RTÉ has secured the exclusive Irish free-to-air rights to the 2030 Fifa World Cup, which will be hosted across Spain, Portugal and Morocco with three centenary games to be held in South America. Football fans across Ireland tuned into RTÉ’s coverage of the FIFA World Cup as Spain edged out Argentina to be crowned 2026 FIFA World Cup champions.
The final generated over 1.4 million streams on RTÉ Player, making it the most-streamed single event in the platform’s history. Across the tournament as a whole, audiences generated 23.4m streams. It is an increase of almost 15 million streams and nearly three times the audience achieved during the 2022 Fifa World Cup, which recorded 8.5m streams.
Spain v Argentina (average audience of one million, 65 per cent share on RTÉ2, and 1.4 million streams on RTÉ Player), England v Argentina (average audience 949k, 60 per cent share on RTÉ2, and amillion streams on RTÉ Player), France v Spain (average audience of 873k, 61 per cent share on RTÉ2, and a million streams on the Player).
RTÉ’s coverage of the Fifa World Cup 2026 was sponsored by Heineken 0.0 (above).
