NBCU Sells Out Telemundo's Major 2022 World Cup Sponsorships

The 2022 FIFA World Cup is still more than a year away, but advertisers are already lining up to sponsor NBCUniversal and Telemundo’s Spanish-language broadcast of the soccer competition. With twelve months to go, NBCUniversal and Telemundo are sold out of the competition's major sponsorship spots, which include the presenting sponsorships for the pre-game, halftime and post-game shows, said Dan Lovinger, evp sales and partnerships, NBC Sports Group. NBCU expects most of its inventory to be sold out entirely ahead of its spring 2022 upfront, Lovinger said. Already, Telemundo has doubled the number of ad sales compared to the same time ahead of the 2018 World Cup in Russia—doubling its linear revenue and tripling its digital revenue—even though the broadcaster is still ironing out many of its programming and coverage plans. (Fox will broadcast the United States' English language World Cup coverage.) “For Hispanic audiences, the FIFA World Cup is their Super Bowl and their Olympics combined, and because of that reach and scale, we already know we are going to deliver the biggest event in Spanish-language media across all platforms in 2022,” Lovinger told press at a virtual presentation Tuesday. Telemundo Creates Hispanic Streaming Division to Develop Peacock Programming NBC and Telemundo executives say advertisers are interested in the World Cup due to their global and varied audiences. In 2018, World Cup viewers were 40% female, and 80% of them were bilingual, Lovinger said. That, combined with the unusual fall timing of the competition, has helped drive more interest than prior years. Lovinger said that demand for inventory is “stronger than ever,” and that NBCUniversal’s “once-in-a-lifetime” sports line-up that kicked off this summer with the Summer Olympics has helped attract advertisers. “With the Summer Olympics in Tokyo behind us, the Winter Games and the Super Bowl just ahead of us, and the World Cup on the horizon, advertisers have an unparalleled opportunity to be part of something extremely special—and by all accounts, they are extremely happy about it,” Lovinger said. Early Cup coverage Telemundo is already tapping into audience interest with its coverage of qualifying matches, which began this fall and will continue through early 2022. It is also preparing for its on-site coverage of the matches, with a Telemundo delegation heading to Qatar beginning in December to cover the Arab Cup, which begins Nov. 30 and runs through early December. Eli Velazquez, NBCU Telemundo Enterprises’ evp of sports content, said the Arab Cup coverage will allow the team to scout additional broadcast locations and test transmission in the country ahead of the World Cup, during which the broadcaster will have a presence inside all of the venues to cover all 64 matches and will broadcast from a main studio in a nearby marketplace in capital city Doha. While coverage plans are still being finalized, there were some new details shared today: the broadcaster plans to air 56 of the games on Telemundo and simulcast eight games on Telemundo-owned Spanish-language channel Universo. Additionally, the games will be available to livestream. The company is banking on big audiences tuning in to the Cup next year, benefitting from a favorable time zone that will have matches airing throughout the day in many major markets and an expectation of high-level play due to the schedule shift to the fall, which will let players compete in lower temperatures. “I think you can kind of have your cake and eat it,” said Telemundo Deportes president Ray Warren. “You can have the World Cup on all day and whatever you want at night, except for on Thanksgiving, when we will be on for 12 hours. My expectation is we will have more views than we have seen, with more activity on the digital side. It’s just a bigger, better event.” It’s safe to say executives also have their fingers crossed that both men’s teams from the U.S. and Mexico qualify. “I am lighting candles [praying] that Mexico gets in,” Warren said.

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NBCU Sells Out Telemundo's Major World Cup Sponsorship Spots a Year Ahead

Broadcaster doubles linear revenue and triples digital revenue compared to 2018 timeframe

Kelsey Sutton

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Kelsey Sutton