In a world in which the combined value of media rights for North America’s four major sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) currently eclipses $15 billion a year, bargain hunters should beware. World Cup 2026 it could be the last big sports streaming deal secured at a real discount. And this may just be the first domino in a problematic chain reaction for Hollywood.
In 2015, FOX was able to extend US World Cup rights during this year for a small amount. However, this is precisely why the next round of negotiations is expected to produce fireworks. Sports rights are the last vestiges of the audience’s continued appeal on linear television and the best way to engage high-risk subscribers and in-stream ad-supported tiers. But with every new envy-inducing deal that crosses the finish line, the entertainment ecosystem is forced to shrink.
How Fox landed the deal of the century
The 2022 World Cup final between France and Argentina was watched by an estimated 1.5 billion people. So how in the world is Fox paying just $485 million for this year’s quiet US tour, when the rights are estimated to be worth more than three times that amount?
Over the decades, FIFA has cultivated a reputation as a financial shark, always on the lookout for the best food. By doing so, it agreed in 2014 to hold the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, New York Times reported. However, the country’s hot climate was not conducive to the usual summer tour schedule. So FIFA offered Fox a rights deal through 2026 in exchange for not challenging the downward revision, when the broadcast network knew the World Cup would have to compete with the NFL, College Football and the NBA. A simple omission at the moment turned into ridiculously monumental value nowadays.
Neither FIFA nor Fox knew 10 years ago that the 2026 games would be held in the US with an expanded roster of 48 teams, following years of domestic soccer growth and a growing market for live sports rights. All these factors turned this year’s matches into the deal of the century. However, the groundwork has been set for a massive price increase in the upcoming World Cup negotiations, which is in line with wider trends in recent sports broadcasting.
The value of the World Cup has exploded as networks and platforms are desperate for events that draw tens of millions of viewers to justify higher advertising rates. Most of the “good stuff” has migrated to the stream and the attention spans are more fractured than the San Andreas Fault (yes, I just made a geological joke).
Scarcity, FOMO, impulse buying and other factors have created an enduring trend: viewers are more likely THE buy an advertised product seeing one live eventsuch as a sporting event. Annual advertising spending on sporting events is expected to reach approx 25 billion dollars until 2030. That is LOT of money – and it’s not the only backdrop that makes the World Cup such an amazing bargain. The last one data from Antenna proves that the live show such as NetflixThe NFL broadcasts continuously attracts a larger share of “light-watchers”, or households that watch less on a given platform than the base one. This is powerful.
The rest of the sports market is famously moving in the opposite direction. The crowning example is professional football. The NFL’s combined annual rights are worth about $10 billion right now, counting 31 percent of all sports media rights and 8 percent of all content spending (film, TV, sports rights, etc.), per The state of the screens. Amid ongoing renegotiations, that total is expected to rise by another $6 billion in the next round of deals. That’s all well and good for the NFL, but all that new money has to come from somewhere. Therein lies the rub.
The real cost of sports deals
Every extra cent spent in the NFL, the World Cup, the NBA, College Football and the UFC is money taken from another division’s budget. In simple terms, this means less money to go to other programs.
The NFL’s price hike is expected to result in an estimated valuation 7 percent off in the distribution of written content on TV, movies and more. According to his words John Ourand of Puck NewsThe new NFL media deals are “widely expected to absorb billions from the pool of money available to smaller sports properties, not to mention Hollywood entertainment budgets.” He describes it as a “blast beam”.
This shifts economic reality from conceptual bean counting to tangible winners and losers. In theory, this could prevent the Disneys of the world from offering the next one Shogun. This partly speaks for drop in original Netflix volume as the broadcaster distributes more money to sports: multiple NFL games, WWE, MLB opening night, Home Run Derby and Field of Dreams game, 2027 and 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup, combat sports, etc. Why spend large sums of money on original question marks when sports give a proven guarantee?
Fox clearly won the 2026 World Cup negotiations and will reap huge benefits as a result. But after taking this bump, FIFA is well positioned for the future. Fox know her deal of the century is on borrowed time. NBC knows what World Cup property it should be of value. That’s how you do it Amazon, Apple and Netflix.
The next round of negotiations will take place with the media landscape of the 2030s firmly within the scope of the deal points discussions. This world is defined by the scarcity, high demand and increasing value of live sports rights. This may be the last sporting bargain that can be made for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, this could mean Hollywood has to worry about what it will have to sacrifice to fund the next round of media deals.
