Is FIFA about to take over global soccer broadcasting?
FIFA has announced the launch of FIFA+, a proprietary streaming platform that includes documentaries, live matches and an archive of more than 3,000 historic games, available free of charge, with advertising.
The move has been interpreted as a trial run to cut out the middleman: better bandwidth has lowered the entry barriers for content broadcasting to such an extent that just about anybody can distribute and market their product on their own.
For the time being, competitions with previously negotiated rights, such as the upcoming World Cup in Qatar will not be available on the platform, and we will have to see what FIFA decides to do with the rights to other events. Content is already available in English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese, with plans to add Mandarin, Bahasa, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Arabic and Hindi in a few months. FIFA predicts a global audience of 200 million users by the end of this year. In addition, it plans to produce news, statistics and a fantasy league. At launch, the service will broadcast about 1,400 matches per month, which will soon rise to 4,000.
Might FIFA earn more from individual viewer payments than by selling the rights en bloc to television channels in different blocs around the world? Until now, broadcasting highly popular content such as soccer was a…
