FREE Women’s Sport on TV – What’s on and When in 2026?
I’ll be honest with you… I half expect most women’s sport will disappear behind a paywall by now. Every time a big tournament rolls around, I brace myself for the usual scramble… work out which streaming service I’m supposed to have, whether there’s a free trial I’ve forgotten to cancel, that sort of thing.
And you know. The more eyes that are on women’s sport, the better for women everywhere. But it does mean we’re having to wave goodbye to lots of the free to air broadcasts we enjoyed previously. That said, not all women’s sport is hidden behind a pricey subscription. Between now and the end of 2026, there’s still plenty of free to air women’s sport you can enjoy on TV and here’s our guide to what’s on and when.
Below is everything I could find for the rest of 2026: what’s on, when and whether you’ll need to pay for it. There’s also a quick reference tool built into this page so you can filter by sport or flip a switch to see the free stuff only.
Let’s start with the quick tool!
Women's Sport on UK TV: Rest of 2026
Filter by sport, or flip the switch to see what's free-to-air only.
Football
Football’s the sport where the free vs. paid split is most confusing, so let’s untangle it.
England Women (the Lionesses)
This is the one I’d completely missed until you asked. ITV is the free-to-air home of the Lionesses — every England Women qualifier and friendly is shown live on ITV1 and ITVX as the team builds towards the 2027 World Cup. No subscription, no split coverage, just there on a normal free channel.
Women’s FA Cup
Coverage here is split between Channel 4 and TNT Sports depending on the round and fixture. So it’s not all paywalled — check which broadcaster has a given match before assuming you need a subscription.
Women’s Super League (WSL)
The new WSL season kicks off the weekend of 4–6 September 2026, and the league’s expanding to 14 teams for the first time — Birmingham City, Crystal Palace and Charlton Athletic have all been promoted. Coverage is genuinely split: some matches are shown free on the BBC, but the bulk of fixtures sit on Sky Sports, which needs a subscription.
My advice? Check the BBC Sport fixtures page at the start of each month. It’s not obvious in advance which matches they’ve picked up, so it rewards a bit of digging.
UEFA Women’s Champions League
This is the one to bookmark. The BBC has exclusive free-to-air UK rights to the Women’s Champions League right through to 2030, and shows up to seven live games a season — completely free, no subscription needed. Group stage for the new season starts in autumn 2026.
Rugby
Rugby League — Women’s Challenge Cup
The BBC broadcasts the Women’s Challenge Cup semi-finals and final live and free. Exact dates for the back end of the season weren’t confirmed at the time of writing, so it’s worth checking the BBC Sport schedule directly nearer the time.
Rugby Union — Women’s Six Nations
If you’re reading this later in the year and wondering about next season’s Six Nations: every fixture is shown free on the BBC, via TV and iPlayer, and Welsh games get Welsh-language commentary on S4C too. It’s one of the most reliably free tournaments on this whole list.
Netball
The Netball Super League has had a proper glow-up the last couple of seasons, and broadcast access has grown with it. Every single match in the 2026 season is shown live somewhere — 75% of games on Sky Sports, and one match a week completely free on BBC iPlayer. If you only watch one match a week, that’s the one to catch.
Golf and tennis
Two more to flag, mainly so you’re not caught out.
Solheim Cup
Team Europe take on Team USA from 7–13 September 2026, held in the Netherlands for the first time. Sky Sports has exclusive UK rights right through to 2030 — there’s genuinely no free way to watch this one, so I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
Women’s Tennid
Billie Jean King Cup Finals
Great Britain face Czechia in the quarter-finals in Shenzhen, China, from 22–27 September 2026. The UK broadcaster hadn’t been confirmed at the time of writing, which happens more often than you’d think with women’s tennis team events — worth a quick check nearer the date.
Women’s Cricket
Cricket’s a mixed bag and it’s worth knowing the pattern rather than memorising every date.
- Major international tournaments (World Cups) usually have at least the opening match and the final shown free-to-air, even when the rest sits on Sky Sports.
- The Hundred’s women’s competition runs through August, and while full coverage needs a Sky subscription, the BBC does carry free highlights clips online.
- Domestic matches and home Test series are almost always behind the Sky paywall, with no free alternative.
Athletics and multi-sport events
European Athletics Championships
Birmingham hosts the European Athletics Championships from 10–16 August 2026, the first time a British city has staged this event. It’s fully free to air on the BBC.
Commonwealth Games Glasgow 2026
Here’s the one that’ll catch people out. The Commonwealth Games run from 23 July to 2 August 2026 in Glasgow and after 18 consecutive Games on the BBC, the bulk of coverage has moved to TNT Sports and HBO Max… subscription only! Channel 5 is showing extensive free highlights each night, but if you want to watch events live as they happen, you’ll need the subscription this time. Worth knowing before you plan an evening around it and find the channel isn’t what you expect.
What genuinely isn’t free
In the interest of not wasting your time: domestic cricket, most WSL football (bar the BBC’s selected matches), the bulk of the Commonwealth Games, the Solheim Cup, and Premiership Women’s Rugby coverage on TNT Sports all sit behind subscriptions, with no meaningful free alternative beyond highlights.
But don’t assume everything’s paywalled though. The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 between them cover more than you’d think. The Lionesses on ITV, the Women’s FA Cup partly on Channel 4 and the Women’s Champions League, Six Nations and European Athletics all fully free on the BBC. If a fixture isn’t listed above with a BBC, ITV or Channel 4 tag next to it, that’s your cue to check before assuming you’ll need to pay.
Bookmark this page
Broadcast rights shift every single year, sometimes mid-season. I’ll be keeping this page updated as deals change through the remainder 2026, so it’s worth bookmarking rather than screenshotting. If you spot something that’s changed, drop a note and I’ll get it fixed.
And late in 2026, we’ll get to work compiling the 2027 calendar too!
