Hong Kong's pay-TV broadcaster, Now TV, has secured exclusive rights to air the upcoming men’s FIFA World Cup. Owned by IT and telecommunications giant PCCW, Now TV will be the sole broadcaster of all 104 matches during the tournament.
Subscribers to Now TV will have full access to its coverage. The broadcaster is also offering full tournament and match passes for viewers. PCCW's free-to-air entertainment channel ViuTV will provide coverage of selected matches, including the opening match and final.
The tournament is set to run from June 12 to July 20 across the US, Canada, and Mexico. This year's competition has been significantly expanded from 32 teams to a whopping 48 teams.
History of broadcasting success
This year marks the third consecutive men’s FIFA World Cup matches broadcast by Now TV since their first in 2018. Ahead of the Qatar edition in 2022, they acquired rights from Infront agency and also aired women’s tournament held across Australia and New Zealand in 2023.
Interestingly enough, neither Hong Kong's men nor women representative teams have ever qualified for a FIFA World Cup. The acquisition adds more weightage to Now TV’s already robust portfolio of sports rights which includes English soccer’s elite Premier League through till season '27-'28; Spanish soccer’s LaLiga up until '25-'26 season; as well as North American basketball’s NBA games.
Now TV joins other Asian broadcasters such as Aleph (Philippines), Mediacorp (Singapore), Dentsu (Japan), Ictimai (Azerbaijan) who have recently struck similar deals with FIFA for broadcasting rights.
Shift in strategy
This deal comes on heels of world governing body FIFA deciding to sell its media rights directly throughout Asia for the first time. Historically, FIFA appointed agencies, predominantly Infront, to sell media rights in the Asia-Pacific region. The exceptions were South Korea, Japan and Malaysia where FIFA managed sales directly.
In the 2019-2022 World Cup sales cycle, Switzerland-based Infront sold media rights for FIFA in 26 Asian countries. Despite a long-standing relationship with Infront, FIFA opted to negotiate deals in-house to "closer manage its broadcast relationships."
However, it's worth noting that FIFA retained Infront as an advisor on media rights for the 2026 World Cup and 2027 Women’s World Cup in selected Asian territories including Hong Kong. This shift by FIFA is seen as a strategic move towards having more control over its broadcasting relationships across Asia.
