China finally has a broadcaster for World Cup 2026: China Media Group (CMG), the parent of China's national broadcaster, has secured a World Cup broadcast deal, according to local media ​reports on Friday, via Reuters.
Last week, it was reported that China still didn't have a broadcaster for the largest World Cup ever. FIFA had intended to sell the rights for World Cup at a high price, but Chinese state broadcaster CCTV didn't agree. Despite having a huge audience of football fans, the fact that China wasn't in the competition and that most games would happen in the middle of the night made it far less appealing (China only played once in World Cup, in 2002, and lost all matches).
In the end, the rights were sold to the parent company of CCTV, at an undisclosed price, and the competition will be distributed in China Mobile's streaming platform Migu. An agreement between FIFA and India, where the TV rights also haven't been sold for the same reasons, has not yet been reached with less than a month before the competition.