FIFA seeks $4B for World Cup rights as streamers and networks prepare for 2030, 2034 bids

Fox Sports secured English-language rights to the 2018, 2022 and 2026 men’s FIFA World Cups for a reported $485 million. FIFA is now preparing to seek as much as $4 billion for the U.S. media rights to the next two tournaments combined, according to the Wall Street Journal.

That eight-fold increase reflects what happened over the past five weeks on American television.

The 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, delivered the largest English and Spanish-language audiences in tournament history, and for the first time a majority of the Spanish-language World Cup semifinal audience watched on a streaming platform rather than a traditional TV set.

The result is a rights landscape with increased competition for the 2030 tournament media rights, set to be held primarily in Morocco, Spain and Portugal.

Sports rights holders gaining leverage ahead of next media cycle, survey reports

The formal bidding process has not started, but FIFA is expected to begin negotiations later this year, according to multiple reports, while interest from the 2026 tournament remains high. WSJ reported that FIFA plans to bundle the 2030 and 2034 tournaments into a single rights package, a structure that would commit any winning bidder to two consecutive cycles.

The numbers from the 2026 tournament explain why the asking price is what it is.

Fox’s English-language semifinal coverage averaged 15.09 million viewers, a 131% increase over the 2022 semifinals in Qatar, which aired during winter months and averaged 6.53 million. The Argentina-England semifinal on July 16 drew 16.90 million on Fox, the most-watched World Cup semifinal ever on English-language television in the United States. The broadcast peaked at 24.72 million in the 4:45 p.m. ET quarter-hour.

On the Spanish-language side, Telemundo and Peacock combined for 10.6 million during the semifinal round, a 136% increase over 2022. Telemundo’s linear audience rose 69% to 4.9 million. Streaming viewership on Peacock, tracked by Adobe Analytics, more than tripled, jumping from 1.6 million in 2022 to 5.7 million.

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Those streaming figures carry particular weight as the industry weighs the next rights cycle. For the first time in a men’s World Cup, a significant share of the Spanish-language audience watched on a streaming platform rather than a traditional TV set.

Who wants in

Fox, the English-language incumbent, has already declared its intentions. The network told Richard Deitsch of Sports Business Journal that it “absolutely” wants to bid on 2030 rights. Brad Zager, president of Fox Sports, separately confirmed Fox’s interest. The network recently renewed its media rights agreement with CONCACAF, retaining the Gold Cup and adding Nations League.

ESPN, which carried the World Cup from 1994 through 2014, is also preparing to bid. Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN, made the network’s position explicit during the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit on July 17.

“We had the World Cup for two decades and it was a big part of ESPN’s identity and DNA,” Pitaro said.

He praised Fox’s handling of the 2026 tournament before signaling ESPN’s intent to compete for the next one.

“I’ve been very impressed with the way Fox has covered all this,” Pitaro said. “From a live game production perspective, from a studio perspective, they’ve done an outstanding job. I don’t know, honestly, how they could have done better with the product.”

Netflix, which holds exclusive U.S. and Canadian rights to the 2027 and 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cups, has signaled interest in the men’s tournament as well.

Streaming versus linear

The 2026 tournament’s viewership data highlighted a tension that will define the 2030 negotiations: the continued debate about broadcast versus linear. 

Broadcast television still delivered the largest raw audiences. Fox’s top-rated non-U.S. matches exceeded anything the World Cup had produced on English-language TV, with four separate broadcasts surpassing the 2022 Argentina-France final’s 16.78 million viewers. But streaming grew at a faster rate, and its share of total viewership expanded in ways that would have been difficult to project even two years ago.

FIFA appears to recognize this. The organization sold the Women’s World Cup to Netflix, a streaming-only platform, while the men’s tournament remained on traditional broadcast networks. 

A potential expansion of the tournament field adds another variable.

The Athletic reported that FIFA may expand from 48 teams to 64 for the 2030 edition. A larger tournament would generate more broadcast inventory, enough to split between two partners without either receiving a thin package. Awful Announcing reported that a 64-team format would open the door for a second broadcast partner, with rights likely divided between a traditional network and a streaming service.

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Fox, the English-language incumbent with three consecutive men’s World Cups, and NBCUniversal, which holds the Spanish-language rights through Telemundo, enter the process from established positions but face separate financial pressures. Fox will be navigating a potential increase in NFL rights costs as the league’s current $111 billion cycle comes up for renegotiation; NBCUniversal faces uncertainty around Comcast’s planned spinoff of the company within the next 12 months, and reports indicate it would resist a price approaching $2 billion per tournament. Fox’s lack of a major streaming service could make it an attractive linear partner if FIFA splits the package, while Peacock’s presence may discourage streamers from partnering with NBCUniversal. Disney and ESPN offer a different structure: linear distribution through ESPN and ABC alongside the company’s direct-to-consumer streaming platforms, a combination that could allow FIFA to reach both audiences under a single rights holder.

Among the streaming companies, Netflix has the most established position. The platform holds 330 million households globally and more than 90 million U.S. subscribers, according to published reports, and already carries FIFA rights through its Women’s World Cup deal. Amazon Prime Video has secured soccer rights in international markets but has not produced an event with the inventory volume of a World Cup. 

Time zones and competing priorities

Two factors could temper the bidding. The 2030 World Cup in Morocco, Spain and Portugal will place most matches in European and North African time zones, less favorable for U.S. audiences than this summer’s North American tournament. The 2034 event in Saudi Arabia will push kickoff times even further from U.S. prime time.

Bidders will also weigh the World Cup against other properties.

The NFL’s media deals are expected to be renegotiated in the coming years, and committing billions to FIFA rights could limit a company’s capacity to compete for football packages. 

The 2026 World Cup established that the tournament can deliver audiences that rival or exceed the NFL’s regular-season broadcasts on a weekday afternoon in the United States. It also demonstrated that streaming can account for more than half the audience on a Spanish-language World Cup broadcast, a data point that did not exist four years ago.

But the decline of linear is real, and could be a significant factor to consider when projecting out four or even eight years into the future. The audience is there, but the platforms will likely look vastly different down the road.