Netflix has selected IMG as its production partner for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup in the U.S. and Canada. The agreement covers the production of 64 matches and over 100 hours of studio programming, representing a significant expansion of Netflix's live sports production capabilities.
This deal signals Netflix's transition from hosting one-off exhibition events to managing the sustained technical demands of a month-long international tournament. By outsourcing production to IMG, which already handles Major League Soccer and UEFA Champions League coverage, Netflix mitigates the operational risk of building a global sports broadcast infrastructure from scratch. The move places Netflix in direct competition with traditional broadcasters for premium FIFA rights, shifting the competitive landscape for soccer media in North America. Watch for the December 2026 Final Draw as a technical benchmark for how Netflix integrates its proprietary talent with IMG's established production workflow.
IMG has built a substantial portfolio of live sports production contracts that positions it as one of the few vendors capable of handling a tournament of this scale. IMG currently produces Major League Soccer coverage for Apple TV and handles UEFA Champions League broadcast operations, giving it existing relationships with rights holders who demand multi-language, multi-platform delivery at scale. The 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup will be the largest women's sporting event ever produced in North America, with 64 matches spread across venues in the United States and Canada, and IMG's existing infrastructure for MLS and UEFA competitions provides a tested operational foundation for managing simultaneous match feeds, studio segments, and international distribution.
Netflix's live sports strategy has accelerated rapidly over the past two years, moving from one-off events to sustained programming commitments. Netflix announced in early 2026 that it had secured a multi-year deal to stream NFL Christmas Day games through at least 2027, a contract that required the company to build out live production workflows at a pace unprecedented for a streaming platform. The IMG partnership for the Women's World Cup represents a different model: rather than building internal production capacity, Netflix is outsourcing the heaviest technical lift to a specialist while retaining editorial and distribution control. This mirrors the approach Netflix took with its boxing and tennis events, where third-party production partners handled venue operations while Netflix managed the viewer experience layer.
The 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup will also serve as a proving ground for remote and distributed production techniques that have become standard in live sports since 2020. FIFA confirmed in September 2026 that the tournament will use a centralized International Broadcast Centre model with remote production capabilities for select matches, reducing the number of on-site crew required per venue and enabling a single production hub to manage multiple simultaneous feeds. For Netflix, this architecture aligns with its cloud-native distribution model, where content is ingested, encoded, and delivered through AWS infrastructure rather than traditional broadcast playout chains. The combination of IMG's field production expertise and Netflix's software-defined delivery stack could establish a template for how streaming platforms handle future large-scale live events.
Netflix has partnered with IMG to produce coverage for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup. This deal covers 64 matches and 100 hours of studio programming. By outsourcing production to IMG, Netflix mitigates operational risks and shifts its live sports strategy from one-off events to managing sustained, large-scale international tournament broadcasts.
The partnership covers the production of all 64 matches of the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup, including over 100 hours of studio programming and multi-language coverage for the U.S. and Canadian markets.
The partnership includes the production of the live Final Draw, which is scheduled to take place on December 11, 2026.
The rights secured by Netflix for the FIFA Women’s World Cup extend through both the 2027 and 2031 tournament cycles.
Netflix chose to outsource to IMG to leverage their existing infrastructure and expertise in handling large-scale live sports, such as Major League Soccer and UEFA Champions League, allowing Netflix to focus on editorial and distribution control.
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