The World Cup rights for both the English- and Spanish-language broadcasts in the U.S. will be available in 2030 to the highest bidder. NBC, which currently has the Spanish version of the World Cup via Telemundo and Peacock, may try to get both.
Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal reports that NBC has had internal discussions regarding an extension of the Spanish version. Telemundo executive Joaquin Duro told SBJ that the end result could entail NBC emerging with both packages.
“Definitely something that we are beyond exploring,” Duro told SBJ.
FOX is paying $485 million for the English version of the 2026 World Cup, which has proven to be a massive bargain. Karp reports that the Fox and Telemundo averaged 9.7 million total viewers per game in the group stage. The split was 5.05 million for the English broadcast and 4.6 million for the Spanish broadcast.
The NFL’s next wave of broadcast deals will commence in 2030, if/when (when) the NFL exercises its prerogative to shorten the existing contracts by four years. Any NFL partner that hopes to land the World Cup too will be digging deep to pay for the rights. But the expense will ideally be offset by plenty of advertising revenue and other benefits from televising the games.
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