The World Cup is known for its fierce international rivalries: USA vs. Mexico; Brazil vs. Argentina; England vs. Germany. In the TV game within the game, there’s bad blood between FIFA World Cup 2026 broadcaster Fox Sports and rival ESPN, sources tell Front Office Sports.
Some Fox executives are frustrated at what they perceive as ESPN’s lack of coverage around the first men’s World Cup held in the U.S. since 1994. They were especially ticked off by ESPN’s apathetic approach to this past weekend, when the U.S. men’s national team convincingly defeated Paraguay 4–1 during a banner opening weekend.
“What a night for the United States,” noted Fox’s Rebecca Lowe. “70,000 are on their feet—and the U.S. has won a World Cup match by three goals for [the first time] since the very first World Cup in 1930.” Fox analyst Alexi Lalas thought Team USA’s dominant performance augured a deep run: “That was the perfect game.”
The USMNT has never won the World Cup. With Folarin Balogun scoring two goals, Team USA delivered a statement win on the global stage. But some Fox execs saw mostly crickets from ESPN, especially on SportsCenter and other TV programs.
“We’re talking about a historic performance by Team USA. Where in the hell was ESPN?” asked one source.
There’s also been complaints about ESPN’s World Cup coverage on social media. As Southern California News Group sports editor Fred Robledo tweeted Sunday: “Just watched @SportsCenter Top 10, not one World Cup highlight, two pro softball’s, a minor league baseball game, even dog frisbee. What are we doing.”
Separately, another source questioned why ESPN basketball analyst Monica McNutt seemed to get a “free pass” for criticizing Taylor Swift’s attendance at Game 3 of the NBA Finals. The outspoken Lalas, or other Fox TV analysts, would have been pilloried for shading the world’s biggest pop star, he complained. (McNutt was working in her role as a Knicks radio analyst when she made the viral comment.)
Fox and FS1 hold exclusive media rights to the 2026 World Cup via a bargain basement $485 million deal with FIFA. Former ESPN president John Skipper has previously criticized the negotiation process that led to Fox taking over from ESPN as the World Cup rights holder beginning in 2018.
ESPN sources counter that Fox should quit beefing given FIFA’s stringent media rules. Would ESPN like to serve fans by showing more World Cup highlights? Of course. But they’re not allowed under FIFA’s so-called “news access guidelines.”
Take Fox’s telecast of Tuesday afternoon’s match between France and Senegal, scheduled for 3 p.m. ET. ESPN is not allowed to show highlights until Fox wraps up all of its match and studio programming for the entire day. With Fox’s coverage of Tuesday’s match between Argentina and Algeria (which kicks off at 9 p.m. ET) likely to last through midnight, the earliest SportsCenter could use match clips would be sometime Wednesday. That means there can be a 12-hour gap or more between a match and coverage on SportsCenter.
Then there’s FIFA’s draconian highlight rules for non-rights holders. The only TV shows allowed to use highlights are “bona fide television news programs” airing a minimum of five days a week. That means SportsCenter can show highlights—but morning ESPN talk shows like First Take and Get Up can’t. A highlight of a single play can’t exceed 30 seconds in length. Sports TV news shows can’t show more than 90 seconds per match. Plus, the total amount of footage by any single newscast can’t exceed two minutes. If Fox is showing four matches, the allotment is reduced to the equivalent of 30 seconds of highlights per match.
One source tells FOS that FIFA’s video restrictions are actually stricter than those of the Olympics. While the Olympics have gotten more accommodating, FIFA is getting more hands-on than ever, he warned.
With the Knicks winning the NBA Finals in five games over the Spurs on Saturday night, ESPN TV shows are now paying more attention to World Cup action.
On Tuesday morning, Mike Greenberg’s Get Up and Stephen A. Smith’s First Take both did World Cup segments with ex-English striker turned soccer analyst Bradley Wright-Phillips. Greenberg closed his interview by promising viewers: “We’ll cover this every day for you here, because obviously this is a major international happening taking place on national soil.”
Pat McAfee also delved into the World Cup on his eponymous talk show, which ESPN leases, on Monday and Tuesday. The ex-NFL punter noted he grew up playing soccer and dreamt of playing for the national team. “I am legitimately excited about our chances to maybe win the whole fucking thing,” said McAfee on Monday. “That would be insanity.”
The accusation by competing networks that ESPN ignores leagues where it doesn’t control media rights is as old as the network itself. Just ask the NHL, which wandered in purgatory for 20 years before ESPN regained TV rights in 2021.
But business is business. Fox and ESPN are fierce competitors across the NFL and college football. You could argue it was normal, even predictable, for ESPN to focus on its own coverage of the NBA Finals and the College World Series this past weekend.
Patrick Crakes, the former Fox executive turned independent consultant, says this is the classic case of both sides being somewhat right—and somewhat wrong.
“I certainly see the concern given the importance of a U.S.-based World Cup and the good performance of the U.S. men’s team in their opening match. It’s a good point as SportsCenter remains the show of record for both general-market fans and the industry, despite the massive changes in viewing habits and distribution over the past decades,” Crakes tells FOS.
“But to be fair, it was still very early into the World Cup. For ESPN, covering the NBA Finals—an event that for the general market is as important as the World Cup—is a top-three strategic priority. And servicing company needs has been a feature of SportsCenter’s approach for the last 10 years.”
Throw in the fact that this was an extraordinary NBA Finals, and it’s no wonder ESPN went all in on hoops. After all, the Knicks were vying to end a 53-year championship drought, a quest similar to MLB’s Cubs and Red Sox before them. Disney’s ABC/ESPN broadcasts were pulling TV audiences not seen since Michael Jordan and the Bulls’ dynastic run in the 1990s. Plus, you had the soap opera swirling around Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs wunderkind vilified as public enemy No. 1 by Knicks fans.
“I’d suggest that, for many general-market sports fans, it makes some sense given the Knicks were looking to win their first NBA title in half a century. But the Fox Sports point is salient and has historic precedent,” Crakes says. “So let’s see how coverage progresses as the men’s World Cup moves into the knockout stage rounds and judge the SportsCenter coverage—or lack of—as a body of work. If ESPN is short-changing this historic event, it will be obvious before we even get close to the final match.”
Here’s something else to consider early on: By the end of this World Cup, Fox probably won’t have much to complain about. The network is poised to draw massive TV audiences due to the ideal time zones for matches involving Team USA and other soccer powerhouses.
Team USA’s win over Paraguay, for example, averaged 15.99 million viewers across the Fox broadcast network, Fox One, and Tubi, according to initial figures. That made it the most-watched World Cup match involving the USMNT in English-language U.S. broadcast history. Spanish-language coverage averaged 8.9 million, making it the most-watched group-stage match not featuring Mexico. The combined audience for English- and Spanish-language broadcasts of U.S. vs. Paraguay totaled 24.9 million.
Michael Mulvihill, the Fox programming guru, predicted viewership will climb “north of 25 million” when the final Nielsen/Big Data + Panel numbers roll in.
“Certainly holds its own with CFB, NBA, MLB championship audiences. Love to see it,” tweeted Mulvihill.
Both Fox and ESPN declined to comment.
