously also includes our ability to include augmented reality graphics to help the storytelling in analytics and just introduce athletes and sports that not everybody typically watches every day.”

More traditional event-focused live coverage is being screened on TNT Sports 3 and TNT Sports 4, available on HBO Max to UK customers and linear TV subscribers in the UK and Ireland.

Remote production

WBD is using a remote production for the Commonwealth Games, minimising its on site footprint. All its galleries are in London, “but we’re also using galleries in Paris because we’re using the strength of that Olympic team that has always been between London and Paris to deliver any of these sports,” notes Young.

In Paris at the Eurosport main office, specialists in athletics are working on the live production of the Commonwealth Games, with galleries, editors and directors in the French capital.

“So athletics will be delivered through our French production teams,” continues Young. “We’ve got teams onsite at every venue, but all of that technology – cameras, microphones, return audio – all that then links back to our remote productions. We’re using all of Stockley Park and all of the PCR and control rooms we have in Chiswick as well,” says Young, on the two WBD-owned and operated facilities in London.

“I think that is genuinely our superpower,” notes Young. “I think because of what we own and because of the technology base that we have and the very unique nature that we can send a sport from Tollcross swimming [Tollcross International Swimming Centre, Glasgow] and send it across into Paris, for example, and have someone produce that and package it and send it back to London for broadcast, that’s a very unique foundation of the tech platform we’ve got in this company.

“I don’t know many other broadcasters that have the internal ability to do what we do around delivering sport at this level,” he says. “Many are capable of a couple of studios and a few cameras; very few are capable at high volume in a simultaneous production.”

Technical innovations

HBO Max is giving viewers the flexibility to follow the Games in the way that suits their viewing preferences this year, with features designed to help fans follow every key moment across simultaneous events.

The first of those is Multiview, the never-miss-a-moment function, allowing viewers to watch up to four live events simultaneously on one screen.

Young says: “Multiview is part of our development programme on the streaming platform. We used to have Multiscreen where you could cast four images at once within a box. The difference with Multiview is it’s actually an active platform. You can click on the box, it will come up full screen, therefore you can decide to watch any one of the four options that we curate and we give to you, and then if you want, you can dive into that particular sport or particular moment and stay with it. We’ve used Multiview across several different sports now.”

Multiview has been used in WBD’s MotoGP coverage where one of the screens is a data feed, and it was recently used in the Tour de France as well. For the Commonwealth Games Multiview shows feeds from four sports that are live at that moment, enabling the viewer to choose whether to zoom in on one of those sports, watch all four simultaneously, or switch between them.

Multiview launched in 2024 during the Champions League after a period of beta testing. Notes Young: “It was quite useful for us, particularly when you get to large volume Champions League matches where we’ve got multiple games happening at once. We’ve now significantly stepped up the development and the product experience since then.”

In a brand-new innovation, the Commonwealth Games 360 channel on TNT Sports 2 and HBO Max is delivering a first-of-its-kind broadcast experience for the Commonwealth Games.

TNT Sports is giving the Commonwealth Games its gold star treatment. Young comments: “We do feel we are going to town with [this production]. We have over 200 people on site making sure that we’re at every venue and at every moment. We’ll be interviewing every medallist and that’s where it led us towards this concept of the 360 Show on TNT Sports.

“That’s the ‘lean back’ experience where every moment of the Games that unfolds will be a part of this programme, and not just field of play, but athlete interviews, behind the scenes, the preparation of the Games; you’ll be able to watch that show and really feel like you’re in Glasgow and you know what’s going on when it matters. Alongside that on HBO Max is every moment of the Games at your fingertips.”

Live every day from 08:30 to 22:30, the dedicated Commonwealth Games 360 channel is ensuring viewers never miss the biggest moments by moving seamlessly between competition venues as the action unfolds. Alongside live competition, fans can enjoy expert analysis, athlete interviews, breaking news and behind-the-scenes stories throughout the day. Radzi Chinyanganya, Becky Ives and Emma Dodds are steering the coverage throughout the day.

For viewers wanting to focus on individual sports, dedicated live event coverage is available across TNT Sports 3 and TNT Sports 4, alongside multiple live event streams on HBO Max. Daily highlights are available from 22:30 on TNT Sports 2 directly following the conclusion of the live action.

Also, In-Player Alerts notify users of key action happening in real time outside their current viewing, whether medal moments or exciting action unfolding, ensuring fans can seamlessly switch between coverage to follow all their local heroes.

And with Key Moments, fans can customise their viewing, enabling them to seamlessly transition between the most crucial action to re-live the drama again and again across key sports and events.

In conclusion, Young says: “This being just the most immersive coverage of a Commonwealth Games that we think anyone’s ever seen before is our priority, but also there are 4,000 athletes descending on Glasgow. I often talk about storytelling being a part of it, but being able to be everywhere, in every mixed zone and every field of play, and that technology backbone for us is really important.

“That’s what we committed to Commonwealth Sport at the very beginning, that we’re not just a different broadcaster: we’re a very committed, immersive broadcaster that will take a far greater approach to these Games than I think they expected.”