How the World Cup became a US streaming success story

This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for noti.group subscribers once a week.

The 2026 World Cup is breaking streaming records around the world: Brazil’s CazéTV YouTube livestream of that country’s opening game against Morocco surpassed 12 million concurrent viewers, a new milestone for YouTube. The South Korea versus Czech Republic game was streamed by 3.86 million viewers in South Korea at its peak, doubling a previous record set by BTS. And the BBC clocked more than 600,000 concurrent streams during the France-Senegal match-up, making it the biggest-ever live event streamed in 4K for the broadcaster.

Even in the United States, where soccer traditionally isn’t as widely watched as other types of sports, the Cup seems to be striking a chord. The Mexico vs. South Korea game attracted an audience of 6.1 million viewers to Telemundo’s streaming platforms, making it the largest Spanish-language soccer stream shown to US audiences to date. And the opening game of the United States team attracted 1.1 million streaming viewers on Tubi alone, turning it into the most streamed English-language match of the team in World Cup history.

The stateside success of the World Cup is the direct result of a series of unlikely business decisions, legal challenges, and regulatory pressures — a kind of perfect storm for the beautiful game.

A key decision impacting the 2026 World Cup was made in 2010, long before sports streaming was really on anyone’s radar.

Back then, FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, a country where summer temperatures often exceed 104 degrees Fahrenheit. When the soccer association considered moving the tournament to the winter, US broadcaster Fox threatened to sue because the change in schedule impacted its existing sports programming.

This led to FIFA striking a sweetheart deal with Fox and Telemundo for the 2026 rights in 2015, reportedly without considering any competing bids. Had Disney and Univision been part of the bidding process, the rights likely would have cost a lot more, and Telemundo owner NBCUniversal could have walked away empty-handed.

But thanks to that no-bid deal, brought about by Qatar’s scorching summer temperatures, NBCUniversal is now offering a Spanish-language feed of every game on its Peacock streaming service for just $11 a month.

Speaking of Spanish: The fact that US soccer fans have two competing options, Fox and Telemundo, to watch games live harkens back to the long-held belief that Americans don’t care about soccer. Or, more specifically, non-Hispanic Americans don’t care about soccer. (Nearly three-quarters of U.S. Latinos call themselves soccer fans; 22% of Hispanics identify as “superfans” as opposed to only 7% of non-Hispanics.)

It’s true that World Cup viewing in the US has historically lagged behind other major sporting events. This year’s Super Bowl was watched by more than 125 million viewers, while fewer than 26 million Americans tuned into the 2022 World Cup finals.

However, the population of the country is changing, and rapidly so. There are now 68 million Latinos in the United States, up from 35 million in 2000. Add the massive success of the US Women’s soccer team on the world’s stage and everything it has done for the sport, and things are starting to shift: According to a 2025 survey, soccer is now more popular than baseball in the United States.

All this could lead to a scenario in which US broadcast rights for the World Cup become a lot more expensive. Some even speculate that FIFA may start selling English- and Spanish-language broadcast rights in a single package going forward, which could make the tournament a lot more expensive for US broadcasters and viewers alike.

Viewers who prefer to watch the Cup in English also have a relatively affordable option available to them: Not only does Fox’s Tubi service stream select games for free, the company’s Fox One streaming service offers access to every single game for $20 a month — which wasn’t at all how Fox envisioned to price this tournament.

In February 2024, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney announced plans to launch a joint sports streaming service. Known as Venu, the streamer was supposed to combine sports programming from ESPN, Fox Sports, and networks like TNT and TBS under one roof.

Venu was good news for hardcore fans frustrated by the growing fragmentation of sports streaming, with games even from the same leagues often spread out across multiple paid services. However, combining all that programming came with a hefty price tag: Venu was supposed to cost $42.99 per month at launch.

Those plans fell apart due to regulatory pressure and a lawsuit by live TV service Fubo, with Venu’s joint owners pulling the plug on the venture in early 2025. Fox instead decided to go it alone, launching Fox One as a sports streaming service a year ago. That decision effectively cut the price soccer fans have to pay to tune into English-language livestreams by more than 50 percent.

Paid streaming beats pirates — for now

Fox streamed the entire 2022 World Cup on demand for free on Tubi. When the broadcaster announced plans to move most games behind the paywall this time around, I initially assumed this would lead to a familiar pattern: Faced with steep subscription fees, sports fans instead opt to pay a few bucks for a VPN that allows them to tune into the livestreams of foreign public broadcasters like the BBC or Germany’s ARD.

I clearly wasn’t the only one with that assumption. ExpressVPN is an official World Cup sponsor, and other VPN providers have been aggressively marketing their services to soccer fans as well.

However, early data suggests that those messages aren’t landing with consumers. US download numbers for VPN apps have actually been below their base level since the beginning of the World Cup, according to data app analytics startup Appfigures shared with me for this story.

Subscription video and live TV apps like Peacock, Fox Sports, and Tubi saw their download increase by 150 percent since June 11, according to Appfigures. And on Google Play, Fox One, and Peacock currently rank among the Top 5 most downloaded apps.

All this seems to suggest that, at least for now, paid services are winning. And while it took a series of unlikely events to get to this point, broadcasters hopefully take away the right lesson: Price your services right, and people will actually pay to watch every gooooooal.