Dr. Merryn Sherwood
Senior Lecturer in Journalism in La Trobe University, Australia. A former sports journalist and international sport media manager, whose research now focuses on disruption in sport and media. She is the lead author of Sport and The Media: Managing the Nexus (2025, Routledge).
Email: m.sherwood@latrobe.edu.au
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merryn-sherwood-80239829/
It’s the day before the 2026 FIFA World Cup final and fans are being taken on an inside look of the venue, walking through the Spanish change-room, a close-up with the trophy, heading out on the pitch.
But it’s not a broadcaster taking us through Met-Life Stadium, it’s Belgian YouTuber Celine Dept – who bounces through each frame in her trademark upbeat style. While this is access normally reserved for rights-holding broadcasters who have paid for the privilege, Dept is with the FIFA creator program.
While this World Cup is not the first to foray into the creator space, it was significant in how much access it afforded them – as Dept’s behind the scenes videos showed. As digital becomes a central part of sports’ media strategy though, this World Cup still showed though that this access is not afforded to all.
Sport and media have always shared a symbiotic relationship. Media used sport to gain audiences and subscribers, and sport turned professional from the money that flowed through broadcast rights deals.
But the digital era has threatened to disrupt this relationship. More than 15 years ago, media sport scholars Brett Hutchins and David Rowe argued that the model of sport content production was moving from one of scarcity to that of digital plenitude, where digital technology meant the creation and consumption of sport content was suddenly available outside of traditional media spaces.
Unsurprisingly, this caused conflict, largely as sports organisations and media organisations tried to hold onto control of where their product appeared. Hutchins and Rowe detailed multiple cases that ended up in court in Australia, including a failed attempt to stop illegal streamers, a sports organisation trying to limit the use of video highlights on newly multi-platform newspaper websites, and an athlete testing image rights. At one point the IOC also attempted to ban its athletes using blogging platforms at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Managing access to sport on digital platforms was becoming messy, and this was before the widespread use of social media.
Flash forward to now, and digital has become a central fixture of any major sport event. But this 2026 FIFA World Cup showed how FIFA has managed to both leverage digital to their advantage, but also ensure they were in control.
The digital imprint of the FIFA World Cup was hard to miss. At the end of the round of 32, video numbers were up 485%, and overall digital impressions already at 30 billion. TikTok content posted by the World Cup account generated 24 billion views. YouTube said it recorded 1.7 billion unique viewers globally, and videos led by its hand-picked creators like Celine Dept and IShow Speed clocked over 2.5 billion views.
Part of the hesitation in initially allowing creators into sport spaces has also been about protecting rights-holding broadcasters, who pay for that access, and those funds then make up a significant part of sport revenue. FIFA’s 2025 finance snapshot noted that the governing body’s total revenue was USD 2,661 million, and USD 1,044 million came from broadcasting rights.
But FIFA did not prioritise creators over rights-holders. The expanded tournament added more valuable match content and hydration breaks provided new commercial opportunities, and television ratings saw records globally, but broadcasters also had a digital boost. As well as activating streaming platforms, a FIFA and TikTok deal allowed up to 10 minutes of live game footage shown on broadcaster accounts, which delivered more than 465 million views.
It also became apparent that creators, at least at this event, were not really trying to perform the same functions as media, they weren’t necessarily discussing tactics, or injuries, or direct game-content, instead the chosen creators from YouTube and TikTok focused on entertainment, challenges, personalities and fan experiences. A natural difference in content did show that there is a path for creators and rights-holding broadcasters to co-exist.
But behind the scenes, the growth delivered to official channels was also only possible through restricting others. In one example reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, a smaller Australian creator with 10,000 Instagram followers had his account flagged and then completely deleted after he said he accidentally shared rights-holding footage, losing the potential for $25,000 worth of brand deals. FIFA’s takedown program was vast, and quick, ensuring that rights-holders footage and preferred creators were protected.
In the end, FIFA found a way to have it both ways: embracing creators to maximise engagement while maintaining strict control over access and content. Even in an era of participatory media, FIFA was firmly in control of who gets access, what gets shared, and who ultimately gets to tell the story of the world’s biggest sporting event.
