List of FIFA World Cup Finals broadcasters

The FIFA World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely-viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 World Cup is estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of this tournament (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers.

U.S. English television

Finals

Other rounds

Notes

• Over 100 nations have provided wall-to-wall coverage since the communications satellite launchings allowed for worldwide coverage beginning in 1966. European coverage of the World Cup has been extensive since 1954 (though with the World Cup held in Chile in 1962, much of the Euro coverage that year was tape-delayed).

• The first American coverage of the World Cup consisted only of a same day tape-delayed telecast of the 1966 Final on NBC. The Final was aired before their coverage of the Saturday Major League Baseball Game of the Week. NBC used the black & white BBC feed and aired it on on a two hour tape delay

• 1970’s coverage was usually week-old highlights shown on ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

• 1974’s coverage also contained week-old highlights on CBS Sports Spectacular.

• 1978 had no coverage on American television at all.

• In 1982, PBS and ESPN provided the first thorough American television coverage of the World Cup. ABC aired the first live telecast of the final. ABC aired commercials during the live action. Meanwhile, PBS aired same day highlights of the top game of the day.

• 1986 marked the first time that the World Cup had extensive live cable and network television coverage in the United States.

• In 1990, the World Cup was covered exclusively by cable television (TNT) in the United States and had many features of the host country (Italy).

• The 1994 American coverage had many firsts: The first with all of the matches televised, the first with no commercial interruptions during live action, and the first to feature an on-screen score & time box.

• In 1998, all of the matches were televised in the United States live for the first time.

• The 2002 American coverage was all live as well, in spite of the games being played in Japan and South Korea.

• The 2006 coverage from Germany was fully live as well.

U.S. Spanish language television

Japanese television

• 1974: Tokyo 12 Channel
• 1978-2002: NHK General TV & NHK Educational TV
• 2006: Fuji TV

United Kingdom

Broadcast of the qualification for the World Cup Finals for England is currently held by ITV (terrestrial, home matches) and Setanta Sports (cable/satellite, away matches) from 2008, with BSkyB holding the rights to Scotland, Wales and both Irish teams qualification matches.

However, coverage of the World Cup Finals is on a government mandated 'protected' list meaning it must be shown on free-to-air terrestrial television (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five) as opposed to satellite or cable television. Although only one broadcaster is required, the two biggest terrestrial operators, the BBC and ITV, have always made a joint bid for coverage with broadcast of the Home Nations matches (particularly England) alternating between the broadcasters up to the later stages of the tournament. This is believed to prevent an extremely expensive bidding war for coverage between the two networks, with the current agreement running until the 2014 tournament. In the 2006 World Cup, the BBC elected to broadcast the quarter final (England vs Portugal, in which England were eliminated), with ITV picking up the potentially more commercially lucrative semi-final coverage; both would have shown the final jointly had England featured

See also

• List of 2006 FIFA World Cup broadcasting rights
• Sports television broadcast contracts - Australia
• Sports television broadcast contracts - Latin America
• Sports television broadcast contracts - United Kingdom
• Sports television broadcast contracts - France
• Sports television broadcast contracts - United States
• BBC Sport#Football
  • Match of the Day
• ITV Sport#Football
  • The Championship
  • The Premiership (TV series)
• Republica Deportiva
• The World Game
• ESPN MLS/Soccer Broadcast Teams
  • World Cup Live

Sources

• Sportscasting History
• DBSForums Discussion Forums > The Stacks > Sports History > Voices of the World Cup
  • DBSForums Discussion Forums > The Stacks > Sports History > Voices of the FA Cup Final
• FIFA World Cup Broadcasts on U.S. Network TV
• World Cup broadcasting history in the U.S.