Gaming
India’s broadcasters say no to Fifa World Cup 2026
Fifa has slashed its asking price by 65 per cent but India’s broadcasters are still not buying
MUMBAI: The world’s biggest sporting event cannot find a single taker in the world’s most sports-mad nation. Fifa’s television rights for the 2026 World Cup remain unsold in India, and the clock is ticking loudly.
To shift the property, world football’s governing body has already swallowed hard and cut its asking price from $100m to $35m, bundling in the 2030 edition as a sweetener. It has not worked. Indian broadcasters have looked at the offer, done the sums and quietly walked away.
The reasons are brutally simple. The 2026 tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off in a time zone that turns India’s primetime into a graveyard shift. Most matches will air between midnight and 7am IST, a scheduling catastrophe for advertisers chasing mass reach. The 2022 Qatar edition was a gift by comparison, with matches dropping neatly into Indian evenings. North America offers no such luxury.
The market itself has also changed beyond recognition. The merger of Star India and Viacom18 into JioStar has gutted the competitive tension that once sent sports rights prices soaring. Where rival bidders once slugged it out, there is now a single dominant buyer, and it is in no hurry. JioStar has valued the rights at roughly $25m, a full $10m below Fifa’s already-discounted floor price. That gap has so far proved unbridgeable.
Broadcasters are also nursing a ferocious cricket hangover. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian media houses committed well over $10bn to cricket rights alone, covering IPL, ICC events and BCCI domestic fixtures combined. After a binge of that scale, appetite for a football package that delivers a fraction of the ratings, in the dead of night, is close to zero.
The economics of football broadcasting make the maths even harder. Cricket, with its natural breaks every few overs, is an advertiser’s paradise. Football offers a 15-minute halftime and precious little else. Recovering a nine-figure rights fee from a single half-hour ad window is a stretch at the best of times. These are not the best of times: the Indian government’s tightening grip on real-money gaming and gambling advertising has vaporised a category that once underwrote the economics of big sporting events.
Nor is the World Cup an anomaly. Indian Super League valuations have cratered. English Premier League rights have softened across successive cycles. The cooling of football as a broadcast commodity in India is structural, not cyclical.
With the tournament opening on 11th June, Fifa is running out of road. It may yet blink and meet JioStar at $25m. Or it may go direct, streaming the entire tournament on its own platform, Fifa+, or cutting a digital deal with YouTube, and hoping that a generation of Indian football fans finds its way there without a broadcaster to guide them.
Either way, the beautiful game’s Indian chapter is looking decidedly ugly.
Gaming
Interio by Godrej partners with FAU-G Bharat League 2.0 Finals
Furniture brand showcases ergonomic gaming chairs at major Mumbai esports event.
MUMBAI: Interio by Godrej has levelled up its game, this time by giving India’s competitive gamers a comfortable place to sit while they dominate the leaderboard. The leading furniture brand from Godrej Enterprises Group collaborated with Dot9 Games for the FAU-G Bharat League 2.0 Finals held in Mumbai. The offline tournament brought together over 100 competitive players for intense esports action.
As part of the partnership, Interio by Godrej showcased its specially designed ergonomic gaming chair, engineered to support long hours of gameplay with superior posture support, comfort, and overall wellbeing. Players got to experience the chairs first-hand during the high-intensity matches.
The event was graced by movie superstar and OG Khiladi Akshay Kumar, who felicitated the winners, adding star power and highlighting the growing mainstream appeal of esports in India.
Interio by Godrej head of marketing communications Reshu Saraf said the collaboration was driven by the evolving needs of India’s gaming community. “Players are investing significant time and skill into their setups. We wanted to show how thoughtful furniture design can enhance the overall gaming experience without compromising on comfort,” she noted.
Dot9 Games co-founder & CEO Deepak Ail added that comfort and physical wellbeing are becoming essential for sustained performance in competitive gaming. “Interio by Godrej’s gaming chairs added real value to the experience at the finals,” he said.
Beyond the event, Interio extended exclusive discounts on the gaming chairs to FAU-G players across its database to improve accessibility for the community.
This partnership reflects Interio by Godrej’s strategy to design products that respond to modern lifestyle shifts while strengthening its presence in India’s fast-growing esports ecosystem.
When gamers spend hours locked in battle, the right chair can mean the difference between victory and back pain. Interio by Godrej has clearly understood the assignment and delivered a comfortable win for players and the brand alike.
