BT Sport to broadcast two World Cups for UK and Irish international hockey

BT Sport will broadcast both the men and women’s hockey World Cups in 2018 after agreeing a deal to become the home of UK and Irish international hockey. The deal with the International Hockey Federation (FIH) will see BT Sport broadcast a series of events and more than 700 hours of live coverage over the next two years, including the women’s World Cup in London and the men’s World Cup in India. Both World League semi-finals and finals will also be shown on BT Sport channels, with all the best teams across the globe competing.

This year’s line-up will see a blockbuster start for England’s women when they take on Argentina on Saturday, 10 June. The following day will see the hosts battle it out against the Netherlands. Both matches are one-off internationals, and will serve as warm-up matches ahead of the competitive summer schedule.

In 2017, competitions run thick and fast for the men, starting with 33 matches at the men’s hockey World League semi-final in London between Thursday, 15 June, and Sunday, 25 June, at England Hockey’s Olympic legacy venue, Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre.

In July the focus will then turn back to women’s international hockey, where there will be a further 33 matches taking place for the World League semi-final taking place from Saturday, 8 July and Sunday, 23 July in Johannesburg.

Both the women’s and the men’s World League finals will also be broadcast later in November and December this year from Auckland, New Zealand and Bhubaneswar, India respectively.

BT Sport’s coverage for 2018 will see many of the gold medal winning women’s Team GB from the Rio 2016 Olympics look to become World Champions in London in front of a home crowd at the World Cup, starting in July.

The final planned broadcast of the deal will see the men’s Hockey World Cup in November and December 2018, from Bhubaneswar in India.