US broadcasters ESPN and Univision have expressed their disappointment after world football’s governing body, Fifa, awarded the rights to its four-year cycle from 2023 to 2026 without an open bidding process.
Fifa on Thursday renewed rights deals with the Fox network and pay-television broadcaster Telemundo in the US, with the packages including the 2026 World Cup, an event for which the US has been strongly linked to a bid.
The rights will also feature the 2023 Women’s World Cup; 2023 and 2025 U-20 World Cup, U-17 World Cup and Beach Soccer World Cup; 2024 Futsal World Cup; 2024 and 2026 U-20 Women’s World Cup and U-17 Women’s World Cup; and the 2025 Confederations Cup.
Fox acquired English-language rights in the US, with NBCUniversal-owned Telemundo picking up Spanish-language rights in the country. ESPN broadcast six straight World Cups from 1994 through to last year’s competition in Brazil, but in 2011 was outbid by Fox, which agreed to pay around $425m (€374.8m) for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, awarded to Russia and Qatar, respectively.
ESPN said: “We were not invited to be involved in this process. Considering the high quality presentation that ESPN demonstrated and the exposure we brought to Fifa events through all our platforms, it was surprising and disappointing to learn of this when the press release was issued.”
Univision broadcast seven consecutive World Cups, starting in 1990, until Telemundo agreed to pay around $600m for the rights to the current cycle including Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022.
Univision said: “We were not invited to participate in the process and find it curious that Fifa would think keeping the No.1 Hispanic media company in the US out of a competitive bidding process is good for the growth of soccer in the US.”