In a watershed moment for women’s soccer and potentially for sports broadcasting across North America and the world, Netflix has secured the rights to exclusively broadcast the next two editions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in the United States.
The streaming giant announced on Friday that it will air the 2027 tournament, to be held in Brazil, and the 2031 competition, for which a host has not yet been announced.
It will be the first time that women’s soccer’s biggest event will appear on a streaming service.
Not only will Netflix broadcast every game of both years’ tournaments for an American audience, it will air studio shows, exclusive documentaries, and more programming to supplement its coverage. Programming will include both English and Spanish telecasts.
“This is a landmark moment for sports media rights,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino. “As a marquee brand and FIFA’s new long-term partner, Netflix has shown a very strong level of commitment to growing women’s football.
“This agreement sends a strong message about the real value of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the global women’s game. FIFA and Netflix partnering together makes this a truly historic day for broadcasting and for women’s football. Besides broadcasting the tournaments themselves, Netflix will play a key role in terms of bringing the fascination of women’s football to a multimillion audience in the lead-up to both final tournaments, thereby enabling us to further increase their appeal.”
FIFA unbundled the media rights for the men’s and women’s World Cups for the first time for the 2027 Women’s World Cups. FOX HAS been the WWC’s U.S. English-language rights holder since 2015 and still hold the men’s World Cup deal until the end of the North American-hosted 2026 tournament. In Canada, TSN currently holds the rights to both the men’s and women’s World Cups.
A FIFA report from 2019 said that more than 1.1 billion global viewers watched the 2019 Women’s World Cup, which was won by the USWNT.
ESPN reported that the WWC deal is the “most significant” that FIFA has signed with a streaming service for a major tournament, although no valuation has been given.
“I’ve seen the fandom for the FIFA Women’s World Cup grow tremendously — from the electric atmosphere in France in 2019, and most recently, the incredible energy across Australia and New Zealand in 2023,” added Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria. “Bringing this iconic tournament to Netflix is not just about streaming matches — it’s about celebrating the players, the culture, and the passion driving the global rise of women’s sports.”
Netflix is adding women’s soccer’s biggest tournament to an increasing slate of live sports programming, as it looks to compete with other digital video brands’ moves into sport, including Amazon, YouTube, and Apple. This fall, the platform aired Jake Paul’s defeat of Mike Tyson, which it said was the most streamed sporting event ever. That card’s co-main event, Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano, became the most watched professional women’s sports event in U.S. history with 74 million viewers.
Netflix will also stream a double-header of NFL Christmas Day games next week. However, it will have to continue to iron out issues around live-streaming sports. The Paul-Tyson coverage was met with criticism from some corners, including complaints about blurry picture quality and buffering or stalling streams.
If it can refine its sports offering by the time the 2027 Women’s World Cup kicks off, could Netflix make a play for the 2030 men’s World Cup? Time will tell.
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