The World Cup India will not see, until it does

Nine weeks from now, the world will turn towards Mexico City. Forty-eight teams, 104 matches, 39 days. Late nights that bleed into dawn, alarms set for ungodly hours, sleep and work bent around kick-off times. In India, home to roughly 305 million football fans, the glow of that spectacle still has nowhere to land on Indian screens.

The last time the World Cup was in America, in 1994, India was too small a television market to measure. The country watched in pockets, on whatever signal reached them, and barely showed up in the ratings. Thirty-two years later, it is too fragmented a commercial market to produce a buyer. The tournament is back on the same continent, and India’s relationship with it has come full circle.

The silence is not for lack of suitors. In July 2025, FIFA opened its Invitation to Tender for the Indian subcontinent. When bids did not arrive, it tried to sweeten the offer, binding 2026 and 2030 in one package, two summers sold as a single promise. By this week, as the Economic Times reported, its $100 million opening gambit had fallen to $35 million. No tenders followed.

Until now, India has always found a way to bring the World Cup home. TEN Sports beamed 2002 into living rooms still ruled by cricket. ESPN Star carried 2006 and 2010. Sony burnished its football identity with the 2014 and 2018 editions. Viacom18 sent 2022 free across JioCinema after paying Rs 450 crore for the rights. Broadcasters changed, platforms rose and fell, but the tournament always slipped through the door. Over 2026 hangs the first real sense that this taken-for-granted arrangement can be broken.

The path to this moment runs through a broadcast economy that cricket first inflated and then bent out of shape; a global event arriving at the wrong price, in the wrong time zone, in the wrong year; and a negotiation that refuses to settle.

A price no one will cross

JioStar, which carries more than 85% of Indian sports audiences, has planted its bid at $20 million and, by some accounts, is willing to move towards $25 million. Sony, still invested in high-end football and those late Champions League nights, tested similar waters in the first round. From Kolkata, Shrachi Sports Entertainment Network put $2 million (Rs 18–20 crore) on the table. Across the table, FIFA holds at $35 million. Between those figures lies a strip of territory no one has yet crossed.

FIFA, JioStar and Sony did not respond to The State of Play's questions.

“FIFA may have overplayed its hand in this case. At the number they are asking, it just doesn’t make sense,” says a person aware of the negotiations.

Measured against Indian sports media contracts that climb into thousands of crores, the gap is narrow. Each side has already written its number in ink. FIFA does not want to set a floor it must defend in 2030. JioStar will not step above the line that the rest of the market has already drawn.

If this stand-off breaks, JioStar is still the likeliest buyer. People familiar with its plans say the interest is, in part, programming logic. The IPL bows out in late May, leaving a trough in subscriptions. The World Cup, beginning June 11, offers a bridge of live nights over the summer lull. Inside JioStar, there is talk of closing the deal before the final over so promos can flood the breaks. That clock is FIFA’s last real lever.

The money that went missing

The 2022 rights set the ceiling that has governed everything since. Viacom18 paid a little over $60 million and lost close to $30 million on the deal, according to a person familiar with the numbers; no one, sources say, is now willing to go above $30 million for a standalone World Cup. Five months before that tournament, Viacom18 had won IPL digital rights for Rs 23,758 crore.

The World Cup, streamed free on JioCinema, became the live-fire test. Comscore says JioCinema’s unique visitors jumped from 2.6 million in October to 22.7 million in November. The World Cup loss was the price of proving the platform could handle what the IPL would demand. That proof now lives in JioHotstar’s more than 280 million subscribers.

Viacom18 took Indian brands like Mahindra, Amul and Byju’s to Qatar; Byju’s has since collapsed into receivership. Spartan Poker, another on-air name, shut down after India banned real-money gaming (RMG) in August 2025. India’s Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act received presidential assent on 22 August, eleven days before FIFA’s India tender deadline of 2 September. Edtech and RMG, the two most aggressive sports spenders, disappeared from the buy just as FIFA came to market.

What remains is a committed but modest pool: FMCG, banking, automotive and payments. Over 87% of the 2026 tournament’s 104 matches will air after 10 pm IST. The late-stage knockouts, likely featuring Brazil, Argentina and Portugal, could well be played when India is deep in REM sleep. Football, by design, has no natural ad breaks. In a market built on advertising, midnight (or dawn) inventory with no breaks does not sell.

In 2014, matches in Brazil started at 9:30 pm IST, with later games past midnight. Sony fell significantly short of its 125 million viewership target, and ad revenue came in at Rs 120–130 crore against a Rs 200 crore projection, according to industry estimates at the time. Four years later, Russia brought 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm kickoffs and the same broadcaster reached 117 million viewers. The timezone almost did all the work.

After the 2024 T20 World Cup, held partly in the United States, Disney-Star formally raised concerns with the ICC over whether the event had justified the rights investment, citing match timings in the subcontinent as the primary problem. India won that tournament. The broadcaster was still unhappy with what it had bought.

A summer already spoken for

FIFA is also, in a way, competing against itself. IPL 2026 runs from March to May, consuming every major brand’s Q1 sports budget before the World Cup begins. The Women’s T20 World Cup in England runs from June 12 to July 5, almost exactly alongside it.

As they always do, India play Pakistan on 14 June and Australia on 28 June. The final is at Lord’s two weeks before the FIFA World Cup final. JioStar holds these rights and is already committed to selling advertising around India’s entire World Cup campaign at afternoon and evening times, on the back of India’s Women’s ODI World Cup win in 2025.

For any brand planning its June–July calendar, the choice is India in a World Cup at civilised timings, on a platform with 280 million subscribers, or 104 football matches, without India, mostly after midnight, on the same platform.

Bengal, Kerala and Goa follow Brazil, Argentina and Portugal with a tribal devotion that turns semi-final nights into communal ritual. These fans will wake at 2 am for a knockout. In India's big cities, plenty of people live by European leagues, but that club allegiance does not translate into the World Cup ad money FIFA needs. The passion is real; the premium budgets still cannot justify midnight inventory for a tournament without India.

The test still to come

The 2026 World Cup is, against what comes next, a minor rehearsal. FIFA’s $35 million ask is modest beside what the Indian market will be asked to absorb in the years ahead. The IPL media rights cycle ends in 2027. ICC rights for 2028–31 will be tendered (or even renegotiated). These packages are worth billions of dollars, landing in a market where JioStar carries Rs 25,760 crore in provisions for expected losses, and Sony is already passing on rights it cannot fully use. The next IPL cycle goes to market in this climate.

The LA 2028 Olympics presents a version of the same question. Most athletics finals will air between midnight and 4 am IST. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) launched its India subcontinent tender in July 2025 and has not yet confirmed a deal. It holds one card FIFA never did: T20 cricket returns to the Olympics in Los Angeles for the first time in 128 years.

FIFA started at $100 million, bundled two tournaments, and then came down to $35 million. Whatever FIFA gets, it will not be what it expected. History suggests someone will blink late, and whoever does will have told the market something it will not forget.