FCC Chairman Brendan Carr doesn’t want the next two World Cups to disappear entirely behind a paywall.
Carr told hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton of The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show on Monday that he believes the men’s tournaments in 2030 and 2034 should remain, at least partially, on free over-the-air television.
“It’s a totally different cultural moment, cultural experience, to have things like this for free over the air,” Carr said. “It brings so many more people together. It’s the topic of conversation, whether it’s social media or all the way down, because it’s available to everybody…”
FCC Chairman @BrendanCarrFCC believes the men’s World Cup in 2030/2034 should still be, at least in part, on free over the air TV.
Carr: “It’s a totally different cultural moment, cultural experience, to have things like this for free over the air. It brings so many more people…
— Mark J. Burns (@markjburns88) July 20, 2026
If that argument sounds familiar, it’s because Carr has been advancing a version of it for months, consistently pressing the question of where, exactly, sports fans can still locate the games they want to watch.
With this year’s tournament finished, FIFA is expected to begin fielding bids from Fox, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Disney/ESPN, Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, and Apple TV in the coming months, with analysts pricing the rights at $1 billion or more, roughly double or triple what Fox paid for this year’s tournament.
Fox enters that bidding as the incumbent, and has already reinforced its interest in international soccer beyond the World Cup itself by renewing its rights deal with CONCACAF to keep the Gold Cup and add the Nations League. Fox Sports president Brad Zager has also said the network is “absolutely” interested in retaining the World Cup itself. But whether Fox keeps the whole package now hinges partly on whether the 2030 field expands from 48 teams to 64. A larger field would create enough inventory for FIFA to split rights between a broadcast partner and a streamer, a structure that would favor Fox retaining at least a linear slice of the tournament. If the field stays at 48 teams, Fox’s odds of keeping any of it come down to how much streamers like Netflix, seen as the strongest streaming bidder given its existing deal for the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cups, are willing to pay for exclusivity.
Carr’s comments suggest the FCC could become a factor in how that split gets decided, even though the commission doesn’t control FIFA’s negotiating process directly. Free over-the-air availability has been part of the World Cup conversation before; NBC and Univision’s Spanish-language deal and Fox’s English-language rights have both included broadcast components in past tournaments, distinguishing the Men’s World Cup from properties like the Women’s World Cup that Netflix has taken behind a subscription wall. The 2015 and 2019 Women’s World Cup Finals actually had more viewers than the Men’s Finals in 2014 and 2018 due to the US Women’s advancing and winning in those years. Netflix’s deal for the 2027 and 2031 World Cups occurred right before Carr’s tenure.
Whether Carr’s preference carries any real weight in FIFA’s decision remains to be seen. But with network executives already signaling interest, league officials, and now a federal regulator all weighing in before bidding has formally opened, the jockeying and political posturing for 2030 rights is already well underway, months before FIFA is expected to kick off the bidding process.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.