This is the first season that TNT Sports will be the host broadcaster for the FA Cup, both for the men’s game and the women’s competition (which reached the 2nd round stage last weekend).
TNT Sports head of football, Pete Thomas, spoke to SVG Europe about how it is looking to make its mark on the production.
Prior to the matches, as soon as the draw is made, TNT Sports takes its pick of the games to broadcast live. The broadcaster’s football team immediately goes to the grounds in question with a checklist of basic technical requirements, and to find those challenging points for the production that the team might be able to get on TV.
“The FA Cup is the ultimate competition for fan experience in my view. We put that above all else in trying to tell the stories and bring the fans as close to the action as we can.”
Comments Thomas: “Then it’s just working out what are the extra fun bits we might be able to do here that we can’t do anywhere else. The communication with the clubs is absolutely vital, particularly around the storytelling element. It’s making sure we open up a channel really quickly, find the right person to speak to who’s going to help us and say, “oh, you’ve got to speak to whoever it is who’s been here 50 years, or who was here the last time when we got to the third round,” or something. It’s establishing that early, establishing that they can trust us and that we’re going to do our best for them and try and bring their club to life. As soon as the draw is made, we start that process and then carry that through to match day, which takes time, but it’s so worth it because the rewards are fantastic.”
Presentation creativity
TNT Sports is using a standardised camera plan for the venues, which is to be tweaked according to what is possible at the individual grounds. For the host broadcaster’s own coverage, the presentation is where Thomas’ team is using its creativity.
Thomas comments: “The simple thing to do when we go on site to a Cup game would be to stand pitchside and present from pitchside. What I’ve challenged the team with is that backdrop of a pitch and a stand behind you is nice and we have some access there, but actually there’s an awful lot more to these clubs and once you see a pitch and a stand behind, it could almost be any club. So where else can we go? What else can we bring to life at this stadium, at this club, in this town, that fans might not know or that fans will love but they couldn’t get there today?
“We are looking for our production teams to always try and go one step beyond the obvious and think, “what’s the real story here that I can bring to life?”. And typically that is maybe with a bit more movement, a bit more access, and trying to find the brilliant characters that are the heart and soul of these clubs, because I think that helps you to attach to it as a viewer, as a fan; you get behind the story, you start to love the club, you’re interested in the game, you’re hooked into the next round, and away we go.
“That’s probably what I think our approach will be and I think it matches what our approach has been on the other competitions we work on. But I do think there’s more we can do with the Cup because at smaller grounds and smaller clubs you can show more, and there’s stories that don’t often get to be told. So what a brilliant chance to bring them to life.”
Unique challenges
Challenges for the FA Cup are unique because of the size of the clubs, their location, and a myriad of other factors, says Thomas. However, many of those challenges are simply opportunities in disguise, he explains: “The challenges are always unique and we’ve had instances before of the deep fat fryers causing lights to trip out around the stadium or things like that,” Thomas laughs.
“I’ve worked on the FA Cup for years at various places before [TNT Sports] and you can never predict where the challenges might come from. Of course, there’s sometimes challenges around things like floodlights, around space, around the ground, even space to park a truck next to it; you might have to close a road to be able to park the truck outside. But I think what we typically find is that the clubs are brilliant to work with, particularly the smaller clubs where this is an opportunity to showcase their story.”
TNT Sports is looking at those unique challenges presented by each club’s ground and is using that to tailor each broadcast. From the practicalities of bringing in an OB that can fit into the available space, to taking advantage of the smaller grounds where players and fans are often cheek by jowl, the broadcaster aims to bring new perspectives to viewers at home.
Adds Thomas: “The challenges are often the best bits because you realise, “oh the players come in this way and they actually come through the fans,” so actually that’s a great opportunity for us because we could walk down the road with the players; we’re not just going to have to wait in a tunnel for the players to come in, we can come with them all the way. All the fabulous details of clubs that maybe aren’t on TV as much are the ones that you can then think, “this is an opportunity and we can do something slightly different”.”
Thomas is inspired by the FA Cup grounds for both the men’s and the women’s clubs, and although many of those elements come into the host broadcast, it is the storytelling for TNT Sports’ own presentation where the team can really have some fun.
Thomas says: “What we put around [the broadcast] – the presentation that we’ll put on our channels – is in some ways the exciting bit for me, with the programme making and the storytelling that we’re able to do around those matches. Strategy-wise, we always look to be as close to the fans as we possibly can be and to bring the fan experience onto the screens, and I think the FA Cup is the ultimate competition for fan experience in my view.
“We put that above all else in trying to tell the stories and bring the fans as close to the action as we can,” he continues. “I think that will be consistent from the very first round when we are at smaller non-league grounds, through to big Premier League clashes. We’re still looking to get to the root of why, as fans, we love the FA Cup, which is around storytelling and hope; I think always the hope that something can happen. So that will be the kind of the backbone of what we look to do when we broadcast these live games.”
Getting the research done prior to a game is important in terms of finding out where and how the presentation can best work, he says: “In terms of the presentation, it really can depend game by game with what the access might be and how we might bring that to life. So we will look at whether there are certain tools that we think can help us achieve that.
“Typically, it’s how we can be nimble, maybe bring a bit of movement that brings the whole picture to life. So we’ve been looking at using small remote dressing room cameras or small remote cameras around the ground that bring a different perspective, whether there’s a chance to use a drone; not necessarily a massive drone that’s just going to sit up really high and bring you a nice big vista, but is there a mini drone that can bring you a bit more life around the streets that reveal the stadium, as so many of these stadia appear from behind the houses, and that’s kind of the charm.”
Thomas is looking forward to bringing fans those elements of each individual ground that will make them feel like they are there on the day, and being part of the action and hubbub of what are often smaller spaces.
He comments on how he wants the broadcasts to look and feel, and how he hopes both his production and presentation teams will work together over the season: “My style is that I like our shows to feel live; it’s a live broadcast at a football ground. Often, the best bits are when they don’t quite go to plan and you have to pivot and do something that you weren’t expecting, and our production team’s job is to put all the tools in place to make our presentation team feel totally comfortable that they know they’ve got this really solid backbone team behind them. Then, when something does go slightly differently, or when they want to follow a story, or when they want to immediately walk across the picture and grab someone because there’s an opportunity, they can just go and do it.
“I think that brings more of the atmosphere and the energy and the buzz of pre-match, which is what we all love when we go and watch football; that feeling when you’re at the ground. So that’s very much what we’re trying to do,” he concludes.
Also coming soon from TNT Sports is The People’s Story: The FA Cup, a new documentary commissioned by TNT Sports, which will uncover the triumphs, heartbreaks, and untold stories of the iconic tournament, revealing how it became a stage where sport and society collide, capturing the spirit of a nation through the beautiful game.
The 90 minute documentary, set to air ahead of the men’s FA Cup 3rd Round in January 2026, will tell the stories of Everton’s Mike Trebilcock, Sunderland’s shock 1973 FA Cup triumph, the emotional 1989 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Everton, Paul Gascoigne’s memorable contribution to Tottenham’s 1991 FA Cup victory and the inside story behind Crystal Palace’s run to the 2025 FA Cup Final that saw the club win the first piece of silverware in their 164 year history.
