RTVE and Mediapro secure rights to broadcast the 2026 World Cup

RTVE and Mediapro will broadcast the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada, which will be held from 11 June to 19 July. The public broadcaster will show one match per matchday, including all of the Spain national team's fixtures, while the group will broadcast all matches in the competition on pay-per-view.

Both parties announced the agreement on Wednesday for the broadcast of the competition, with RTVE showing one match daily, including all of Spain's matches and the most important matches of the tournament, in which the number of teams will be expanded from 32 to 48 for the first time.

RTVE will also broadcast the opening match on 11 June from the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, featuring Mexico's debut, the main matches from the round of 16 and quarter-finals, both semi-finals, the third and fourth place play-off and the final on 19 July at the MetLife Stadium in New York.

Mediapro will, in turn, broadcast all 104 matches of the competition exclusively on pay-TV, 71 of them exclusively, and will launch a daily channel dedicated to the tournament, which can be followed on the GolStadium platform that will be made available to pay-TV operators.

The final draw to define the composition of the 12 World Cup groups will be held on 5 December at the Kennedy Center in Washington and the qualifying phase is still ongoing, in which Spainhttps://www.theguardian.com/football/spain lead their group after their first two matches resulted in victories against Bulgaria (0-3) and Turkey (0-6).

Spainhttps://www.theguardian.com/football/spain, third in the FIFA rankings behind Argentina and France, are in Group E and will play their next matches on 11 October against Georgia and on the 14th against Bulgaria, both at home.

The top team from each of the 12 European groups will qualify directly. The 12 runners-up will play a play-off to decide the last four places in the World Cup for Europe, which will have 16 teams.

Canada, the United States and Mexico in CONCACAF, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay in CONMEBOL, Japan, Iran, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Jordan and Australia in Asia (AFC), Morocco and Tunisia in Africa (CAF) and New Zealand and New Caledonia in Oceania (OFC) have already secured their places.