Global streaming giant Netflix has secured the exclusive US rights to showcase the next two editions of soccer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup quadrennial national team competition.
Netflix will air live games with both English and Spanish-language coverage.
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Additionally, the OTT service will produce shoulder content studio shows around the fixtures, and pre-tournament documentary content surrounding the competing teams.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino praised this move as a “landmark moment for sports media rights”, saying: “As a marquee brand and FIFA’s new long-term partner, Netflix has shown a very strong level of commitment to growing women’s soccer.
“This agreement sends a strong message about the real value of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the global women’s game. FIFA and Netflix partnering together makes this a truly historic day for broadcasting and for women’s soccer.
“Besides broadcasting the tournaments themselves, Netflix will play a key role in terms of bringing the fascination of women’s football to a multimillion audience in the lead-up to both final tournaments, thereby enabling us to further increase their appeal.”
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By GlobalDataIn 2023, the Women’s World Cup, which took place across Australia and New Zealand, was shown in the US by national network Fox and its FS1 channel, which saw a steep decline in viewership in the 2019 edition, in part due to time zone challenges as well as the US’ early exit from the competition.
The 2027 edition will take place in Brazil from June 24 through July 25 of that year, while the 2031 host nation will be selected in mid-2025, with the US among the interested parties bidding.
Netflix’s wide reach, coupled with the more US-friendly time zone of 2027, and the potential US hosting of 2031, will likely see viewership swell once again should the current world number one ranked US team perform as expected.
This represents Netflix’s latest foray into live sport and women’s sport, as earlier this year it showcased the controversial Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul boxing bout, the card of which was co-headlined by a women’s lightweight championship bout between Ireland’s Katie Taylor and Puerto Rico’s Amanda Serrano.
While the Paul vs Tyson main event drew over 60 million households of viewership, the Taylor-Serrano bout also performed extremely well, with almost 50 million households tuning in.
Speaking on the Women’s World Cup announcement, Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria stated: “Our record-breaking success with Amanda Serrano vs. Katie Taylor demonstrated the massive appetite for women’s sports and live programming.
“I’ve seen the fandom for the FIFA Women’s World Cup grow tremendously — from the electric atmosphere in France in 2019, and most recently, the incredible energy across Australia and New Zealand in 2023. Bringing this iconic tournament to Netflix is not just about streaming matches — it’s about celebrating the players, the culture, and the passion driving the global rise of women’s sports.”
Although that boxing card was so highly viewed, it was not without its problems and was dogged by technical issues such as buffering and generally poor screen quality.
Over 90,000 Netflix users reportedly had viewing issues during the fight.
This does not bode well for Netflix’s next major sports endeavor, an exclusive deal with American football’s NFL to air Christmas Day games for the next three seasons.
The agreement will begin this year when Netflix will show two games – Kansas City Chiefs vs Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens vs Houston Texans.
The platform will also stream WWE’s weekly WWE Raw show, which it secured long-term global rights to earlier in 2024 and will begin broadcasting on January 6, 2025.
