Netflix acquires Spanish rights to 2030 men’s World Cup

Netflix's long-rumored pursuit of the men's World Cup produced a deal on Tuesday, though the streamer's first foothold in FIFA's biggest event comes in Spain rather than the United States.

According to The Athletic's Dan Sheldon and Philip Buckingham , Netflix has secured the Spanish rights to the 2030 World Cup and will stream all 104 matches of a 48-team tournament that Spain will host alongside Morocco and Portugal, with centenary matches in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina.

Netflix won't wall off the entire tournament, however, as it will stream one match per matchday free of charge in Spain, and a national free-to-air broadcaster will receive a package headlined by every Spain match, along with both semifinals and the final.

As the Sports Business Journal's Austin Karp suggests, the Spanish arrangement could become Netflix's blueprint as it chases men's World Cup rights in other markets.

Until now, Netflix's World Cup rights were limited to the women's game.

In December 2024, the streamer won U.S. rights to the 2027 and 2031 Women's World Cups after Puck's John Ourand reported that an outsider placed the winning bid, taking over a tournament that Fox had aired in the U.S. since 2015. Netflix also holds Canadian rights to both tournaments.

In June, Netflix and FIFA released a World Cup video game on the platform to coincide with the start of this summer's men's tournament. And ahead of the 2027 Women's World Cup in Brazil next summer, Netflix has added Andrés Cantor , named Rebecca Lowe as host , held talks with Megan Rapinoe and Marta about analyst roles, and announced plans to broadcast the Women's World Cup draw live from Brazil in December .

Last month, Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria told CNBC the company was open to discussing men's World Cup rights with FIFA.

"We have a great partnership and relationship with FIFA, so we're definitely always going to have those conversations," she said.

The biggest of those conversations still lies ahead, as FIFA has yet to sell U.S. rights to the 2030 and 2034 World Cups, and incumbents Fox and NBC, along with Disney, YouTube, Prime Video and Apple, have all reportedly shown interest. FIFA reportedly wants to package the English- and Spanish-language rights together , which would work in a streamer's favor, since Netflix can run both language feeds on a single platform while a traditional broadcaster would need separate channels. When our Drew Lerner handicapped the 2030 field in July, he rated Netflix the most likely streaming winner but questioned whether it would share inventory with a linear network.

In Spain, at least, Netflix has already answered that question by sharing the tournament's biggest matches with free television while keeping every game on its own platform.