BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra (formerly BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra) is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, and specialising in extended live sports coverage. It is a sister station to

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts mainly news, sport, Talk show, discussion, interviews and phone-ins, and is on air 24 hours a day. It is the principal BBC radio station Broadca ...

and shares facilities, presenters and management, and is a department of the BBC North Group division. If a major news story breaks during the live sport broadcasts on 5 Live, the sports coverage may sometimes be redirected and continued on 5 Sports Extra, while 5 Live switches to live news. The station is only available on

digital radio Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services. This should not be confused with In ...

, television platforms and

BBC Sounds BBC Sounds is an Over-the-top media service, over-the-top audio streaming media, streaming and download service from the BBC that includes live radio broadcasts, Streaming media, audio on demand, and podcasts. The service is available on a wide ...

. For licensing reasons, international streaming of the station has not been available since 25 July 2016. According to

RAJAR Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR; ) was established in 1992 to operate a single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom. RAJAR is jointly owned by the BBC and Radiocentre. RAJAR's predecessor was c ...

, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 971,000 with a listening share of 0.2% as of March 2024.

History

BBC Radio Five Live Sports Extra launched as part of the BBC's expansion into digital radio by launching several digital only stations that would complement existing coverage. At the time of launch, all radio sports coverage was included as part of

's mix of news and sport, the

longwave In radio, longwave (also spelled long wave or long-wave and commonly abbreviated LW) is the part of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave (MW) broadcasting band. The term is historic, dati ...

frequencies of

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

or on individual BBC Local Radio stations. As these platforms could not accommodate any additional sports, a new service was launched: BBC Radio Five Live Sports Extra. The station began broadcasts at 2:30pm on 2 February 2002. Juliette Ferrington introduced the first programme – commentary of the

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

match between

Manchester United Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United (often stylised as Man Utd) or simply United, is a professional association football, football club based in Old Trafford (area), Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, Engl ...

and

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

In 2007, the station was rebranded in line with the rest of the network. The new BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra logo was turned into a circular based logo in the colour green; according to research, the green colour was chosen as people associated it with sport. In addition, a new background of blue and red diagonal lines on the same green colour was adopted for promotions for the service. Along with the rebrand, Sports Extra became more closely aligned with 5 Live. As a result, the online presence of the station was toned down with only an upcoming schedule remaining; all other details were merged into the 5 Live website or the new BBC Radio online homepage. In 2011 the station, along with 5 Live, moved to

MediaCityUK MediaCityUK is a mixed-use property development on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in City of Salford, Salford, Greater Manchester, England. The project was developed by The Peel Group, Peel Media; its principal tenants are Mass media, ...

Salford Salford ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Greater Manchester, England, on the western bank of the River Irwell which forms its boundary with Manchester city centre. Landmarks include the former Salford Town Hall, town hall, ...

. In 2022, the station's name was shortened to Radio 5 Sports Extra as part of a rebranding of the BBC. In 2024, the BBC announced plans to broadcast

sports podcasts and sports programming from their nations and regions on the station when it is not airing live sports coverage. On 10 April 2025, Ofcom provisionally indicated that it would reject these plans, saying they "could have a significant impact on commercial sports radio, specifically the

Talksport Talksport (styled as talkSPORT) is a sports radio station in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned by News Broadcasting. Its content includes live coverage of sporting events, interviews with the leading names in sport and entertai ...

network". Similar plans to broadcast regular programming on the station were previously rejected in 2015. On 16 May 2025, two new services, BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra 2 and BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra 3, appeared on

as streaming services to supplement

BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra (formerly BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra) is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, and specialising in extended live sports coverage. It is a sister station to BBC Radio 5 Live and shares facil ...

. These spin-off streams will be used to provide additional sports coverage when BBC Radio is covering multiple sporting events at the same time.

Broadcast

BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra is broadcast only on digital platforms. It is transmitted on DAB Digital Radio and on digital television through

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

services, such as

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

and

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Everyone TV (itself owned by all of the four UK Public broadcasting, public service broadcasters, BBC, ...

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

operators, such as

Virgin Media Virgin Media Limited is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 ...

, DTT services via Freeview, and on

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV), also called TV over broadband, is the service delivery of television over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Usually sold and run by a Telephone company, telecom provider, it consists of broadcast live telev ...

