A tender for Portuguese media rights to the FIFA 2026 World Cup men’s soccer tournament has hit the market.
The Portuguese rights process, which went live yesterday, has a bid submission deadline of 11:00 Central European Time on November 19.
Broadcasters and networks interested in acquiring the rights can access the invitation to tender documents by emailing portugal-media-rights@fifa.org.
The 48-team 2026 FIFA World Cup - encompassing 104 matches overall - will take place across Mexico, the US, and Canada. European qualifiers for that tournament begin early next year.
The time difference between Portugal and the host nations means that some fixtures (especially on the West Coast of the US and Canada) are likely to take place in challenging time slots for a Portuguese audience.
For the 2022 FIFA World Cup, in which Portugal were knocked out at the quarter-final stage by Morocco, a range of broadcast partners, including public-service RTP, held rights.
In terms of recent FIFA media rights deals, September saw Dutch public-service broadcaster NOS extend its relationship with the sport's governing body, in a deal covering both the 2025 and 2030 World Cups.
Deals have also been struck in significant markets including France, Brazil and Australia, and host agreements have been struck in the US with Fox and Telemundo (Spanish-language rights).
Portugal, meanwhile, will be one of six host nations for the 2030 FIFA World Cup. Portugal, Spain and Morocco will host almost all of the games, while one fixture each will be played in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first-ever World Cup, in 1930.
