Each FIFA World Cup tends to mark a technological milestone in the video industry. The 2026 edition will be remembered for the dominance of OTT platforms. Across the six largest markets in Latin America, 21 companies hold broadcasting rights, and 76% will rely on streaming distribution—either as pure-play models or in combination with other formats. Football has become highly coveted content, and the competition for rights has effectively displaced the long-standing concerns around the technical reliability of streaming for large-scale live events. The Brazil-based YouTube channel CazéTV was the breakout success of the 2022 World Cup. In partnership with YouTube, it achieved a historic milestone of 6.9 million concurrent streams during the Brazil vs. Croatia match. The channel currently has 25.9 million subscribers and has already secured $400 million in advertising deals for the upcoming tournament. Its main competitor, Grupo Globo, will deploy a multiplatform strategy including free-to-air TV, pay TV, and its OTT service Globoplay (although it will not be able to stream matches through its YouTube channel, GE). Despite reaching a potential audience of 197 million people in 2025—30 million of them via Globoplay—the group expects to generate the same level of revenue as CazéTV: $400 million. In Brazil, the balance appears to be shifting decisively toward the digital ecosystem. Another winner of the 2022 edition was DirecTV. While the company has held World Cup rights since 1994, it was in 2022 that it successfully consolidated its streaming platform, DGO. During the tournament quarter, DGO’s subscriber base grew by 57%, although it retained only a portion of those users afterward. For 2026, the strategy is more robust: a football-focused plan has been launched as a retention tool, surrounding the World Cup with channels holding local and regional rights. Disney+ appears to be following a similar path. In April, the platform surprised the market by announcing it will stream a significant portion of the tournament in multiple countries (alongside DirecTV, the only players with a regional-scale strategy). Previously, it rolled out aggressive discounts to position its Premium tier, where its most valuable sports content resides. The World Cup is expected to act as a key growth driver for that subscriber base. Meanwhile, ViX (TelevisaUnivision) stands as a strong player in Mexican football—holding rights to 17 of the 18 clubs in the domestic league—allowing it to package the World Cup as a standalone, higher-value offering. Around 76% of the companies broadcasting the 2026 World Cup already hold football-related rights, and many will use OTT systems as a complementary distribution channel. For example, Caracol and RCN in Colombia, as well as América TV in Peru, offer free OTT platforms. Given the tournament’s expanded format of 104 matches, streaming will strategically function...
