Every game during the first two weeks of the upcoming English Football League (EFL) season will be broadcast live on Sky Sports, including 3pm kick-off games.
Starting on August 1, all Championship, League One and League Two games will be available. The week after, the Championship season will start on August 8, with every game from matchweek one available to watch live on Sky Sports.
This forms part of Sky Sports’ new initiative to widen the visibility of the three lower tiers of English football. Throughout the 2025/26 season, every Championship, League One and League Two team will have up to 20 league games shown live on Sky Sports and Sky Sports+.
In total, more than 1,000 of the 1,891 games from across the EFL and Vertu Trophy will be broadcast live on Sky Sports platforms.
The UK sports broadcaster is set for its biggest year in football yet, with the new Premier League broadcast deal meaning Sky Sports will broadcast 215 live games.
Future likelihood of 3pm blackout removal?
The first two weeks of the EFL season enables Sky Sports to broadcast 3pm kick-offs to bypass the blackout ruling, which comes into effect once the Premier League season begins on August 15 when Liverpool host Bournemouth.
The blackout rule was established in the 1960s to encourage fans to attend stadiums to watch their team and support the club through matchday revenue, a key source of revenue for lower league clubs. However, in recent years, a growing number of sports broadcasters have called for the removal of the rule.
Even Prince William, the Football Association’s (FA) patron, in March 2025 called for the 3pm blackout to be removed as it restricts his family from watching Aston Villa – their favourite team.
If the Premier League and FA consider the removal of the 3pm blackout, it will not happen until the end of the 2028/29 season, when the new broadcast rights deal with Sky Sports and TNT Sports ends.
DAZN lodged a broadcast rights bid in 2023 seeking to remove the “medieval” rule as part of its proposal to acquire all 1,671 EFL games. The broadcaster was unsuccessful in its bid, with Sky Sports retaining exclusive broadcasting rights for the EFL as part of a five-year £935m deal, which is set to expire at the end of the 2027/28 season.
Concerns remain from the FA and EFL stripping the 3pm blackout for Championship, League One and League Two games and how it would affect attendance figures for lower league clubs.
