Tube Trends: How ESPN Is Covering World Cup Without TV Rights

ESPN hasn’t had FIFA Men’s World Cup rights since the 2014 tournament. And while that can pose a challenge for the cable giant as the world’s largest sporting event takes over the news cycle, ESPN has still gotten creative with its approach via social video (and YouTube, in particular).

Fan-Generated Content

ESPN may not have the rights to air FIFA highlights from the World Cup games, but similar to how it’s been able to handle the Olympics in recent years, the nature of social video opens up access in new ways.

Instead of focusing on the highlights it largely can’t show (without working through extensive permissions from FIFA and/or TV partner Fox), ESPN has leaned into its soccer-focused YouTube channels like ESPN FC and ESPN UK to showcase non-game action and fan-generated content.

Data from Tubular Labs shows that ESPN-owned YouTube channels have uploaded over 150 videos about soccer since the start of the World Cup, with the most-seen peaking at off-field moments and fan reactions.

Despite ESPN covering the New York Knicks’ thrilling NBA Finals win, its ESPN FC upload of Belgian soccer creator Celine Dept meeting Cristiano Ronaldo still generated over 900K views, which is No. 13 among all ESPN videos since the World Cup started.

Mexican fans at Los Angeles Coliseum were thrilled to see their team open up the World Cup with a goal on the first matchday, and the video of the jubilant reaction received 475K views. ESPN FC also generated hundreds of thousands of views posting videos around the Spanish team training, player pronunciations, and Dutch fans singing en masse.

While plenty of ESPN’s video presence (across all platforms) has the benefit of owning game rights for many sports, the cable sports behemoth still creates a significant amount of its engagement via user-generated content as a way to better connect with fans with vertical video.

Having those muscles in place already makes effectively covering an event like the World Cup or Olympics, where the company doesn’t have the same access, that much easier.

Recirculating Highlights, Spanish-Language Outreach

ESPN has also been able to engage soccer fans by recirculating highlights for non-World Cup matches it does have access, as well as leaning into its Spanish-language ESPN Deportes channel to speak directly to those fans and their own respective passions for soccer.

Since the start of the World Cup, 10 of ESPN’s 15 most-watched soccer videos have been either Spanish-language, previous game highlights or both.

No. 1 in there includes extended highlights from a Brazil-Egypt friendly before the start of the tournament, which generated 1.5 million views in two days.

Given Brazil’s size as a soccer audience (No. 1 among soccer creator country views, per Tubular), the decision to lean back into those highlights six days after the match paid dividends for ESPN. The same went for recycled highlights from Argentina-Iceland (344K), which were reposted to capitalize on the high interest in star Lionel Messi.

Studio reactions have also generated results, especially around the Mexican national team.

Five of ESPN’s top soccer videos during the timeframe were studio shows analyzing Mexico’s 2-0 win over South Africa, all through ESPN Deportes. Additionally, ESPN Deportes also covered the United States team’s impressive start after a 4-1 in over Paraguay.

ESPN FC and ESPN UK got in on the action as well around the U.S. squad, with one video (197K views) asking just how far the Stars and Stripes can go in this tournament.

What’s Next?

With the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final (both of which appeared on ABC and ESPN) complete, ESPN’s focus is now able to shift more fully to covering the World Cup and the U.S. team’s quest to advance out of the group stage.

Last week’s victory put the team well on its way there, which should help build significant momentum for fan tune-in and engagement (the Paraguay match was already the most-watched U.S. soccer game ever). With that will mean more content from ESPN — both in terms of UGC shares and studio content talking through the team’s results and chances going forward.