Seven hundred and forty-three clubs entered this season's men's FA Cup. Another 535 entered the women's competition. Almost none of them will get near Wembley, and for most of them that was never the point. The money is.
The first round proper arrives this weekend, and for a non-league side the difference between going out and going through can be the difference between a comfortable year and an awkward one. The Football Association pays participation fees to winners and losers at nearly every stage, and those payments stack on top of broadcast fees and a share of the gate.
Paid for turning up, not just for winning
Including the preliminary and qualifying rounds, the men's competition runs to 14 rounds. Prize money goes to both the winner and the loser in all but three of those matches. The women's FA Cup has 12 rounds and pays participation fees to winners and losers in every single one.
That structure matters more than it sounds. A club knocked out in the second qualifying round still banks something, which turns a cup run into a sliding scale rather than a lottery. For clubs operating on four-figure weekly budgets, two or three rounds of participation money can cover a chunk of a season's wage bill.
Television is where the numbers jump
Eight men's first-round ties have been selected for live coverage this weekend, two of them on the BBC. The 16 clubs involved each receive £50,000 as a broadcast fee, paid on top of whatever their participation fee happens to be. One televised afternoon can therefore be worth more than a club's entire gate income for a month.
The fees rise as the competition goes on. In 2025-26, third-round broadcast payments were £80,000 per club, which is the stage Premier League sides enter. By the fifth round that figure reaches £120,000. On the women's side, broadcast rights are shared between TNT Sports and Channel 4, with Women's Super League clubs coming in at the fourth round.
The away draw everyone wants
There is one more revenue stream, and it is the one that makes lower-league managers smile when the balls come out. Under FA Cup rules, gate receipts are split equally between the two clubs once certain hosting costs have been deducted.
Half of a crowd at a Premier League ground, from the third round onwards, is worth considerably more to a League Two or non-league club than a home tie against similar opposition. It is the reason a small club drawn away at a big one is not unlucky but fortunate, and why the third-round draw tends to be watched more closely by finance directors than by supporters.
Manchester City go into this season defending both the men's and the women's trophies. They will not be thinking about any of this. Several hundred clubs further down the pyramid will be thinking about little else.
FA Cup finance: 743 teams entered the 2026-27 men's FA Cup and 535 the women's competition. The men's tournament has 14 rounds with prize money for winners and losers in all but three matches; the women's has 12 rounds with participation fees in every round. Sixteen clubs in this weekend's eight televised first-round ties receive £50,000 each. Third-round broadcast payments were £80,000 per club in 2025-26, rising to £120,000 by the fifth round. Gate receipts are split equally after hosting costs. Source: BBC Sport Ask Me Anything.
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