FIFA, football's 211-member global governing body based in Zurich, Switzerland, owns the World Cup franchise and distributes billions annually to national associations across six continents.
The global system of licensing live-sport broadcast and streaming rights, worth US$67 billion annually, reshaping how leagues, tech firms, and sovereign funds compete for audiences.
full dossier ›FIFA's quadrennial world football championship, held since 1930 and expanded in 2026 to 48 teams spanning the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
The commercial contracts between brands and sports rights holders, worth US$70 billion-plus annually, split between retreating corporate sponsors and advancing Gulf sovereign funds led by Saudi Arabia.
Media deals, club prices, private equity and sponsorship have turned global sport into a multi-hundred-billion-dollar market where capital increasingly sets competitive outcomes.
The economics of live sports ticketing, covering primary sales, secondary resale, and US antitrust enforcement, determine how billions of fans access events and what leagues earn.
NBC returns to Major League Baseball for the first time in 26 years and Netflix airs its first live regular-season games under a 2026-28 deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars