Fox won discounted World Cup rights in FIFA deal to avoid lawsuit

Fox’s World Cup windfall began as a legal standoff and ended as a bargain that shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in media value. In February 2015, FIFA extended Fox’s rights through the 2026 men’s World Cup without opening a new bidding process, even though Fox’s existing U.S. contract was still years from expiring.

The original Fox deal, won in 2011, was reported at $425 million for the 2015 to 2022 cycle. FIFA then kept that pricing in place through 2026, adding the 2023 Women’s World Cup and preserving Fox’s access to the 2026 men’s tournament, which will be staged by the United States, Canada and Mexico. The extension also kept ESPN and Univision out of the race for one of the most valuable television properties in global sports.

The rationale, laid out later by FIFA secretary general Jérôme Valcke, was blunt: the extension was tied to Fox’s agreement not to sue if FIFA moved the 2022 World Cup in Qatar from summer to winter. A FIFA inquiry said U.S. and Canadian TV partners objected because a winter tournament would collide with American football season, a conflict that cut directly into the American sports calendar and the value of live television windows.

Valcke acknowledged that FIFA could be losing money by bypassing an open process in the U.S. market, but said the point was to avoid litigation. That calculation shows how much leverage sits with a broadcaster once a federation fears a legal fight, especially when the sport’s biggest events depend on a handful of powerful distribution partners and the governing body wants to keep its calendar intact.

The arrangement later drew descriptions as a sweetheart deal that could cost FIFA hundreds of millions of dollars, with some estimates putting the discount at as much as $500 million. It also landed inside the wider FIFA corruption era, which included the 2015 scandal and later testimony in U.S. federal court alleging that Fox benefited from inside information during the rights bidding process. Alejandro Burzaco and other witnesses became part of a broader reckoning over who really controlled the flow of information and money around world football.

The payoff for Fox is only larger now. The 2026 World Cup will expand to 48 teams and 104 matches, and Fox says it will air 69 of them on broadcast television, more than double the 34 broadcast matches it carried in 2022. For Fox, the 2026 tournament will be its sixth all-time World Cup presentation. For FIFA, the episode remains a case study in how governance, litigation risk and media leverage can quietly move enormous sums while shaping what viewers actually see on television.