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September 20 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino is reported to have called an emergency meeting with broadcasters for today (Friday) amid concerns over a lack of tv interest in his much-trumpeted pet project, the expansion of Club World Cup.
FIFA has so far failed to announce a single broadcast deal for the 32-team tournament next year which Infantino is hoping will match the World Cup at club level.
Discussion had been taking place with Apple TV over broadcast rights with FIFA confident it could pull in the kind of elevated broadcast numbers in line with the new NBA deal that has seen ESPN/ABC, NBCU and Amazon Prime Video in a new $76 billion, 11-year contract.
Apple has had success with the exclusive rights to the MLS with a 10-year $2.5 billion agreement signed in 2022. That deal initially looked to be struggling to work but came good when Lionel Messi signed for InterMiami, sparking the Messi-mania that boosted the MLS across the board.
With Apple pulling out of the FIFA Club World Cup negotiations earlier in the year, US industry talk was that FIFA would end up pulling the event as no other major US broadcaster had come to the table.
The upshot is that with broadcast interest not hitting the required financial commitments either domestically or internationally, Infantino has stepped in personally to lead an emergency briefing and drum up support.
The situation mirrors to a degree the slow broadcast sales for the 2023 Women’s World Cup with FIFA going to market late with enormous demands of their partner broadcasters whose budgets in many cases had been set years previously.
A compromise was reached but one that wasn’t financially in FIFA’s favour. However, the Women’s World Cup was an already established event and the timing came as the women’s game was seeing an enormous boost at all levels globally.
The expanded Club World Cup is different. It is a new event expanded from a generally unloved seven-team competition played annually and…
Source link : https://www.insideworldfootball.com/2024/09/20/infantino-calls-emergency-broadcaster-meeting-drum-support-club-world-cup-2025/
Author : Paul Nicholson
Publish date : 2024-09-20 13:36:06
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