With the 2026 World Cup only weeks away, India still had no confirmed broadcaster — and while negotiations were under way, sources say time zones, price expectations and a poor fit with local viewing habits are blocking a deal. There is also a growing sense that FIFA has misjudged its two biggest Asian TV markets.
“The Indian market is a sort of a brute force market,” said Nandan Kamath, a leading Indian sports lawyer and adviser on sports policy. “It’s the numbers rather than the willingness.” Broadcasters in India depend far more on advertising than on subscription revenue, and although audiences for the 2022 tournament in Qatar were strong, rights holders such as Viacom18 did not turn a profit. After Viacom18 was absorbed by JioStar following the 2024 Reliance–Disney shakeup, only JioStar and Sony remained as major bidders — not enough to create the kind of competitive market that drives up prices.
The economics are simple: India’s premium streaming subscriber base is still small, so charging high fees for World Cup rights is risky. Kamath argues FIFA may need to temper its revenue expectations to win scale in India. He points to other global entertainment properties that adapted their models: Netflix now offers very low-cost plans in India and Formula 1 sells affordable season passes. Those shifts show rights owners can pivot pricing and packaging to reach mass audiences.
Cricket is another major structural factor. “India is a sports market that has grown up on cricket,” Kamath said. The Indian Premier League and ICC events are the top commercial sports rights, and football is not in the top two. Cricket also suits advertising because of frequent breaks in play; football’s continuous action makes it harder to build the same ad model.
Time zones also work against FIFA in India. Many 2026 matches will kick off while large parts of India are asleep. By contrast, Qatar in 2022 was only two and a half hours away, which helped live viewing. Ambitions to host the Olympics and the relative weakness of India’s men’s national team — which has never qualified for a World Cup and exited early in qualifying for 2026 — further reduce football’s priority for viewers and sponsors.
Kamath expects a local broadcasting deal will eventually be struck but warns FIFA will need more creative approaches to thrive in India: virtual advertising, better integration of Indian sponsors or alternative distribution bundles that reflect local willingness to pay.
China moved more quickly. National media reported on May 15 that a broadcaster had agreed rights for the next two World Cups, including both men’s and women’s tournaments. Xu Guoqi, a professor at the University of Hong Kong and an expert on sports in China, said football has long held public interest there. Even when the Chinese men have failed to qualify, state broadcaster CCTV traditionally carried World Cup coverage.
Xu suggested FIFA had pushed for too much. “I think FIFA got greedy,” he said, noting the governing body’s commercial urgency: if Chinese viewers tune out, FIFA loses a massive audience. FIFA statistics underline that importance — almost 20% of linear TV reach for Qatar 2022 reportedly came from CCTV.
China’s lack of recent World Cup success is less decisive for broadcasters than it might seem. Several Chinese companies sponsor the tournament, and watching the World Cup remains a popular pastime. Xu recalled how, despite political tensions in 1999, young Chinese viewers still embraced the NBA — an example of how sport can command affection and viewership independent of political ups and downs.
The picture across both countries is similar: FIFA wants global scale and revenue, but local market structures, viewing habits, time zones and competing sports priorities mean one-size-fits-all pricing and distribution strategies risk failure. Rights holders and broadcasters in India and China are open to deals, but they expect models tailored to local conditions rather than simply paying premium global rates.
This article was updated after publication to reflect reports that China had secured broadcast rights for the 2026 and 2030 World Cups.