DAZN, the global sports streaming service, has agreed a partnership with US-based Spanish language media giant TelevisaUnivision to sublicense matches from this year’s revamped FIFA Club World Cup soccer competition.
Under the terms of the agreement, 18 matches of the tournament, taking place in the US, will be shown across Univision, UniMás, and TUDN in the US.
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In addition, DAZN (the CWC's global rights-holder) and TelevisaUnivision will jointly produce co-branded studio shows and collaborate on promotional and marketing strategies.
TelevisaUnivision said it will “lead efforts to bring the full scope of Spanish-language ad inventory for the tournament to market for advertisers.”
Carlos Loewenstein, president of global sports at TelevisaUnivision, said: “TelevisaUnivision is committed to serving our audience with the best football action. As soccer continues to build significant momentum in the U.S., brands will have a unique opportunity to tap into the passion of this sport, bridging sports and culture together to engage with Hispanic consumers.”
The two parties also stated that the partnership for the FIFA Club World Cup is a first step in a broader relationship between them, which will include partnering on rights distribution including DAZN’s sublicensing of key sports content for 2025 and beyond.
Shay Segev, DAZN Group CEO, added: “DAZN’s wide-ranging partnership with TelevisaUnivision is an important part of our distribution strategy for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025.
“As well as delivering top-quality programming, we look forward to collaborating on marketing and ad sales, creating an unparalleled offering for brands and audiences alike.”
Soccer’s governing body FIFA ended its long search for a Club World Cup broadcast deal in December after DAZN acquired exclusive global rights.
The deal, reportedly worth around $1 billion, will see all 63 matches, from an expanded 32-team field, live-streamed and free to view on DAZN globally, in multiple languages.
When announcing the deal, FIFA and DAZN stated that their agreement included the possibility of sublicensing to local free-to-air linear broadcast networks.
Before the OTT platform stepped in, FIFA had struggled to secure a broadcast partner, with many traditional media giants unwilling to pick up the rights as the competition has proved extremely controversial with many of soccer’s major stakeholders.
Clubs and players are unhappy about the extra games and workload, with a formal complaint and legal action by the players union FIFPRO filed around this issue last year.
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup will entail a new format in which continental governing bodies, apart from the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), receive multiple team slots.
Europe’s UEFA, with 12, will have the most teams. The lineup will include Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, PSG, Inter Milan, Porto, Benfica, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, and Red Bull Salzburg.
The competition will kick off on June 15 and will be played in 12 venues across the US, culminating with the final on July 13.
The DAZN tie-up represents TelevisaUnivision’s second major rights deal this month after it recently secured exclusive Mexican broadcast rights to the next four Olympic Games.
