- Club world cup expanded from 8 team to 32 teams tournamnet.
- FIFA’s target is to generate around $4 billion in global media rights sales
- The teams and schedule are yet to be finalised.
FIFA has rebranded their annual Club World Cup from 2025 which will feature as many as 32 teams from around the world instead of just 8 regional champions like in the past. The idea behind this move was to produce another money spinner for FIFA but as things stand with less then 9 months to go before the 1 month long tournament begins, FIFA has not sold any TV or streaming rights for this competition which must have been an huge surprise considering FIFA were hoping for around $4 billion a year from only TV rights deals.
As things stand, FIFA will hold a ‘emergency briefing‘ meeting with potential rights buyers from around the world in October 2024. The reason behind this move is to generate some sort of broadcasting interest in the tournament.
Which goes to show that FIFA are in desperate need of interest in this competition which has already come under massive scrutiny from ‘The Players Association’. Although FIFA do have a starting point for the rights deal which they already rejected in favour of traditional territory based rights deals.
FIFA Rejects Apple’s $1 Billion Offer For Club World Cup Worldwide Rights:
However, Apple TV made an offer to FIFA for global rights deal where they offered $1 billion a year for rights across the world without any restrictions. However that falls way below what FIFA were hoping for. Instead, FIFA rejected the offer and went towards more tradional media rights sale with their club world cup rights tender
| Streaming Platform | Offer | Territories | Accepted |
|---|---|---|---|
| AppleTV | $1 billion a year | Worldwide on single platform | NO |
FIFA are trying to entice clubs and federations with huge prize money to be offered for Club World Cup. But lack of interest in TV Right’s deals have had an knock-on affect on potential sponsorship deals as well. Apparently FIFA are quoting around $150 million to potential sponsors who are reluctant to make any offer in return considering they don’t know the potential TV/Streaming exponsure.
We will have more updates regarding FIFA’s hunt for TV rights and sponsorship deals for their upcoming Club World Cup. For now though FIFA should work on fine-turning details regarding the competition itself before they start go hunting for rights money.
