Oihane Hernandez of Spain (left) and Alex Greenwood of England in action during the FIFA 2023 Women’s World Cup Championship in Sydney, Australia. Photo: Jose Breton/Europa Press via Getty Images
Netflix will exclusively stream the next two Women’s World Cups in the U.S. as part of a new media rights deal with FIFA.
Why it matters: It’s another huge move into live sports for the streaming giant and signals Netflix could be a bigger player than executives publicly let on.
Zoom in: Netflix’s deal covers the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cups and is for the U.S. only.
- It’s the first time that FIFA has broken out the media rights for the women’s tournament separately from the men’s, whose current deal is with Fox and Telemundo.
- Netflix’s deal covers Spanish-language rights.
- Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The big picture: The streaming giant continues building out its live sports portfolio to help its still-nascent advertising business.
- Netflix will stream two Christmas Day NFL games next week as part of a three-year deal.
- Last month, it streamed a boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, which led to a rare three-day surge in sign-ups.
- Netflix takes over as the home for WWE‘s weekly “Raw” live show in January.
What they’re saying: Netflix executives have continued to publicly downplay their appetite for acquiring rights.
- “We’re really interested in these big live events. These are big live events that happen to be sports, like Christmas Day football. This is a big live event within the football season,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said earlier this month during the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference.
