Fox is the exclusive English-language broadcaster in the United States for the upcoming World Cup. But that didn’t stop FIFA from recently striking its own side deal.
Last week, FIFA announced popular social media platform TikTok as its “preferred partner” for this summer’s World Cup. The partnership apparently includes the rights to livestream portions of matches on the platform. That was news to Fox, according to a report by Puck sports correspondent John Ourand. The network, Ourand reports, “holds all U.S. video rights to the World Cup — there’s no carve-out for FIFA to sell live look-ins during games.”
As a result, TikTok will need to reach a separate deal with Fox if it wants to extend those live look-ins to the U.S. market. And even then, there’s no guarantee that Fox would sell those rights to TikTok exclusively, despite the social media platform’s deal with FIFA. Per the Puck report, Fox is already in talks with a rival social media platform for similar rights. The network formed pacts with Twitter, now X, during previous World Cups to post near-instantaneous highlights to the platform. Fox also produced a Twitter-exclusive studio show during the 2018 and 2022 Men’s World Cups, and the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
As it stands, Fox and TikTok are “not close” to forging a deal, per Ourand. Of course, that could change in the five months between now and the tournament.
So for now, it appears that any “live look-ins” FIFA sold to TikTok won’t be happening in the U.S. market. At least, not until Fox and TikTok forge a partnership of their own. It also seems likely that, if Fox does sell these sort of rights, it’ll be to multiple partners, not just TikTok.
Earlier this week, FIFA announced a separate deal with live sports data company Stats Perform that will see World Cup matches streamed live within sports betting apps. Those streams will presumably be available in the U.S. market, just as they are for leagues like the NFL and NBA.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.