Facebook and Twitter reportedly offering tens of millions for rights to Fox World Cup highlights

According to a report from Bloomberg on Thursday, Facebook and Twitter are willing to pay eight-figure fees for the rights to highlights from the 2018 World Cup.

That’s right, not rights to stream the games. Rights to publish highlight clips.

Fox holds the American television rights to the World Cup and therefore to its highlights, and per Bloomberg’s sources, the network has not yet decided whether to partner with one buyer or spread around rights to the clips.

For Fox, selling rights to highlights from the World Cup will help recoup some of the nine-figure price it paid to broadcast the tournament. As Bloomberg points out, distributing clips will also help the network promote its coverage in its first go-round broadcasting the world’s marquee sporting events.

Soccer is highlight-centric sport, and with the whole world (including an increasing number of Americans) engaged in the World Cup, it makes sense that everyone would want access to clips from the event.

As always, we’re keeping on eye on how much tech companies are willing to shill out for sports video, as Twitter and Facebook appear headed for a sort of sports streaming arms race. Twitter has streaming rights for select games in the NFL, the NHL, the WNBA and more, while Facebook has rights for the Champions League and Major League Baseball. Facebook partnered with Fox Sports on the Champions League deal, announced last month, so there’s some recent history between the two.

As you might have heard, the whole media world seems to be “shifting to video,” leaving everyone scrambling for moving pixels. You can count Facebook and Twitter among the video lovers.

[Bloomberg]