If you’re a customer of mobile phone service provider EE, you’ll soon be able to take advantage of six months free access to BT Sport, after BT’s takeover of the company in January.

More than 15 million EE subscribers will be able to watch Premier League football, Premiership rugby – and all of the other sports content that BT has to offer – for free, thanks to the first major content link between the companies since the takeover.

Once the six-month period is over, subscribers can then opt to retain the service for £5 per month.

It’s an interesting move from BT, but not one that is unprecedented from the telecoms giant.

When BT launched their dedicated sports channel BT Sport in 2013, they offered the service free of charge to BT internet customers, initially, before adding a monthly price for their second year.

Look how excited Kevin Bacon is! Find out how you can get BT Sport free for 6 months: https://t.co/AuIm9Caa52 pic.twitter.com/lgFYjmzMJi

— EE (@EE) July 11, 2016

The idea, clearly, is to give their high-quality coverage away for free for a short period before adding a fee, tempting customers into paying for a high quality product – BT have pumped money into buying rights to Premier League and Champions League football, for example, as well as splashing the cash on a state of the art studio and some big-name talent to present and act as pundits.

This new link with mobile service provider EE gives BT the opportunity to give their coverage away for free for the first half of, say, the Premier League football season. The free period would then end after the customer has watched the first half of the season for free. It’s not hard to figure out what the strategy is.

The other interesting side to the offer is the mobile-based nature of the content.

“When I watch sport, I love to watch it on a big screen. You want to be looking at it on a large screen,” said Marc Allera, EE’s chief executive. “This is for when you don’t happen to be at home. It’s complementary not substitutional.”

The trend towards watching sport on a smaller screen and over a mobile network is growing, and although it is still seen as a secondary, less-good option for watching sport, it’s certainly an option most people want to have for when they’re on the go.

The trend, too, towards sports fans watching events whilst browsing social media on a second screen might be fed by this development. Are we seeing the advent of sports fans caring less about the screen they’re watching and more about the social media engagement around the event?