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| The business behind the sport — clubs, money, ownership and the numbers that move them. In your inbox by 7:30am, every weekday. |
ISSUE Nº 03 · WEDNESDAY, 22 JULY 2026 · WEEK 01
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| THE EDITOR | |||
| Matthew Burrows | |||
| The money side of sport, in plain English. | |||
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THE BUSINESS OF SPORT |
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The going rate for global sport jumped again yesterday — a World Cup rights race headed for $1bn, and a rugby showpiece killed before kick-off by the size of the bill.
Fox paid $485m to screen the 2026 World Cup; the 2030 US rights are tipped to open at $1bn, and this time a streamer has walked into the room. ESPN, which held the tournament from 1998 to 2014, wants its crown back, and Fox wants to keep it — but the name that should worry both is Netflix, with 330 million households across 190 countries and the US rights to the 2027 and 2031 Women's World Cups already banked as a dry run. FIFA, for its part, could bundle the English and Spanish rights across 2030 and 2034 and open at $3bn, daring bidders to pay a fortune or sit out a decade. Live sport's scarcity keeps compounding while everything else fragments.
The same maths that lifts football is burying rugby's imitation of it. Rugby's planned World Champions Cup is set to be shelved — a 16-team global tournament announced in 2025 for a 2028 debut, meant to be the sport's answer to football's club showpiece, now pushed beyond 2030 and perhaps for good. EPCR's problem is not appetite but arithmetic: a calendar already jammed with domestic, European and international rugby, and travel bills running into the hundreds of thousands of pounds with no agreement on who pays. The Iran-US conflict, fraying the cheap Middle East flight routes those long-haul trips lean on, only sharpens it. Football has proved a global championship prints money; rugby can see the prize and can't afford the ticket.
At the top the bidding runs to billions; a tier down, a tournament dies on the airfare — the same ledger, read from both ends.
THE LEAD |
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Fox paid $485m (~£360.3m) to screen the 2026 World Cup. The 2030 rights are expected to open at a $1bn (~£742.9m) price — and this time the bidding war has a gate-crasher. ESPN wants its old crown back, Fox wants to keep it, but the name that should worry both is Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX). The streamer that reshaped television now wants live sport’s biggest prize, and the battle for World Cup rights is about to tell us who really controls the future of watching football.
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ALSO ON THE BEAT |
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Football has just proved a global club championship can print money. Rugby wanted the same — a 16-team World Champions Cup crowning the best sides on earth. But this week, before a ball is kicked, the plan looks set to be shelved. The reason is brutally simple: the sport that dreamed it up cannot afford to stage it. A congested calendar and travel bills running into the hundreds of thousands of pounds have beaten the ambition, and the tournament is being pushed back beyond 2030 — perhaps for good.
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Football has worked out how to charge a fortune for a single month of itself, while rugby can't cover the airfare for a tournament that hasn't kicked off. One sport has cracked the money; the other keeps drafting invoices it can't pay. — MJB
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That's the desk cleared. Back at 7:30am. MJBurrows Sport — The Business of Sport, published every weekday morning, 7:30am London time. Never advice. Every number sourced. — MJB |
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Never advice. This is journalism about money in sport. We report what clubs, owners and markets do; we don’t tell you what to do about it. MJBurrows is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. For advice about your own money, speak to someone who is. No betting. No odds, no tips, no gambling content, no gambling advertisers. Permanent. Editorial Policy · Disclaimer |
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