When you say “World Cup,” and “FIFA,” what else comes to mind but ESPN? However, very soon this relationship may cease to exist.
Although ESPN had already paid FIFA an estimated $425 million for the 2010-2014 tournaments the rights to the 2015-2022 tournaments last Friday were sold to North American broadcasters Fox and Telemundo for $1.2 billion.
The deal would include rights for the men’s World Cup in ‘18 and ‘22 as well as the women’s World Cup in ‘15 and ‘22 and all the Under-20 and Under-17 matches.
Fox won the English-language rights for the tournaments and outbid the incumbent ESPN and NBC, while Telemundo won the rights for the Spanish-language deal outbidding another incumbent, Univision.
The World Cup will now be added to a collection of Fox soccer shows that include the UEFA Champions League, the English Premier League and Italy’s Serie A. Fox released a statement shortly after news of the deal broke.
“We are truly honored for FIFA to award the Fox Sports Media Group these extremely important rights,” said Fox Sports chairman David Hill. “The FIFA World Cup and Women’s World Cup are two of the world’s biggest competitions. It is our privilege to be entrusted with these rights in the United States from 2015 through 2022.”
Although historically the deal has gone to ESPN, the heavy broadcasting bids eventually seemed unfeasible for the company.
The company released a statement saying their bidding was aggressive while remaining prudent from a business perspective. Fox Soccer is available in 40 million American households while ESPN and ESPN2 are available in around 99 million.
Most of the profits FIFA earns from the tournaments come from broadcasting, sponsorship and marketing deals. FIFA reported roughly $2.4 billion in broadcast sales worldwide during the 2010 tournament.
Current estimates for the 2014 tournament are roughly $3.2 billion, while revenue being raised for the tournaments in 2018-2022 has reached the $1.7 billion mark.
Russia is scheduled to host the 2018 World Cup, and Qatar was selected to host the 2022 World Cup.
