RAI receives free-to-air broadcasting rights for the 2026 World Cup

Only a fortnight ago, a 'defeat' was put on record for RAI, and not a small one given the timing: the handover to Mediaset of the free-to-air rights to broadcast eight of the best matches of the Atp Finals in Turin for the next three to five years. Now a shot that smacks of revenge. Rai has in fact won the free-to-air rights for the next World Cup 2026.

The public company will broadcast 35 matches exclusively free-to-air, including the opening match, the semi-finals and the final, as well as all eventual matches of the national team (in this the Rai statement is evidently auspicious) qualification permitting. At least 32 matches will go on Rai 1, with highlights broadcast in every news and sports container, including the official social channels.

"When great sport calls, Rai answers. And it does so without compromise, offering viewers exceptional coverage of the event. We are talking about the Fifa World Cup 2026 - comments Rai's managing director, Giampaolo Rossi - which is an event acquired by Rai on an exclusive free-to-air basis for 35 matches that include the opening match, all the matches of the Italian national team (which we hope will qualify), the semi-finals, the final, radio rights and highlights and clips of all the matches. In short, we are happy to be able to offer all Italians to watch one match per match day live on RAI'.

For Viale Mazzini, therefore, an important chip on the side of sports rights - now after the broadcast of the free-to-air part of the '30 and praise' Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina - with the precise intention of reaffirming a vocation: to guarantee universal access to events that build collective memory. In 2018, on the occasion of the World Cup in Russia, for the first time without Italia, the choice was different. Since then, however, Rai, also in view of the countless controversies, has never wanted to miss the appointment with the top football competition.

2026, then, will be no ordinary edition. Organised by the United States, Mexico and Canada, it will be the first 48-team World Cup, with a total of 104 matches. An extra-large World Cup, expanded in numbers and geography, reflecting an increasingly global and less and less European-centric football. More matches mean more stories, more faces, more unexpected intersections.