TVRI, the Indonesian public-service broadcaster, has successfully secured the rights to broadcast soccer's flagship FIFA 2026 World Cup. The deal will enable TVRI to provide free-to-air coverage for all 104 matches during the tournament.
The tournament is scheduled to take place across the US, Canada, and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. The games will be aired on a back-to-back or simultaneous basis from local time (WIT) 11 pm to 11 am daily across TVRI Sport and TVRI Nasional channels.
In addition to providing comprehensive television coverage of the event, the Indonesian government plans on organizing public viewing events at multiple locations. This initiative aims at stimulating local economic activity by collaborating with micro, small, and medium-sized businesses during the tournament.
Previous broadcasting arrangements
For context, during the men’s World Cup in Qatar in 2022, Indonesian soccer fans had access via a range of channels owned by Emtek media group. They had acquired rights from Infront sports marketing agency. However, for WWC in Australia and New Zealand in 2023 coverage was only available via FIFA+ streaming service.
FIFA initiated a tender process covering broadcasting rights in Indonesia for four upcoming World Cups – two men’s (2026 &2030) and two women’s (2027 &2031) – back in April of 2024. However,the rights for three out of these four tournaments are yet to be assigned.
TVRI is not alone as an Asia-Pacific broadcaster securing rights for this prestigious event; Japanese advertising giant Dentsu also announced it had picked up broadcasting rights for all matches recently.
This development comes after FIFA's decision last year to sell its media rights for the current World Cup cycle directly in the entire Asian market for the first time. This was a significant shift from FIFA's traditional approach of appointing agencies, predominantly Infront, to sell media rights in the Asia-Pacific region.
Direct sales and in-house negotiations
Historically, FIFA has managed sales directly only in South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia. However, during the 2019-2022 World Cup sales cycle, Switzerland-based Infront sold media rights for FIFA in 26 Asian countries.
TVRI president and director, Iman Brotoseno, said:
“The process of securing the broadcast rights for the 2026 World Cup was certainly not easy and went through a long series of stages. However, all of these preparations are part of TVRI’s commitment to carrying out its public service mandate.
“The 2026 World Cup on TVRI is presented for all Indonesian people, with inclusive access. This is in line with the direction of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, who has instructed TVRI to provide entertainment for all Indonesians during the excitement of the World Cup.”
Despite having a long-standing relationship with Infront, FIFA decided to negotiate deals internally to "closer manage its broadcast relationships." Nevertheless, it retained Infront as an advisor on media rights for selected Asian territories including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei among others for both 2026 Men’s and 2027 Women’s World Cups.
This move by TVRI is indeed a significant milestone not just for Indonesian soccer fans but also local businesses that stand to benefit from this arrangement. It will be interesting to see how this development shapes up future broadcasting arrangements across Asia-Pacific.
