The Olympics may be the world’s greatest show, but the World Cup is the most-watched sporting event globally.
According to FIFA, the 2022 tournament in Qatar had around 5 billion people engaged across all platforms – so TV, streaming, social media and digital -while the final between Argentina and France had around 1.5 billion viewers.
At a time when it’s tempting to say that linear TV is dying, it’s is still massive during the World Cup, with around 2.9 billion people still watching the tournament via a television set.
With this year’s edition taking place in three countries – the U.S., Mexico and Canada, it would be no surprise to see those figures increase.
Each nation will stage its own opening ceremony ahead of its first match.
- Mexico opens the tournament on Thursday 11 June, before their match against South Africa.
- Canada follows on Friday 12 June, ahead of their game with Bosnia-Herzegovina.
- The USA hosts its ceremony on Saturday 13 June, before facing Paraguay.
In this piece, we’ve covered how to watch the World Cup via TV and broadcasters’ associated official streaming services.
Obviously, there is a huge amount of content surrounding the tournament that isn’t officially sanctioned by FIFA, such as Apple’s After the Whistle podcast (now with video), Netflix’s The Rest is Football and a stack of podcasts from key channels such as the BBC’s Football Daily and The Athletic’s Totally Football Show.
Watching in the US
In the USA, the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be shown across Fox Sports in English and Telemundo/NBCUniversal in Spanish.
Fox has most of the matches including most of the knockout games and the final while additional games will be shown on FS1. If you have local Fox/FS1 access, you should be able to watch many games for free.
Viewers can stream games in English if they subscribe on the Fox One or Fox Sports app and there will be highlights of the games, too. All games will be live and on demand. Spanish viewers can use NBC’s Peacock app for streaming.
You can also watch through other subscription platforms that have access to Fox Sports and FS1 such as YouTube TV, Sling TV, Fubo and Hulu Live TV.
Watching in the UK
In the UK games are all free-to-air. As is normal for major tournaments, the rights are shared between the BBC and ITV. Both channels are broadcasting 54 matches live on TV, but audiences can follow all 104 matches across each broadcaster’s digital platforms.
As BBC iPlayer is far superior to ITVX for ease of use, we’d suggest you start there as a one-stop shop to catch up on the action, though it’s currently unclear how long the highlights will be of each match. Highlights will also be available on YouTube at BBC Football.
BBC Radio 5 Live will also be providing as many commentaries as possible with 92 of the 104 games covered live. There are also live Scottish Gaelic commentaries of Scotland’s three group games on BBC Radio nan Gàidheal and BBC Sounds.
Key dates for the FIFA World Cup 2026
The 2026 FIFA World Cup runs from 11 June to 19 July 2026, with 104 matches across the USA, Canada and Mexico.
Opening match: Mexico vs South Africa — 11 June in Mexico City
- Group stage: 11–27 June
- Round of 32: 28 June–3 July
- Round of 16: 4–7 July
- Quarter-finals: 9–11 July
- Semi-finals: 14–15 July
- Final: 19 July in New Jersey
Watch every match wherever you are – stream live sport with a VPN
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