Fox is banking that its $485 million English-language World Cup rights deal in the U.S. will deliver a viewing haul close to its NFL audience. With ratings up and improved Nielsen out-of-home metrics, Fox projects 150 million viewers will watch some portion of
The World Cup on Fox isn’t just another broadcast deal—it’s starting to look like a second NFL season stitched into the same year.
Fox paid $485 million for the English-language World Cup broadcast rights in America. and early results are already feeding a very specific conviction at the network. Ratings are up significantly. driven in part by Nielsen’s recent enhancement of audience measurement through more accurate out-of-home viewing metrics.
In the end, Fox projects that 150 million people will watch some portion of the World Cup coverage. That number sits close to the 170 million who watch Fox’s NFL regular-season games.
“For us, it’s like having two NFL seasons in a single year,” Fox Sports president of insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill told Stephen Battaglio of the Los Angeles Times.
Mulvihill’s case rests on where people are actually watching. The network says the key has been capturing how far the tournament reaches beyond living rooms—whether that’s fan fests, bars, or smaller watch parties.
“For many years. the numbers were under-counted and what we’re seeing now is a truer representation of the sports audience. ” Mulvihill told Battaglio. “You just cannot overstate what it means to us to be able to capture all that viewing that’s happening at fan fests. in bars and at smaller watch parties.”.
From Fox’s perspective, the economics are hard to ignore. Fox currently pays $2.25 billion per year for its NFL slate of games, and the World Cup broadcast fee amounts to 21.5 percent of that NFL yearly cost.
So yes—Fox sees the $485 million as potentially its best investment. And the network’s broader expectation is that when FIFA next sells the rights, the price will likely jump dramatically.
Fox Sports World Cup broadcast rights Nielsen out-of-home viewing Mike Mulvihill NFL ratings FIFA rights fee English-language World Cup coverage