The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and FIFA have agreed to extend their existing media rights partnership, ensuring that the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 will be broadcast on the EBU’s FTA linear TV network across 34 European territories.
They have also made a substantial additional commitment to the regular transmission of women’s football content beyond the tournament.
According to the EBU, the memorandum of understanding follows initial discussions held at the home of FIFA last month involving FIFA president Gianni Infantino, FIFA chief business officer Romy Gai, and representatives of the EBU, led by DG Noel Curran, and the rights include broadcast across TV, digital and radio in a new arrangement that will also see the EBU provide more promotion to women’s football than ever before.
In October 2022, the two parties announced an initial deal confirming that the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 would be broadcast FTA across 28 European territories, but under this revised agreement, major European broadcast markets have been added, together with Ukraine.
Previously, the rights for the women’s competition were bundled in with the men’s game. However, keen to capitalise on the growing popularity of women’s football, the rights were separated. This resulted in bids lower than had been expected from European broadcasters concerned at the time difference with Australia & New Zealand.
Commenting on the revised agreement, Gianni Infantino said: “FIFA is delighted to widen the deal with the European Broadcasting Union for the transmission of the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup to include the five major markets within their existing networks, namely France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as Ukraine, thus ensuring maximum exposure for the tournament.
“As part of this agreement, the EBU has committed to working towards broadcasting at least one hour of weekly content dedicated to women’s football on its own digital platform and broadcaster network. This will provide a huge promotional and exposure opportunity for women’s football, which is a top priority for us in line with FIFA’s commitment to the long-term development of the sport”.
Noel Curran added: “We are delighted to have been able to build on our long-term and successful relationship with FIFA to secure the rights on behalf of Europe’s biggest public-service broadcasters. The FIFA Women’s World Cup is one of sport’s most exciting and fastest growing events and we are committed to working hand-in-hand with FIFA to ensure the women’s game is enjoyed by as many people as possible across the continent. We see women’s football as being central to our content strategy and one of the cornerstones of the new digital platform we hope to launch next year.”.
EBU members, including ARD/ZDF (Germany), BBC/ITV (UK), France Télévisions, RAI (Italy) and RTVE (Spain), will also undertake to help market the tournament across all their channels as part of the EBU’s long-term strategy to promote the growth of women’s football in Europe and beyond. In Ukraine, the tournament will be shown by EBU Member, UA:PBC.
