With FIFA’s expansion to 48 teams, the upcoming World Cup risks mimicking the "handball-tournament effect," where the audience only truly tunes in once the competition is halfway through—even if interest in the finals remains at an all-time high. A wealth of data suggests that national team football is losing the battle for daily attention.
TV Rights Under the Microscope
While the on-pitch results for France during their recent U.S. tour were deemed "acceptable," the latest data is deeply concerning, according to SportBuzzBusiness. Viewership has been described as "modest," dropping from a standard 8 million viewers to just around 5 million, mere months before the world’s biggest sporting event. This should set off every alarm bell and warning light, not just for the French Football Federation (FFF), but for boards across European football when discussing TV rights as a business unit.
A Serious Signal to International Football
Just three months before a major tournament, TV viewers are sending an unusual—and new—signal to FIFA, especially as the upcoming World Cup expands to 48 teams. It raises a central question: Is international football becoming a "quarter-final-only product" that viewers opt out of during the opening stages? The data suggests so.
The Knockout Stage Explosion
A quick look at the world of handball confirms this trend, backed by cold, hard facts. Viewing patterns from the 2025 World Championship and Euro 2026 show a massive imbalance between the group stages and the finals in handball’s most prestigious tournaments.
Double the Viewers
During the 2025 Men’s Handball World Championship, Denmark’s opening matches against nations like Algeria and Tunisia drew approximately 1.0 - 1.1 million viewers. However, as soon as the tournament reached the semi-finals and the final, those figures exploded to over 2.1 million. The 2025 final achieved a staggering "share" of 91.7% of all active televisions in Denmark. This proves that while interest in the big moments remains intact, fans have become "event tourists" who skip the initial "irrelevant" matches.
High Stakes for FIFA’s New Format
By expanding to 48 teams and 104 matches, FIFA is creating a structure with numerous "lopsided" matchups in the early stages. The risk is that the first 14 days of the World Cup will become a commercial wasteland, with the broad audience only connecting at the very end.
Streaming Loyalty in Freefall
Analyses from AGF (Germany) and BARB (UK) show that streaming viewers are far less loyal than traditional TV audiences. This problem is amplified by the technological shift. The 14-29 age demographic, in particular, will leave a stream with a single click if a match lacks intensity. Data from the German market documents that loyalty is crumbling as viewers transition to streaming. Fans are opting out of the "irrelevant minutes" and only tuning in when something is truly at stake.
Analysis: 48 teams is “risky”
An increasing number of fans are choosing 5-minute social media highlights over the full 90 minutes of live action. The national team no longer "owns" people's attention for an hour and a half unless it is an absolute top-tier clash. It is a paradox: interest in the trophy itself is greater than ever, but the road to getting there is becoming irrelevant. For national federations like the FFF, this selective interest is a direct threat to their core business.
New viewer habits makes troubling thoughts
FIFA is attempting to meet this "attention crisis" with more teams and more matches, but the result may be the exact opposite: a historically indifferent opening to the world’s greatest stage, because viewers have learned to wait until it actually matters. For the French national team, this is no longer a hypothetical scenario, but a jarring reality despite a successful sporting build-up.
Sources: SportBuzzBusiness: Tournée des Bleus aux US, Dansk Håndbold: Over to millioner så VM-finalen 2025, EHF Euro 2026: Record TV audiences at Men’s EHF EURO, AGF Videoforschung (Tyskland), BARB (UK), FIFA: World Cup 2026 Format Expansion.
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