. The service is also available online through the BBC website, the

service and the Radioplayer service part owned by the BBC. The BBC Sounds platform also re-broadcasts programmes for catch-up after original broadcast. Due to rights restrictions, some programmes are restricted to UK audiences or are not available on the BBC's online services. The station is a part-time service, only airing during ongoing sports broadcasts. Although it mostly broadcasts sports coverage not available on Radio 5 Live, sometimes, sections of sports coverage on Radio 5 Sports Extra will be broadcast on Radio 5 Live, such as the for final part of the Formula 1 qualifying or occasionally other major sports, such as cricket. The broadcasts themselves are live and uninterrupted except when updates are given by commentators to listeners on Radio 5 Live, as opposed to sports coverage on Radio 5 Live which has interuptions for other sports updates and regular news bulletins. During Sports Extra's downtime, the station does not simulcast any other broadcast although a label for Sports Extra is continuously radiated on the DAB multiplex to allow those tuning their radio to store the station to their device even if it is not on air. On digital TV platforms, where Sports Extra has its own dedicated full-time stream, not sharing feed capacity with any other services, a looping promotional barker is played if no live programming is scheduled; the EPG information during this reel will often give details of the next live event to be covered by the station, should this information be available. The Sports Extra internet stream, which used to go off air when live content was not running, now also broadcasts the promo loop. The station's controller is Jonathan Wall, who is also responsible for 5 Live and is answerable to the

BBC North BBC North (Group) is an operational business division of the BBC. It is also a brand that has been used by the BBC to mean: *The large ''BBC North'' region, centred on Manchester, that was active from the late 1920s until 1968 and was based u ...

and BBC Audio & Music departments. The station operates from Quay House in

on a single floor alongside 5 Live. Although 5 Sports Extra uses no studio space, the teams required to organise the match coverage are shared with 5 Live. The move to

took two months, and occurred alongside 5 Live, in a bid to create a northern media hub and to outsource major production from London. Previously, 5 Sports Extra had been located alongside 5 Live in

BBC Television Centre Television Centre (TVC), formerly known as BBC Television Centre, is a building complex in White City, London, White City, West London, which was the headquarters of BBC Television from 1960 to 2013, when BBC Television moved to Broadcasting H ...

and spread over several floors. Any live sports programmes, only broadcast on the BBC Sport Web Site and BBC Sport App are not available to listen to again on BBC Sounds. This is the case when you see the words Only programmes broadcast on the BBC radio stations, including BBC 5 Sports Extra, are available to listen to again. This differs from the iPlayer Red Button, which is available to watch again, even if it is not broadcast on a television channel.

Programming

5 Sports Extra broadcast a variety of sports including: * Test Match Special *

Cricket World Cup The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup is a quadrennial world cup for cricket in One Day International (ODI) format, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament is one of the world's most viewed sporting events and consid ...

, ICC Champions Trophy, and Twenty20 World Cup * Royal London One-Day Cup and T20 Blast *Cricket's

County Championship The County Championship, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Rothesay County Championship, is the only domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales. Established in 1890, it is organised by the England and Wales Cri ...

*Full broadcasts of

and Home Nation football if games overlap, with 5 Live carrying first-choice in these cases *

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...

, since 2004 *

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * W ...

Tennis championships, with the station providing extra court commentary for the first week of the tournament *

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...

Stanley Cup Finals The Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey (also known as the Stanley Cup Final among various media, ) is the annual championship series of the National Hockey League (NHL). The winner is awarded the Stanley Cup, North America's oldest professional spo ...

* Tennis Grand Slam tournament coverage of non-final rounds and some other major tennis tournaments * Formula One motor racing *Action from any other competition broadcast on 5 Live Through the 2012 season, 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra carried NFL late games broadcast on Sunday evening, with coverage taken from Westwood One, except the NFL International Series and

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...

, which used BBC-produced commentaries. Absolute Radio 90s acquired the broadcast rights to the NFL beginning in 2013. BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra reacquired the rights to NFL games for the 2014–15 playoffs.BBC 5 Live to air Super Bowl XLIX from Arizona
Retrieved 9 January 2015.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bbc Radio 5 Live Sports Extra 5 Sports radio stations in the United Kingdom Radio stations established in 2002 2002 establishments in the United Kingdom Radio stations in the United Kingdom Digital-only radio stations BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra

History

Broadcast

Programming

See also

References

External links