FOX Wins 2018/22 World Cup Broadcast Rights In United States

FIFA has confirmed that FOX have won the English-language television rights and Telemundo have won the Spanish-language television rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. They will also have the rights to all FIFA tournaments between 2015 and 2022, which includes Women’s World Cups, Confederations Cups and U-20 and U-17 World Cups. According to Reuters, FOX will pay FIFA $425 million for the rights and Telemundo will pay $600 million.

Telemundo’s winning the Spanish-language rights is a mild surprise as they beat out current rights holder Univision, but the big surprise was in FOX winning the English-language rights over ESPN. ESPN has broadcast every World Cup since 1982 and still hold the rights for the 2014 tournament. After increasing their soccer coverage of late with a English Premier League match of the week and their widely-acclaimed coverage of the 2010 World Cup, most expected ESPN to win the World Cup rights again, but FOX has made a major investment in soccer of late.

According to Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl and Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand, FOX has won the English-language United States broadcasting rights to the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup, beating out NBC and ESPN. ABC and ESPN have held the rights to every World Cup in the United States since 1994, the year the tournament was held in the United States, but someone has finally out-bid them for the broadcast rights if SBJ and Wahl’s sources are correct.

ESPN’s coverage of the tournament in 2010 was widely praised, as they brought in analysts such as Wigan Athletic manager Roberto Martinez and now current United States men’s national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann as analysts. They also hired Ian Darke and Martin Tyler as play by play announcers, with the former being hired permanently.