{"id":559426,"date":"2026-07-20T18:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559426\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T18:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:34:10","slug":"rte-secures-exclusive-free-to-air-irish-rights-to-2030-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559426\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 secures exclusive free-to-air Irish rights to 2030 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The national broadcaster has announced it has secured exclusive free-to-air rights to the 2030 Fifa World Cup in Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday night, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/sport\/world-cup-final-follow-the-action-from-argentina-vs-spain-1929143.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spain claimed victory over Argentina<\/a> to be crowned the 2026 World Cup champions.<\/p>\n<p>More than one million people watched the match live on RT\u00c9 2, the organisation said, and it became the most-streamed single event in the history of the RT\u00c9 Player, with more than 1.4 million streams.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, the broadcaster announced it had obtained the rights to the next tournament, which will be hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with three games also to be held in South America.<\/p>\n<p>Across the 2026 tournament\u2019s fixtures, viewers of RT\u00c9 Player generated 23.4 million streams, nearly three times the audience of the 2022 World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Along with the final, the top-performing matches of the tournament included England v Argentina, France v Spain and England v Norway.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, RT\u00c9\u2019s director general Kevin Bakhurst said he was \u201cdelighted\u201d the organisation had the rights to the next World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>    We look forward to bringing the next Fifa World Cup to Irish audiences, including the Republic of Ireland&#8217;s qualification campaign which we hope will be successful<\/p>\n<p>            RT\u00c9 director general Kevin Bakhurst<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"not-prose no-underline\" data-action=\"click\" data-category=\"Read more article clicked\" data-label=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/sport\/world-cup-saved-as-spain-overcome-anti-football-argentina-1929555.html\" data-value=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/sport\/world-cup-saved-as-spain-overcome-anti-football-argentina-1929555.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gettyimages-2286258274-e1784569099857.jpg\" class=\"rounded-sm object-contain bg-transparent z-10 w-full h-full not-prose\" alt=\"World Cup Saved As Spain Overcome Anti-Football Argentina\" width=\"278\" height=\"156\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        Sport<\/p>\n<p>World Cup saved as Spain overcome anti-football Argentina<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cThe huge number of streams on RT\u00c9 Player throughout the tournament has been one of our big success stories this year and has highlighted the value of our investment in the service in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe look forward to bringing the next Fifa World Cup to Irish audiences, including the Republic of Ireland\u2019s qualification campaign which we hope will be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The organisation\u2019s head of sport Declan McBennett said Sunday had been a \u201cmemorable day\u201d, with \u201cthe All-Ireland hurling final and the 2026 Fifa World Cup final bringing an exciting day of live sport to audiences\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The national broadcaster has announced it has secured exclusive free-to-air rights to the 2030 Fifa World Cup in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-559426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}