Fox hopes its broadcast of the 2026 World Cup on Fox One help drive subscriber gains for the nascent direct-to-consumer streamer.
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Fox One, the direct-to-consumer streaming service that launched in August 2025, has a rare shot to break through a cluttered streaming landscape littered with platforms that have failed to attract a sustainable audience when the World Cup kicks off on Thursday.
But broadcasting a signature event is only half the challenge.
Fox will definitely drive sampling—it’s offering a free three-day World Cup trial. The greater issue is how many of those people will stick around. Fox must sell them on the long-term value proposition.
It could be a tough push. “Consumers are suffering from subscription burnout,” George Castrissiades, head of CTV at Teads, a platform that creates connected consumer experiences, said. “At $19.99 a month, Fox One is on the pricier side and doesn’t offer a much cheaper ad-supported tier. The majority of viewers will subscribe for the two-month duration of the games, then likely churn at high rates. Looking at Peacock’s post-Olympics churn rates hovering around 9% versus somewhere in the 5-6% range for other services, there is strong evidence that the consumer strategy is a ‘get in, get out’ mindset when viewing these games.”
Here’s what it will take to convince them otherwise.
Fox One includes access to FOX Sports, FS1, FS2 and the Big Ten Network. Larry Atkins, an adjunct professor at Arcadia University and author of Foul or Fair? Ethical and Social Issues in Sports, expects to see heavy promotion of the service on the analog World Cup broadcast.
“This is FOX’s way to use a major sporting event to drive an increase in its streaming subscriptions, not just during the World Cup, but afterward,” Atkins said. “The World Cup is one of the most-watched sporting events in the world, and it tends to get very good viewership in the United States. Since younger people tend to like soccer and tend to use streaming services, FOX's approach seems like a good idea.”
He says that while the service has gotten off to a decent start, many people still don’t know it exists. This is essentially a month of free advertising.
“In terms of brand recognition, it likely falls behind more established streaming services like Peacock, Apple+, Paramount+, and Hulu,” Atkins added. “The World Cup could also raise awareness that FOX One carries the Big Ten Network, which also could appeal to younger viewers. In addition, the event can raise awareness of FOX Soccer Plus.”
The moment the 2026 World Cup ends on July 19, Fox needs to be ready to keep viewers’ attention, says Srinivasan KA, co-founder and president of global business at Amagi, which offers cloud solutions for broadcast and connected TV.
“The spike [in short-term streaming adoption] is real and predictable. But whether any of it sticks depends almost entirely on what the platform has waiting on the other side of the final whistle,” KA said. “We've seen this play out enough times now to know the pattern: audiences show up for the event, and then they look around to see if there's a reason to stay. If there isn't one, they leave, often within the first billing cycle.”
He says the industry has learned the hard way that a tentpole event is an entry point, not a destination. That means calculating what viewers want to see and having a heavy dose of it waiting in the wings. KA notes that could be the NFL, which Fox also carries. The league’s preseason games begin August 6.
“The thing people keep overlooking with Fox is that the World Cup ends in July and the NFL starts in September,” KA said. “That gap is short enough that a subscriber acquired during the tournament barely has time to reconsider before there’s a compelling reason to stay. Sky Sports built an entire business model around this idea, just making sure there was never a dead week in the calendar. Fox isn't that far off from having the same thing, at least seasonally.”
Alex Holtz, IDC, research director at Worldwide Media & Entertainment Digital Strategies, notes that sports rights are migrating to digital at a rapid pace.
Viewers are becoming conditioned to look for the NBA playoffs on Peacock and Thursday Night Football on Prime—something that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago.
That’s a good thing for Fox.
“Sports is now the lever that decides whether streamers can monetize at parity with the linear ecosystem they’re replacing,” Holtz said. “The $15 billion net premium-video swing in 2026 is mostly sports-and-tentpole-driven. Looking past 2026, the World Cup hosting cycle (2030 Spain/Portugal/Morocco, 2034 Saudi Arabia) will continue to anchor streaming inflection points, but the structural shift with linear declining 3%+ annually while CTV grows 18%+ is already locked in.”
NBC successfully leveraged the 2024 Paris Olympics to drive digital gains, according to Mike Swainey, president of the strategic content marketing and strategy firm Decision Counsel. There are lessons for Fox in that approach.
“Peacock didn’t just stream the Olympics; it packaged the event with highlights, multiview experiences, and curated programming that felt meaningfully different from traditional TV,” Swainey said. “NBCUniversal said Paris generated 23.5 billion streaming minutes, up 40% from all prior Summer and Winter Olympics combined.”
According to Antenna, Peacock added 2.8 million subscribers in the first week of those Games—but, he says, the bigger lesson from Peacock is not the spike.
“It is that they built a bridge. Peacock had a sports calendar lined up on the other side of the Olympics, including the NFL, Premier League, Big Ten, MLB and eventually the NBA," Swainey said. "That matters because a tentpole event can open the door, but only a broader content rhythm keeps people in the house.”
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