The F.A. Cup does not have a sponsor. Remarkably, football's oldest domestic knockout competition is the only tournament in the top tier not to have any naming rights.

And if Bradford City play Blackburn Rovers in this season's final, it will not help the Football Association as it searches for a successor to Budweiser, whose £9 million a year deal ended in 2014.

While the F.A. must remain strictly neutral in public, it knows that this season's F.A. Cup final could either be a dream — Liverpool vs. Manchester United/Arsenal — or, with any combination of Bradford City, Reading, Blackburn, Aston Villa or West Bromwich, it will be the stuff of nightmares for the television companies and the watching millions.