Best-of list · Sports Bars
10 ranked Edinburgh bars for game day, from award winning fan zones to Six Nations rugby pubs, with the screens, sound, and sports each shows.
The short answer
10 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
Edinburgh takes its sport seriously, and on a Six Nations Saturday or a Champions League night the city fills from the Old Town to Morningside. The question is rarely whether a bar shows the match. It is whether it has the screens, the sound, and the crowd to make the 90 minutes feel like an event.
This list ranks the 10 rooms our editors send people to when the fixture matters, scored on our game-day method: screens and sightlines, sound, crowd, the sports each place actually shows, game-day operations, drinks and food, and access. For the wider scene, see the Edinburgh sports bars guide and the global sports bars hub.
The biggest fan zones cluster in the Old Town, around the Cowgate and the Grassmarket, all walkable from Waverley Station. Rugby pubs come into their own on a Six Nations weekend, when Murrayfield brings the crowds. Book ahead for a Scotland international, a Scotland against England fixture, or a Champions League knockout, when the fan zones fill an hour before kickoff.
How we picked
We started with the venues local editors trust, then checked each against current independent coverage, including DesignMyNight, FANZO, and the Scotsman's Edinburgh rugby guide, plus Forever Edinburgh and each bar's own sport listings for screens, hours, and the sports it carries. We confirmed the screen setups, the booking policies for big matches, and the league coverage before ranking.
We left off rooms that show sport only as background, and we did not pad the list. Every venue here commits to the broadcast for a real match and draws a game-day crowd. For more on watching specific competitions, see our Premier League and Champions League guides, or find a room near you at the sports bars near me hub.
Last reviewed June 9, 2026 · The editors recheck hours, screens, and closures against current local coverage.
UK and Europe correspondent for barsforKings. Covers Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London's bar scene.
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Last reviewed 2026-06-09 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.