Popular sentiment among those of us speculating on which way the FIFA media rights wind is blowing is that Netflix is the favorite to grab the U.S. rights to the 2030 Men’s World Cup. Netflix reportedly has plenty of cash to throw into FIFA’s coffers.
Netflix is the rights holder for the 2027 and 2031 women’s tournaments, the latter of which apparently will be hosted by the United States and a few of its North and Central American and Caribbean neighbors.
FIFA reportedly wants to bundle both English-language and Spanish-language rights, which it did with Netflix for the next two women’s tournaments. What Netflix does not yet have is an over-the-air partner. I would ask you to look at MLS’s deal with Apple TV. Most of the games are on streaming only, though a handful of games every year, including MLS Cup, appear on Fox. As much as the streamers would like you to think the over-the-air game is over, it is not. Americans still watch linear television, whether through a digital provider or the old-fashioned antenna.
In North America in 2026, the media rights holders proved that a worthy strategy of showing games on network linear television and on streaming was the magic formula. Fox presented its games over the air, and as the rightsholder since 2015 people know where to find the games. Fox promotes its games well and they have a first-class production team and added plenty of world-class on-air talent. Telemundo teamed with fellow NBCUniversal streaming outlet Peacock to bring its games to a wider audience. More than 60 million people combined to watch the 2026 World Cup final on one of those outlets. It will surely be the second most-watched program on American television in 2026, after perennially most-watched Super Bowl.
So, the billion-dollar question is this: Who wants to bid for the 2030 tournament in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with some early appearances in South America to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup in Uruguay?
You can surely line up the usual suspects. Fox has already said it wants to stay in the World Cup game. Disney/ESPN wants to get back in the game, although it’d be for a whole lot more money than they paid the last time they showed a tournament, in 2014. Any of these outlets will pay a lot more than the $500 million-ish Fox paid for the last two tournaments. NBCUniversal is reportedly interested. They are the home of the EPL in the USA and their Telemundo broadcasts were high-quality and delivered big audiences here in North America. Skydance (CBS Paramount)? Amazon? AppleTV?
And perhaps the biggest question mark of all is YouTube, which has the resources to dive as deeply into the media rights market as any of the networks and streaming services we’ve included here.
The word on the street is that FIFA wants to ‘sell’ the rights to an entity that will carry the games in both English and Spanish. Disney can do that, though the Spanish-language games would be on ESPN Deportes and not over-the-air. NBCUniversal can do that. It can show the games on NBC in English, Telemundo in Spanish and stream both languages on Peacock. Fox would have to find at least one partner to pull it off. Not insurmountable. The streamers can all do that without much technical effort.
One man’s opinion: the favorite would be a company that can just as easily give you English over the air, Spanish over the air, and both languages on a streaming service. I also wonder why the streamers don’t offer their games in other languages that Americans speak and there are plenty of them.
More talk on the street: the rightsholder might have to pony up as much as $2 billion for the rights. And there are questions about whether or not these companies want to grab the 2034 tournament in Saudi Arabia as well. Though, FIFA has not even announced yet when that tournament will be held. And, if you pay attention to geopolitics, and I know you do, Saudi Arabia has some other issues to be concerned with these days.
Every one of the companies I mentioned have considerable investment in American major league sports. They are all in business with the NFL, most with the NBA, some with MLB, MLS and the NHL, and the ever more expensive rights fee world of college football. More x-factors: Skydance has taken over Warner Brothers Discovery, which has some sports properties in Europe.
FIFA is entertaining rights tenders now. It’s a high-powered, big-money game among the media entities. Pay exactly what you need and not a penny more. They all have professional finance people who think they know what the number is they need to grab the prize.
For FIFA it’s pretty simple. Give us the big bucks and you figure it out, big American media. In 2030, the times for airing games in the USA won’t be awful. A night game in Europe is a late-morning or an afternoon game in North America. In Saudi Arabia? It’s in the same time zone as Qatar, where kickoff times for the 2022 World Cup ranged from 5 am ET (2 am PT) to 2 pm ET (11 am PT).
Netflix may be the favorite, and while the media pundits are speculating that they may have lost some of their luster, they can afford the price. Right now, it feels like nobody really knows and I’ve asked a lot of people about this. If they do know, they are keeping it to themselves.
The formula I think works best might favor NBCUniversal. They can carry games on NBC, Telemundo and Peacock. They have a well-deserved reputation for producing high-quality mega events; example: the Olympics.
And, if you have a few billion dollars laying around you could throw your hat in the ring. The bidding deadline is November 19.