Football's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), has initiated the process of finding media rights partners in Germany for its next three World Cup tournaments. The move may leave public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF unable to secure men's World Cup rights independently.
FIFA has launched two tenders this week. One covers the 2026 and 2030 men's World Cups, while the other is for the 2027 Women’s World Cup. The deadline for submission of bids across both tenders is February 13 at 10 am Central European Time. Interested entities can request Invitation to Tender documents by contacting germany-media-rights@fifa.org.
The upcoming tournaments will be held across various locations worldwide:
- The 2026 Men's tournament will take place across Mexico, US, and Canada.
- The subsequent edition in 2030 will primarily be hosted by Spain, Morocco, and Portugal with a few games taking place in South America (Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina).
- Brazil will host all matches of the women’s tournament in 2027.
Notably, the men's tournament in 2026 will feature as many as 48 teams playing a total of 104 matches - a first for any edition of the World Cup.
Previous broadcast partnerships
In Germany, the broadcasting rights for previous World Cup editions were divided between public-service free-to-air (FTA) broadcasters ARD and ZDF, along with Deutsche Telekom’s over-the-top streaming service MagentaTV.
For example, during the Men's World Cup in Qatar in 2022, MagentaTV aired all games and had exclusive rights to broadcast sixteen matches. Meanwhile, for the Women’s Tournament held in Australia and New Zealand, live coverage was provided by ARD & ZDF while DAZN offered highlights of the games.
However, with an increase in the number of games scheduled for upcoming tournaments due to FIFA's expansion plans, there is likely to be a substantial rise in FIFA's expected fees. This has led Norbert Himmler, director-general of ZDF to state that ARD and ZDF will not be able to acquire full live rights independently for 2026 and 2030 tournaments. Instead they would need other partners within Germany to secure these rights.
Potential media rights partners
Global streaming giant Netflix and sports subscription service DAZN are reportedly being considered as potential media rights partners. However, German law mandates that irrespective of who acquires the rights, all of Germany's World Cup games along with the tournament's opening match, both semi-finals, and the final must be shown live on FTA.
The value of ARD and ZDF’s deal covering the 2022 tournament was reported by GlobalData Sport at around $292 million.
