Less than a month from kick-off, neither China nor India have a confirmed domestic broadcast deal for the 2026 FIFA World Cup—for the Asian brands that have committed serious money to the tournament, that is a problem worth talking about.
As per Reuters, in India, a Reliance-Disney joint venture has offered US$20 million for broadcast rights, a fraction of FIFA's asking price and a gap the two sides have yet to bridge. China has made no official deal announcement despite accounting for 49.8% of all hours viewed on digital and social platforms globally during the 2022 World Cup. The world's two most populous nations, home to billions of football fans, may not be able to watch the tournament their own companies are paying to sponsor.
Sponsorship has globalised faster than the distribution systems designed to make it pay off. At this point, the paradox for Asian giants like Hisense (海信) and Mengniu (海) is less about reach and more about the return on investment.
In sports sponsorship, rights fees do not exist in isolation. They are only the starting point of a wider commercial ecosystem that depends on activation, media exposure, retail integration, and cultural relevance. When broadcast access is constrained or commercially misaligned with local market structures, the downstream value of sponsorship gets diluted.
The implications depend on the business model of the brand. Mengniu operates in a highly competitive, fast-moving consumer goods category in China. It relies on mass domestic visibility to drive retail conversion, often supported by tightly integrated campaigns across supermarkets, digital platforms, and live sports moments. When consumers cannot easily access the underlying event, the ability to activate sponsorship investment at scale is weakened.
Contrastingly, brands such as Hisense operate within a broader global footprint and a longer-cycle product strategy centred on durable goods and brand perception. For them, international exposure and association with major sporting events may still deliver value, even if domestic viewing penetration is less comprehensive Not all sponsorship ROI erodes at the same rate.
The structural roots of this problem are not limited to one tournament. China's sports broadcasting market is run via centralised licensing through CCTV, a framework that rarely maps neatly onto how international rights holders operate. India's is a more fragmented market with competing streaming platforms and evolving monetisation models. The point of friction in both countries is pretty much the same: sponsorship capital flows in, but the infrastructure to convert it into local engagement has not kept pace.
Collectively, China and India represent 2.8 billion fans yet lack access to domestic broadcasting. Sponsorship capital is flowing, yet the infrastructure required to fully convert that investment into local engagement has not kept pace.
This raises a fundamental question for rights holders and governing bodies: is sports sponsorship being fully monetised, or is value leaking through gaps in distribution?
The answer is likely somewhere in between. Sports properties have succeeded in globalising their commercial appeal but have not always achieved equivalent sophistication in local market integration. Sponsorship and broadcasting are still often treated as parallel revenue streams, rather than interdependent components of a single ecosystem.
It’s unlikely for sponsorship commitments
to change in the short-term. But when brands take a long-term view, blocked access
for huge swaths of domestic fans is bound to be a sticky point for renewals. The
next phase of sports globalisation should focus less on growing sponsorship
inventories and more on closing the gap between what rights holders sell and
what audiences can actually see.
Sharon Adesola David is the Shanghai-based director of S&M Agency.
