The Code is administered and supported by the Sport and Recreation Alliance and requires the UKs major sporting bodies to put a minimum 30% of net broadcasting revenues back into their respective sports and to make their events available to free-to-air broadcasters in live, recorded or highlights format so they can be viewed by as many people as possible.
While every sports governing body wants to maximise the audience for major events, they also recognise that sports broadcasting rights are one of their main sources of commercial revenue. Without a competitive marketplace for sports broadcasting rights, governing bodies and event organisers cannot secure the best financial return. This in turn, undermines investment in the long-term development of the sport. In this context, sports governing bodies are best placed to strike the right balance between audience and revenue.
The Voluntary Code of Conduct for Rights Owners outlines the ongoing commitment of the UK’s leading sports bodies to two general principles:
• Accessibility – Wherever possible, making all major events under their control available free-to-air (in live, recorded or highlights form);
• Reinvestment – Putting a minimum of thirty per cent of their net UK broadcasting revenue back into the long-term development of their sport.
Download a copy of the Voluntary Code of Conduct for Rights Owners.
Compliance with the Code is monitored by the Sports Broadcast Monitoring Committee, to which the Alliance acts as secretariat. The Committee has an independent chair and comprises a range of representatives from Code signatories alongside independent members with commercial, legal and broadcasting expertise. The full membership of the Committee is listed below:
Independent Chair
Signatory Representatives
Independent Members
Following the most recent compliance review, the signatories assessed as compliant with both the accessibility and reinvestment principles are:
The signatories assessed as compliant with the accessibility principle are:
Examples of how some Code signatories have invested to support the long-term development of their respective sports include:
The ECB Emergency Fund provided support to 33 cricket clubs under existential threat from external events, including storms, floods and fire, with a total grant value of £1.03m. In each circumstance, without the support, advice and funding provided through the ECB Facilities team, the clubs involved faced the real prospect of being unable to continue providing community sport. Examples of clubs that the ECB provided grants to include:
The club’s outfield, square and nets were extensively flooded in late 2024, this continued into 2025. A large and resilient club (181 playing members across all age groups and genders & 60 social members), Tewkesbury CC is a real focus point in the local community for sport and other recreational/social activities. The grant enabled the club to clean all surfaces from flood debris, prepare grass surfaces for the 2025 season and ensure that the nets were ready for training.
The club’s pavilion was hit by storm damage in early 2024 causing damage to the roof and internally via water ingress. The club is more than a just a cricket club to the local community and the damage meant there was a risk that the club would not be able to start the 2024 season on the field, but also not be able to host their annual Eid prayer event. The grant enabled swift action from the club and wider community, meaning the pavilion was able to open in time for cricket and prayer.
The LTA’s flagship disability work takes place through the Open Court programme, which enables people with a disability or long-term health condition to pick up a racket and play tennis. Around 18,000 disabled people played tennis on a monthly basis across the 775 venues involved. Almost 60% of monthly participants are players with a learning disability, with the remainder including wheelchair tennis players, para standing players, visually impaired players, deaf or hearing-impaired players and those with long-term health conditions.
As part of the programme, the LTA supplies venues with adaptive equipment, training and resources to increase opportunities for disabled people to get involved in tennis, as well as dedicated support and advice from the LTA team. Supporting disability-specific participation activity is just one strand of the LTA’s work to make the health and social benefits of the sport open to disabled people. It sits alongside activity to make tennis more inclusive, supporting venues and coaches to open their doors and make tennis welcoming to disabled people whether they want to play, volunteer or coach.
The RFU continues to invest in and training and developing match officials and coaches in the community game. This year, their work included a targeted programme working with coaches who train U14 – U18 players. Providing intensive support to coaches of these age groups improves player experience and supports the RFU’s goal to keep more players transitioning through older age groups and into adult rugby.
Between June and August 2024, the RFU delivered training and education to over 2,500 coaches with the aim of increasing their knowledge, skills and behaviours. Additionally, from September 2024 to April 2025, the RFU worked in 40 clubs with approximately 100 coaches on a season-long programme of mentoring by coach developers to enhance their coaching skills and embed the learning from the courses.
The RFU has also worked in collaboration with Constituent Bodies, referee societies and clubs to deliver training to more than 100,000 community coaches, match officials and volunteers. This included 72,000 eLearning places and 28,000 bookings on around 1,300 in person continuous development training courses covering scrum, lineout, and advanced coaching practice, as well as providing mentoring, development conferences and advanced level training opportunities.
Finally, the RFU provided on demand First Aid and Safeguarding courses, eLearning modules, webinars, and digital resources available to access all year on a range of platforms.
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