The BBC and ITV have declined to pursue the chance to televise this summer’s Club World Cup, leaving Fifa increasingly concerned about the visibility of its flagship new tournament in a key market.
The streaming platform Dazn agreed this year to pay $1bn for global Club World Cup rights in a deal which involved the company pledging to make all 63 matches available free-to-air on its app.
Dazn has also agreed to sublicense the tournament to bigger broadcasters in certain key territories in an attempt to gain larger audiences for Fifa and its commercial partners, with Warner Bros picking up the rights in the United States, and is seeking a similar deal in the UK.
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An industry source told the Guardian that Dazn viewing figures varied depending on the content but that its typical audience for live sport in the UK was in the low ten thousands. Dazn does not disclose viewing figures but its latest accounts say it has a global reach of 60 million premium users and 300 million monthly users.
Manchester City and Chelsea will represent the Premier League at the tournament, where the winners will receive prize money of up to £97m for seven matches. Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami are among other participants.
The BBC declined to enter negotiations and talks with ITV have not progressed beyond an exploratory conversation last month. The subscription channels Sky Sports and TNT Sport, rivals to Dazn, have shown no interest, leaving Channel 4 and Channel 5 as the only options.
The BBC is understood to have dismissed the proposal out of hand owing to the difficulty of promoting a commercial channel given its public service remit. As previously reported by the Daily Telegraph, ITV submitted a proposal to Fifa to carry Club World Cup games without paying a rights fee before the Dazn deal was agreed.
BBC and ITV will share coverage of the Women’s European Championship for the first time as England’s Lionesses defend their title in Switzerland. The Club World Cup begins two days before the Euros quarter-finals get under way.
Dazn is understood to be seeking a sublicensing arrangement in which a free-to-air broadcaster will take all 63 Club World Cup matches, to secure maximum exposure for its brand. Channel 4 broadcast 20 England’s men’s games live in 2023 and 2024 and has secondary rights for some Women’s FA Cup matches, and Channel 5 previously showed EFL highlights, but it is unlikely either broadcaster would want to devote much of its primetime evening schedule to a tournament in which two of the 32 teams are English.
Industry sources said Dazn was likely to make a final approach to ITV in the next few weeks. Dazn is planning to send a production team and presenters to the US for the most high-profile football event it has covered. The London-based platform, owned by the billionaire Len Blavatnik, is better known in the UK for its coverage of world title boxing in Saudi Arabia, but has the rights for the Premier League, La Liga, NFL and NBA in other European countries.
Dazn’s links to Saudi Arabia appear to be underpinning the financing of the Club World Cup, with the kingdom’s Surj Sports Investment group last month confirming it had taken minority stake in the company valued $1bn. Fifa subsequently announced the prize and appearance fund would also be $1bn, with City and Chelsea receiving £29.6m for taking part.
