The BBC has secured a multi-year deal with TNT Sports and the Football Association (FA) to become the free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster for the FA Cup.
Starting from the 2025/26 season, the BBC will show live coverage of 14 games per season co-exclusively with TNT Sports. The broadcaster will show two live matches from each round through to the quarter-finals, one semi-final and then the final.
Additionally, the four-year deal includes the rights highlights and digital clips, which can be showcased across all of BBC’s platforms.
Philip Bernie, Interim Director of BBC Sport, said: “The BBC has a proud history of bringing fans across the nation together for all the magic and drama of the FA Cup.
“This partnership for the next four years is brilliant news and, alongside our recent Premier League extension and UEFA Champions League highlights coming this year, means that BBC Sport will deliver fans top class analysis, commentary and coverage of the biggest football competitions free to air and accessible for all.”
This announcement confirms what was reported in March. TNT Sports initially agreed a four-year deal with the FA to broadcast the competition in February. Following this deal, fans were concerned that the competition – previously free-to-air – would be negatively affected due to accessibility.
However, the FA maintained that the £264m deal with TNT Sports is an important revenue stream for the organisation and that supporters that don’t want to pay to watch the FA Cup will be able to use a mandatory FTA broadcaster, now confirmed as the BBC.
Trojan Paillot, SVP Sports Rights Acquisitions and Syndication WBD Sports Europe, said: “TNT Sports will broadcast every single game outside of 3pm kick-offs, starting from the first round, ensuring fans can watch more of the Emirates FA Cup than ever before all in one place.
“Our ambition is to make more of the live Emirates FA Cup action available to fans than ever before, so the BBC are an outstanding partner to ensure that alongside more games we also make the competition as widely available as possible.”
This agreement will bolster the BBC’s footballing offering, which was improved after it confirmed the renewal of its media rights contract with the Women’s Super League (WSL) earlier this year. Similarly with the FA Cup, the BBC will share the WSL rights with a pay TV broadcaster, in this case Sky Sports.
Mark Bullingham, FA Chief Executive, remarked: “We are delighted that the BBC will continue as one of our Emirates FA Cup broadcast partners, under this new deal with TNT Sports.
“It was always our intention to ensure that this very special competition would be accessible for everyone, and this new broadcast partnership will enable fans to see more of its matches live than ever before from the start of the 2025-26 season, across both TNT Sports and free-to-air on the BBC.
“The BBC has told many of the magical and memorable stories that only the Emirates FA Cup can create, and we look forward to making even more history together in the years ahead.”
