#1 — TV broadcasting: about $4 billion
Here's the source that sustains the empire: TV broadcast rights, which should bring in about $4 billion — by far the biggest slice, accounting for nearly 40% of all FIFA's revenue.
The big engine is the United States, where media rights jumped about 94% compared to Qatar, driven by the World Cup being at home. Broadcasters like Fox and Telemundo (U.S.), ITV and BBC (U.K.), and ARD and ZDF (Germany) paid fortunes. And there's a historic shift: streaming has firmly arrived, with DAZN as the main rights-holder in Japan, Italy, and Spain — a sign that even the most-watched event in the world is migrating away from linear TV.
Add it all up — TV, sponsorships, tickets, hospitality — and the 2026 World Cup should generate about $8.9 billion for FIFA, within a cycle of $11 to 13 billion. It's the most profitable World Cup in history, by a wide margin. But the real question, as analysts say, isn't how much value will be generated — it's where it goes. FIFA profits like never before; the players get a record prize pool; but the host cities often end up with the bill. The World Cup has become, in one analyst's words, a "global business platform" that monetizes everything — ticket, jersey, data, fan zone — far beyond the 90 minutes.
