Vietnam yet to buy expensive World Cup broadcasting rights

Recently, an agency that owns the 2022 World Cup rights in the Asia-Pacific zone has come to Vietnam to negotiate with some domestic broadcasters and media companies, Giao Thong newspaper reported.

The price that this agency required is $15 million.

"It is difficult or should I say impossible to recover the money spent to purchase the World Cup rights. However, we will try to obtain it to serve the audience, of course not at all costs. Although facing the risk of loss, we will buy it with the condition that the FIFA agent must reduce the price to a threshold that we can afford. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the parties to continue negotiation," a member of the negotiation team for World Cup rights told Thanh Nien newspaper on Wednesday.

The unit that buys the media rights for the 2022 World Cup, scheduled to take place in Qatar from November 21 to December 18, will have the television monopoly rights (terrestrial, cable, satellite, internet TV) and non-exclusive broadcasting rights in the territory of Vietnam. Streaming rights on mobile and internet rights will be exclusive.

In this package, FIFA requires stations to broadcast on channels promoting certain matches, such as the opening match, the closing match to reach at least a certain percentage of the country's population to watch these matches.

Four years ago, Vietnam was the last country in the world to buy the 2018 World Cup media rights for $10 million.

In the past, national broadcaster VTV bought the rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups for $3.5 million and $7 million, respectively.