The FIFA World Cup kicks off on June 12. India, a country of 1.4 billion people, may have no way to watch it. Not because of a lack of interest, not because of inconvenient match timings, and not because football is a fringe sport here. The reason is structural, and it says something uncomfortable about the state of sports broadcasting in this country.
No Indian broadcaster has secured the rights yet to air the tournament (Zee Entertainment has unveiled four channels under the Unite8 Sports banner and confirmed it is in discussions with FIFA over broadcast and streaming rights to the 2026 World Cup for India, but there has been no update yet). FIFA initially valued the India media rights package at nearly $100 million for the 2026 and 2030 editon. When that attracted no serious interest, it was reduced to approximately $35 million. Even then, negotiations stalled. The best offer on the table, reportedly from the Reliance-backed JioStar joint venture, was around $20 million. FIFA declined. The result is a deadlock with the tournament just weeks away.
On May 12, the Delhi High Court issued a notice to the Union government and Prasar Bharati, following a petition that termed the FIFA World Cup a "sporting event of national importance" and sought directions to ensure it reaches Indian viewers through free-to-air platforms like Doordarshan and DD Sports. Whether that happens remains unresolved. This is a legal petition pushing for an outcome, not a confirmed deal. Since India is not competing in the World Cup, there is also a legal question over whether the mandatory sharing provisions under the Sports Broadcasting Signals Act apply automatically.
So, why is the world's most-watched sporting event struggling to find a home in one of its largest potential markets?
The 2022 precedent tells part of the story. Viacom18 paid $60 million for the Qatar World Cup rights and streamed matches free on JioCinema. Ad revenues came in at roughly $30 million, half the rights cost. The gamble on football's monetisation potential in India did not pay off, and that experience has shaped how broadcasters are approaching 2026.
But the more significant factor is a policy shift that reshaped sports broadcasting economics entirely.
In August 2025, Parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming (PROG) Act. The legislation came into effect on May 1, 2026, and it represents one of the most consequential policy decisions for India's sports media market in recent years, though it was not designed with broadcasting in mind at all.
The PROG Act imposed a blanket ban on online money games: their operation, advertising, and financial transactions. The government's stated rationale covered a range of concerns: gaming addiction, financial harm to vulnerable users, money laundering, and broader threats to public order. The industry response was swift. Dream11, valued at $8 billion and the dominant player in fantasy sports, shut down its real-money gaming business entirely. MPL, Zupee, WinZO, My11Circle and PokerBaazi followed, suspending money-based operations immediately after the Act received Presidential assent. Overnight, an industry that had been valued at approximately Rs 35,000 crore, with real-money gaming accounting for over 85 per cent of that figure, was legally restructured.
The consequences for sports broadcasting were immediate and severe. Fantasy gaming platforms had become the single largest advertiser category in Indian sports broadcasting. Their spending was not marginal. It was the financial foundation that made expensive rights bids viable. Estimates put the loss to IPL ad revenue alone at close to ₹15,000 crore. With that revenue base gone, broadcasters are left holding costly cricket rights and significantly diminished ad income. The financial headroom to bid for non-cricket properties like FIFA simply does not exist in the same way it did before. This is the core issue. The market has not devalued football; it has lost a revenue pillar that made bold rights bets possible. It is worth noting that the PROG Act is not straightforwardly a bad law. It addressed real social concerns. Gaming addiction, financial losses among young users, and the use of platforms for money laundering were documented problems.
India's sports broadcasting market has a structural concentration problem. It is built almost entirely around cricket and, until recently, a single advertiser category. When either of those shifts, the entire ecosystem feels it, including sports that had nothing to do with the original disruption. Football, kabaddi, athletics and other properties become collateral.
The solutions being discussed are not new, but the urgency is. One option is a public broadcaster mandate: requiring Prasar Bharati to step in for events of genuine national significance, funded through a clearer statutory obligation. The petition before the Delhi HC is pushing in this direction. The legal basis, the Sports Broadcasting Signals Act of 2007, exists, though whether India's non-participation in the World Cup weakens the case is a point of debate.
A second, longer-term option is diversifying the advertiser base for sports. The dependence on a single category of spenders was always a risk. Building a broadcast economy where FMCG, automobile, fintech and other sectors are meaningfully invested in non-cricket properties requires deliberate effort from broadcasters and rights holders alike.
FanCode has also been mentioned as a potential option for digital-only rights. Having built a model around affordable, per-match pricing for niche and international sports, it represents a different way to reach the segment of Indian viewers who would seek out the World Cup. Whether FIFA and FanCode can find common ground on price in the time available is another matter.
The situation with the 2026 World Cup is a visible symptom of a less visible problem. India's sports media market grew quickly over the past decade, driven by cricket's dominance and the spending power of fantasy gaming platforms. That model has now hit a wall. The FIFA deadlock is the most prominent consequence so far, but it is unlikely to be the last.
Tanmoy Mookherjee is a sports writer based in India and Japan.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.