TNT Sports will share the rights with a FTA broadcaster that is yet to be announced. (Shaun Botterill/Getty Image)

TNT Sports, the UK pay-TV heavyweight owned by media giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), has snapped up rights to English soccer’s FA Cup competition from the 2025-26 season after striking a deal with the Football Association (FA) governing body.

Under the deal, the broadcaster, formerly known as BT Sport, will show every game live from the competition’s third round outside the 3pm domestic media blackout across the UK until the end of the 2028-29 season via its linear channels and WBD’s streaming platform Discovery+.

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The package also includes rights to air the FA Community Shield and the FA Youth Cup semi-finals and finals.

The FA said TNT Sports will share the rights with a free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster that is yet to be announced, with selected matches available. It is understood that a minimum of two matches in each round, including both semi-finals and final will be made FTA.

The FA Cup is currently shown entirely FTA until the end of the 2024-25 season via public broadcaster the BBC and commercial network ITV.

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FA chief executive Mark Bullingham said: “TNT Sports is an outstanding broadcaster with an impressive record of showing some of the biggest and best sporting events around the world.

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“We are delighted to be working with them on our shared commitment and long-term vision that will ensure the Emirates FA Cup continues to thrive over the coming years.”

The competition was previously shared between a FTA and pay-TV broadcaster from the 2014-15 to 2020-21 seasons when TNT Sports’ predecessor BT Sport aired the competition alongside the BBC before the current 2021-22 to 2024-25 cycle.

Meanwhile, TNT Sports has secured rights in Brazil to the UEFA Women’s Champions League (UWCL) top-tier continental clubs competition via a sub-licensing deal with international sports streaming service DAZN.

TNT Sports will air 13 games of the current 2023-24 edition, starting with the quarter-finals of this season’s competition on March 19 and ending with the final on May 25, as well as 25 matches during the 2024-25 season.

DAZN is the exclusive global host broadcaster for the UWCL as part of a four-year deal struck with UEFA in 2021. Its agreement marked the first time that the governing body had centralized all UWCL matches globally.

As part of this deal, DAZN also entered into a partnership with YouTube that made the competition live and free for fans around the world for the first time.

WBD Brazil, meanwhile, holds rights to the men’s UEFA Champions League until the end of the 2026-27 season.