FIFA World Cup 2026: India finally gets a broadcaster as Zee Entertainment secures rights
The announcement comes just 10 days before the tournament kicks off on June 11 across the United States, Canada and Mexico
Zee Entertainment said on Monday (June 1, 2026) it had secured the rights to broadcast the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 38 other FIFA events through 2034, ending a months-long standoff over the tournament’s availability in one of the world’s last unsold major markets.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
FIFA had initially sought about $100 million for the India package covering the 2026 and 2030 World Cups before slashing its asking price to $60 million, Reuters earlier reported.
The agreement comes just 10 days before the tournament kicks off on June 11 across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
India’s dominant sports broadcaster JioStar, the Reliance-Disney joint venture that aired the 2022 World Cup through its predecessor Viacom18, had offered about $20 million for the rights but was rejected by FIFA, Reuters previously reported.
Sony, which held rights for the 2014 and 2018 tournaments, held discussions but did not bid.
court case
With no broadcaster acquiring the broadcast rights for months, the Delhi High Court on May 12, 2026, had asked the Center and Prasar Bharati to respond to a petition seeking the broadcast of the FIFA World Cup 2026.
The petition by Avdhesh Bairwa, a lawyer, sought directions to the Central government to acquire the broadcasting rights for the opening match, quarterfinals, semi-finals, and the final in favor of Prasar Bharati as an interim measure. By way of final relief, the petitioner sought that rights should be acquired for all 104 matches.
FIFA has concluded agreements with broadcasters in more than 180 territories worldwide, it said previously. India accounted for 2.9% of the global linear TV reach of the World Cup in 2022.
The possibility of a FIFA World Cup blackout in the Indian market has been avoided after global soccer’s governing body struck a last-minute broadcast rights agreement with media enterprise Zee Entertainment, for its newly launched Unite8 Sports network.
Announced this morning, this eight-year agreement begins immediately, with Zee scoring the rights to the men’s FIFA World Cups in 2026 and 2030, the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2027, and a host of other national team tournaments.
Coverage will be disseminated across the four Unite8 Sports linear networks and the Zee 5 OTT streaming service.
This will span a host of tournaments, including the men’s and women’s FIFA World Cups in the under-17 and under-20 youth categories, the FIFA Futsal World Cups, and the FIFA Intercontinental Cup annual club tournament (up to 2030).
In all, this means that Zee will broadcast 39 FIFA events till 2034, starting on June 11 with the kick-off of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, to be held in Mexico, the US, and Canada.
FIFA World Cup 2026
Negotiations for this World Cup in particular were drawn out, with Indian media companies such as Jio unwilling to meet FIFA’s nine-figure asking price.
Indeed, reports in India suggest that Zee’s rights fee for the 2026 World Cup is in the region of $30-35 million, barely one-third of the $100 million that FIFA had reported originally demanded.
Viacom18 (now part of JioStar) held rights in 2022, reportedly paying just over $60 million for that edition alone – with that tournament held in Qatar, matches were on at a far more friendly time for Indian audiences.
FIFA will renegotiate in the market ahead of the 2034 World Cup, which will be held in Saudi Arabia (another friendly time zone for Indian audiences), at which point they will no doubt seek an uplift on the current figure.
Speaking on the announcement, Zee Entertainment deputy chief executive and chief financial officer Mukund Galgali said: “The partnership with FIFA marks a significant step in our journey to create a strong foundation in the sports ecosystem to drive long-term value creation. Football as a sport has tremendous under-leveraged potential in a country like India, and we see a massive opportunity in unlocking its mass appeal for billions of spectators across the nation.
“Our approach in the sports business is anchored in building a scalable and financially sustainable growth model through a disciplined capital allocation framework.”
Sandeep Mehrotra, the company’s chief operating officer, added:
“We are equally focused on building a high-value advertising environment that delivers scale and depth of engagement. Our diverse sports and entertainment portfolio provides brands an opportunity to tap into varied consumer cohorts and leverage the full spectrum of live sporting moments and meaningful content formats.
For FIFA, meanwhile, this represents the last major market in which 2026 World Cup rights had not been sold.
Zee has also appointed a chief business officer in cost of the Unite8 Sports channels, with Bavesh Janavlekar taking up the mantle.
Janavlekar previously performed a similar role at Zee, supervising its Marathi-language movies business across linear TV and studios.
The Unite8 channels will be predicated on two offerings, ‘Unite8 Sports 1’ with English-language coverage and ‘Unite8 Sports 2’ with coverage in Hindi. Both offers have a standard and high definition channel, bringing the total to four channels.
With the new Unite8 Sports brand, the company says it will air coverage of cricket once again, as well as football, kabaddi, badminton, and combat sports such as wrestling and boxing.
Zee Entertainment left the sector following the fallout from its failed ICC cricket sublicensing deal with Star in 2024, and in the past had broadcast cricket’s ILT20 competition from the UAE.
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