(Photo by Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Anadolu via Getty Images
With just a handful of games left in this year’s FIFA World Cup men’s soccer championship, record U.S. ratings are setting up another intense “tournament” with global implications, as major tech and media companies consider bidding for TV rights to the tournament’s 2030 and 2034 installments.
Most of the big tech and media companies with streaming platforms already have been linked to the upcoming auction for U.S. TV rights, though financial complications may affect bids from this year’s incumbent rights holders, Fox with the English-language rights and Comcast-owned Telemundo and Peacock on the Spanish-language side.
Spurring all the interest: that 42-million strong U.S. audience in both languages for Belgium’s round of 16 victory over the USMNT, despite the thorough drubbing of a 4-1 margin.
Of that, some 30 million tuned in through Fox broadcast and streaming outlets, which paid $485 million for English-language U.S. rights. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said in an earnings call before the tournament began that the company expects to make a profit of $50 million to $150 million from the games.
Telemundo and Peacock also set records for their Spanish-language broadcasts, most notably the 23.2 million viewers who watched that completely bonkers round of 16 match between Mexico and England that ended with a 3-2 British win.
The various Comcast units involved averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 5.5 million viewers across the tournament’s first month, Telemundo said in a release this week. More generally, the nearly 100 games so far have proven a hit with North American viewers regardless of the teams involved.
In an era where big viewership is a scarce and treasured commodity, compare the audience for the world’s version of football with the very different American version, which is easily the most watched programming on the U.S. broadcast and cable industry. January’s NFL divisional round of playoff games averaged 39.2 million viewers.
All of which suggests no one should be surprised by reported interest from Netflix, Amazon, Google’s YouTube and Apple in the 2030 and 2034 World Cup U.S. rights. All four tech giants have notable streaming operations and significant sports rights, including Apple’s MLS deal.
Spurring interest for all of them: FIFA is combining the English- and Spanish-language rights in a single package, and offering two tournaments, providing some of the longitudinal investment opportunities that Comcast and NBCUniversal have so assiduously mined with its long-term Olympic deal, which also runs through 2034.
This year’s World Cup numbers may have been boosted by difficult-to-replicate factors. Holding the matches across Mexico, Canada and the United States guaranteed better view times for North American audiences than the last two World Cups, held in Russia and Qatar. A record number of games were spread across 16 North American cities, no doubt goosing interest further in local markets.
That won’t be the case in the next two World Cups, which may affect view times for North American viewers (and the value of TV rights here).
In 2030, most matches will straddle the Strait of Gibraltar, held in either Spain, Portugal or Morocco. All three countries’ teams are Top 10-ranked powers in men’s soccer. Three opening matches will be held in Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup in Uruguay. The 2034 proceedings are set to be held entirely in Saudi Arabia, which likely will make North American viewership timing even worse.
Regardless, the World Cup has spurred intense interest in the United States, and certainly has massive value for streaming operations with international footprints looking at the potential for cross-promotion and subscription boosts.
It likely will be hugely important for Fox too, a media company profitably built around news and sports that only 11 months ago launched its biggest streaming initiative, subscription service Fox One.
But will Murdoch’s audacious $22 billion acquisition of Roku get in the way of what likely would be a pricey World Cup renewal? Fox’s market capitalization since announcing the Roku deal in mid-June has hovered between $20 billion and $21 billion. Financing that deal is probably existential for Fox’s streaming future. Does that leave enough financial maneuvering space to credibly outbid the deep-pocketed tech giants?
Comcast, which paid $600 million for Spanish-language rights this time around, has its own complicated dance, announcing earlier this month that it would spin off NBCUniversal (and Europe-focused Sky) as a separate entertainment entity, though CEO Brian Roberts would retain a controlling interest in both companies, as he has with previous cable-network spinoff Versant.
Will the distractions and complications of a spinoff get in the way of a full-throated pitch by NBCU entities – including NBC, Peacock, Telemundo and other assets – that presumably would be part of a standalone company by the time the next World Cup arrives?
Disney – with ESPN, Disney+, ABC and the Cheshire Cat streaming service still called Hulu – has a different kind of complication. New CEO Josh D’Amaro just took over running Hollywood’s biggest studio (and theme-park operator).
Is D’Amaro, a seasoned parks operator with little sports or entertainment background, ready to pony up for World Cup rights, particularly as conversations continue about whether Disney should spin off ESPN?
On the Spanish-language side, Comcast-owned Telemundo paid $600 million for those rights, but now is less clear-cut as a bidder because of announced Comcast plans to spin off NBCUniversal, including Telemundo. Will the spinoff process hamstring any major investment NBCU might make here?
If indeed this TV rights tourney proceeds with most of the major players, estimates suggest a price of $1.5 billion to $2 billion to FIFA, just for those U.S. rights. With the tournament wrapping up on July 19, this rights matchup will be one to watch.