ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro confirmed the Disney division will bid on World Cup rights for the 2030 tournament.
“We had the World Cup for two decades and it was a big part of ESPN’s identity and DNA,” the exec said during a conference hosted by CNBC and Boardroom on Thursday at Fanatics Fest in New York. “Of course we’re interested” in re-acquiring the rights, he continued, adding that ESPN is “hyper-competitive” with rivals in rights negotiations.
“This has been a juggernaut,” Pitaro said. “We’re not at all surprised by it. If you look at the time zones, the fact that these games are, you know, where they’re taking place around this country. The U.S. did a fantastic job and I’ve been watching it religiously.”
While many soccer fans and media observers have given Fox a mixed report card compared with ESPN, Pitaro lavished praise on his competitor. “I’ve been very impressed with the way Fox has covered all this,” he said. “From a live game production perspective, from a studio perspective, they’ve done an outstanding job. I don’t know, honestly, how they could have done better with the product.”
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Landing the World Cup will be costly, of course, given the explosion of ratings and interest. FIFA, which organizes the tournament, has yet to hold formal talks with bidders. The organization has said it plans to expand the field from 48 teams to 64 in 2030, which will only increase the appeal of the tournament.
Fox wound up benefiting financially from a series of complications with the 2022 edition in Qatar, which had to be shifted from summer to fall, meaning it had to jockey with lucrative NFL and college football broadcasts. The company won rights to the 2026 Cup for a song, reportedly just $485 million, which is about what it could take in from hydration break ad revenue alone.
Published reports in recent days have indicated that the next rights deal could range from $1.5 billion to $2 billion, with Netflix and YouTube said to be in pursuit. Netflix has already secured rights to the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cups in the U.S. and Canada.
Pitaro hit on a few other topics during the conversation, including working for Disney’s new CEO, Josh D’Amaro, who succeeded Bob Iger earlier this year. Asked whether he has changed ESPN’s mandate, Pitaro replied, “Look, Bob hired me. I worked for Bob. I’ve been at Disney for 16 years, and I’ve been at Bob’s table that entire time. There’s a lot of similarities between Bob and Josh. They’re both very curious. They’re both huge sports fans, which is very good for me, very good for ESPN. What I’ll tell you about Josh is he’s very thoughtful. He’s very calm. He’s curious. He’s asking all the right questions. He’s a fast learner. Like I said, he’s passionate about what we’re doing, and he does see ESPN as a critical component of the Disney strategy.”
Compared with many rivals with direct-to-consumer streaming, he added, “one of the differentiators at Disney is ESPN.”
As to the NFL, which now has a 10% stake in ESPN thanks to a recent deal swapping the league’s media assets for an equity position, Pitaro didn’t get explicit about extending the current rights deal but said the relationship is “in a great place.” Like other media partners, ESPN and Disney are being asked to pay additional rights fees to the NFL under a clause in the 11-year rights agreements that took effect in 2023.
Pitaro noted that ESPN will carry its first Super Bowl next February, with ABC airing it in a simulcast.
Asked whether re-upping with the NFL might mean a slim-down of overall rights as the company manages escalating rights fees, the ESPN chairman said the company has “never had better rights” in its 47-year history. That said, he added, “We look at it holistically. So yes, to answer your question, there is some give and take there.”
