FOX, Telemundo Win 2018/22 World Cup Broadcast Rights For Combined $1 Billion

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.

FOX have won the rights to broadcast the UEFA Champions League in the last two rounds of bidding and continues to hold the bulk of the English Premier League rights for their Fox Soccer Channel. They have broadcast the Champions League final on their network channel of late and have broadcast matches on both FX and Fox Sports, in addition to their Fox Soccer Channel coverage. Their bid for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups beat out a $400 million bid by ESPN and also beat out a bid by NBC/Comcast.

The English-language rights fee for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups represent a more than 400% increase from the rights for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, which ESPN paid $100 million for. The Spanish-language rights will be an increase of $275 million after Univision paid $325 million for 2010 and 2014.