Fox Banking on Expanded World Cup Being Its ‘Biggest’ Event Ever

NEW YORK — Three weeks before the tournament kicks off in Mexico, tournament broadcaster Fox held a World Cup media event in New York City on Thursday.

The World Cup is expanding this summer to 48 teams, up from 32, and 104 matches, up from 64. The tournament runs from June 11 through July 19 with matches in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Fox will air 70 matches, put 34 matches on FS1, and have every match on its streaming service, Fox One.

EVP of production Zac Kenworthy said on Thursday that the expanded World Cup is “the biggest production Fox Sports has ever put on in our company’s history.”

Fox outbid ESPN for FIFA rights in 2011, paying about $425 million through 2022. Then in 2015, the two sides extended their agreement without going into the market; FIFA later revealed that it gave Fox the 2026 deal to avoid legal action over moving the 2022 World Cup to the winter. The New York Times later reported that Fox paid 10% more than the 2011 deal for the 2026 tournament.

Kenworthy said the network knew it needed to “cast a wide net and take some big swings” with its talent hires. The network has brought on Thierry Henry from CBS and Rebecca Lowe from NBC, alongside other names like Swedish legend Zlatan Ibrahimović.

From a technical standpoint, Kenworthy said the tournament will be fully broadcast in High Dynamic Range (HDR) for the first time for a World Cup, which is designed to produce better colors for viewers.

Kenworthy said Fox will lead straight from the World Cup into some of the broadcaster’s other major sports events. The July 14 World Cup semifinal will lead into the MLB All-Star Game, and the tournament’s final on July 19 will transition into IndyCar’s Music City Grand Prix.

FIFA has not chosen its U.S. broadcaster for the 2030 men’s World Cup, but selected Netflix to carry the 2027 and 2031 women’s World Cups over Fox, which had carried the tournament since 2015.

In 2023, a former Fox executive was convicted of bribing FIFA for rights, including for information about 2018 and 2022, but prosecutors have moved to throw out the charges, and a federal judge will hear arguments about possibly dismissing the indictment next week.

In 2022, Fox averaged 3.6 million viewers across all matches, got nearly 13 million viewers for the U.S. exit in the Round of 16, and saw 16.8 million viewers for the Argentina–France final, a record for an English-language World Cup broadcast in the U.S. 

USMNT Hot Takes

Former U.S. Men’s National Team member Alexi Lalas is back for his ninth consecutive World Cup as an analyst; one of his Fox coworkers quipped onstage that “Alexi is our granddad.”

Lalas said “we as a nation should expect more” from this year’s U.S. team. “This is a generation that has been given absolutely everything in terms of opportunity, in terms of resources, in terms of pathways,” he said.

The USMNT’s furthest run in the tournament was in the inaugural World Cup in 1930, when the U.S. reached the semifinals of a 13-team tournament. Since then, the men have not made it past the quarterfinals, which it qualified for one time, in 2002. 

The team lost in the round of 16 at the last World Cup in Qatar. As part of the expanded tournament, FIFA is adding a round of 32 for the first time.

Fox analyst and former USMNT player Stu Holden offered his thoughts on this year’s being a “Golden Generation.” 

“You only become golden if you win and do something no one has ever done in the past,” Holden said.

Two-time Women’s World Cup champion Carli Lloyd said the U.S. needs to “have more Americans talking about American players versus the players overseas.” “This is what this group has, the opportunity that awaits them,” Lloyd said.

Ibrahimović joined the event via a video call, his face plastered on three walls around the room.

“People have been judging me all my career, so nice time for me to judge other ones,” Ibrahimović joked.

Ibrahimović also ripped the other Fox talents for no one saying the U.S. could win the tournament.

“Show some courage and say we’re gonna win it,” Ibrahimović said. “Are you from U.S. or where?”