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Sports Media · The United Kingdom

Top sports media in the United Kingdom

The outlets that cover sport in the United Kingdom — the sports press, the broadcasters, the agencies and the specialist titles.
✓ Last reviewed: September 2026

These are the outlets that cover sport in the United Kingdom — the sports press, the broadcasters that hold or have held rights, the national news agency where it carries sport, and the specialist titles of national standing. Single-sport titles without national standing are not listed here; they appear on the media list for their own sport.

How this list is ordered. By role and national standing — the sports press first, then the broadcasters that hold or have held rights, then the national news agency and the specialist titles. That order is set once and stays put, so a page that has been cited does not rearrange itself later. The Tranco figure against each outlet is shown for reference and does not set the order. Tranco is a research ranking of web domains that averages the Chrome User Experience Report, Cloudflare Radar, Majestic, Cisco Umbrella and Farsight over the preceding 30 days, on the list of September 2026. It ranks a whole domain, not a sports desk. A general daily's rank counts every reader it has, most of whom did not come for sport, so a national newspaper will sit above a dedicated sports title that has more sports readers than it does. Some outlets carry no Tranco figure at all. Tranco ranks registrable domains, so a sports desk published on a subdomain cannot appear in it whatever its readership, and a smaller national outlet may sit outside the top million. Those are marked below.

1. BBC SportBroadcaster · Television · Tranco 236 — The BBC's sport output on television, radio and online, constituted under a Royal Charter that runs to the end of 31 December 2027 and holding Premier League free-to-air highlights and live radio rights from 2025-26 to 2028-29. 2. Sky SportsBroadcaster · Television · Tranco 1,111 — Sky's subscription sport channels and website, owned by Comcast since 2018 and holding a minimum of 215 live Premier League matches a season from 2025-26 to 2028-29 alongside Formula 1, cricket, tennis and English Football League rights. 3. TNT SportsBroadcaster · Television · Tranco 27,868 — The UK and Ireland sport channels launched on 18 July 2023 to replace BT Sport, formed in 2022 as a Warner Bros. Discovery and BT Group joint venture, holding 52 live Premier League matches a season and the UEFA club competitions to the end of 2026-27. 4. talkSPORTBroadcaster · Radio · Tranco 12,504 — A UK national sport radio station that launched on 14 February 1995 under the name Talk Radio, now part of News Broadcasting, holding two Premier League live audio packages of about 111 matches a season from 2025-26 to 2028-29. 5. The GuardianGeneral sports coverage · Newspaper · Tranco 204 — A UK national newspaper and website founded in 1821 as the Manchester Guardian and owned through The Scott Trust Limited, whose sport desk the Sports Journalists' Association listed as Sports Publisher of the Year as at September 2026. 6. The TimesGeneral sports coverage · Newspaper · Tranco 3,331 — A UK national newspaper published by News UK, first issued in 1785 as The Daily Universal Register and renamed on 1 January 1788; its Sunday title runs the Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards, which were in their thirtieth year in 2017. 7. PA MediaNews agency · News agency · not in the Tranco top million — The news agency established in 1868 as the Press Association and renamed PA Media on 27 June 2019, which describes itself as the national news agency for the UK and Ireland and supplies sports data and live sport coverage to other media. 8. ReutersNews agency · News agency · Tranco 284 — A global news agency founded in London in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter, part of Thomson Reuters since 2008 and governed by Trust Principles agreed in 1941 with British newspaper and agency bodies; it supplies sport text, pictures and video worldwide.