World Cup Going Primetime: Fox to Air Record 40 Matches at Night

Fox Sports has determined what it will do with the first 48-team FIFA World Cup in event history, finalizing a broadcasting plan that leans heavily on its own broadcast network, the companion cable network FS1, and the new Fox One streaming service. 

The network, the U.S. rights holder for the 2026 World Cup, will air 70 of the 104 total tournament matches in a record level of over-the-air coverage, with the other 34 matches slated for FS1. All 104 matches will also stream on Fox One, which debuted last summer. The overall broadcast plan, however, reflects a heightened emphasis on broadcast TV, with those 70 matches on Fox more than doubling the comparable number from the 2022 event. 

Primetime Tournament 

Among the other highlights of the newly finalized World Cup broadcast schedule:

• Forty of the 104 matches will air in primetime, nearly evenly split between 21 on Fox and 19 on FS1. That number of primetime matches, representing more than a third of the entire tournament, is also unprecedented.
• All three U.S. team matches in the group stage will be shown on Fox, with two set for primetime. Fox will precede the squad’s June 12 opener against Paraguay with a three-hour pregame show. 
• Two matches will be shown on Tubi, Fox’s free, ad-supported streaming service that operates parallel to the subscription-based Fox One. The planned matches there are Mexico vs. South Africa on June 11, and the U.S. vs. Paraguay on June 12. Tubi had a material effect to help Fox set a U.S. television viewership record last year for Super Bowl LIX. That service will also have a set of companion soccer programming, collected in what the network calls the FIFA World Cup Fox Hub, that will debut on May 10. 
• The network will have expanded pregame coverage for the opening matches for each of the three host countries, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. 
• The July 19 World Cup final from MetLife Stadium in New Jersey will have a three-hour pregame show, followed by a one-hour postgame program. 
• Fox will show 340 hours of first-run tournament coverage, up by 100 hours from 2022. 

The development of the World Cup broadcast schedule follows FIFA’s lavish event last month in Washington to finalize the tournament draw. The U.S. team is in Group D, joined by Paraguay, Australia, and the winner of a European playoff between Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, and Kosovo.

Globally, the tournament final is expected to be the “most-watched event in human history,” former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said last year.