FIFA World Cup on NBC is the branding used for presentations of theFIFA World Cup produced by theNBC television network in the United States. NBC[1] was the official American network television broadcaster for the internationalassociation football competition in1966 and1986.[2][3]
The first American coverage[4] of the World Cup consisted only of apreviously filmed telecast of the1966 Final onNBC.[5][6][7] The Final was aired before their coverage of the SaturdayMajor League Baseball Game of the Week. NBC used theblack & whiteBBC feed and aired it on a two-hour film delay. This was the first time soccer had been shown in the United States as a stand-alone broadcast. Previously,ABC'sWide World of Sports had shownEngland'sFootball Association Cup on as long as a two-week delay.
On October 6, 1984. NBC'santhology series,SportsWorld[8] provided World Cup soccer qualifying coverage featuring theUnited States and theNetherlands Antilles.
1986 marked the first time that the World Cup had extensive livecable andnetwork television coverage in the United States.ESPN carried most of the weekday matches whileNBC did weekend games. To be more specific, NBC aired seven[9][10] matches, including the"Hand of God" quarterfinal, with broadcasters on-site. NBC's theme music[11] for their 1986 coverage wasHerb Alpert's[12] "1980", from his 1979 albumRise. It was originally a cue meant for the ill-fated1980 Moscow Summer Olympicsbroadcasts. Meanwhile, ESPN aired about 25 matches that year, all with broadcasters in studio.
NBC's producers were forced to run the games' audio feed throughtelephone lines rather than throughsatellites. This was because theInternational Broadcast Center inMexico City crossed up many communication lines. Consequently, various countries received commentary from others (or no sound or video at all). NBC in this case, received commentary from somewhere inSoutheast Asia and so were forced to haveCharlie Jonescall collect and broadcast theItaly-Bulgaria opener via a handset telephone receiver. NBC lost the sound but still had video so Charlie Jones dialed collect again.
On October 22, 2011, Deportes Telemundo acquired the Spanish language rights to broadcast theFIFA Men's andWomen's World Cup for around $600 million, replacingUnivision as the tournament's Spanish language broadcaster, which began carrying the World Cup tournaments in1970 (Fox acquired the English language U.S. broadcast rights through a separate agreement). The deal, which began with the2015 Women's World Cup and runs through 2026, includes rights to associatedFIFA-sanctioned tournaments (including the Men's Under 20 and Under 17 World Cups, and the Men's Beach Soccer World Cup), which will be telecast on Telemundo and NBC Universo; the deal was extended on February 12, 2015, to include rights to the2026 FIFA World Cup.[25][26][27]
On May 16, 2015, during Telemundo's 2015–16upfront presentation inNew York City, it was announced that Deportes Telemundo would be replaced by a new division initially known asNBC Deportes; the new division was formed as a branch of the English-languageNBC Sports division, and be responsible for sports content for Telemundo, NBC Universo and related digital platforms. While it retained all existing sports telecast rights and programs aired by both Telemundo and NBC Universo, the latter network also began to expand its sports coverage, primarily in preparation for the2016 Summer Olympics and the start of the division's contract withFIFA—whose first events included the2015 U-20 World Cup andWomen's World Cup.[28][29][30]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Fédération internationale de football association (FIFA) | |
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| Qualification | |
| Finals | |
| Squads | |
| Final draw | |
| Broadcasters | |
| Bids | |
| Officials | |
| Team appearances | |
| Other records |
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| Miscellaneous | |
