Sports Broadcast Rights Reach Record $65.8 Billion in 2026, Report Finds
The global value of sports media rights reached $65.82 billion in 2026, up 15 percent from 2025, driven by the North American World Cup and the Winter Olympics, a new industry report finds.
The global value of sports media rights reached a record $65.82 billion in 2026, up 15 percent from 2025, according to the SportBusiness Global Media Report 2026 published Wednesday.
The report points to an unusually busy sports calendar as the driver: 2026 hosted both the soccer World Cup in North America and the Winter Olympics, two events that command some of the largest broadcast fees in world sport.
The U.S. drives the market
The United States holds most of the global media rights value and now accounts for 53.9 percent of the total, up from 46 percent in 2022, the report said. Europe’s five biggest markets together are worth about a third of the U.S. figure.
American sports dominate the split. The National Football League and the National Basketball Association together account for 30 percent of all global sports media rights value, according to the report. The English Premier League, the world’s richest soccer league, accounts for 7.8 percent.
The record is unlikely to last. The report forecasts the global total will drop to $62.2 billion in 2027. By comparison, 2024, the year of the Paris Summer Olympics, came in at $62.4 billion, which puts two-year growth at 5 percent.
Reporting based on coverage by Reuters.
