Peacock to stream all 104 World Cup matches in Dolby Vision

This move positions Peacock as a technical leader in the live sports streaming market, moving beyond the 1080p standard that has historically limited live digital broadcasts. By utilizing the AC-4 codec, NBCUniversal is addressing the massive bandwidth challenges of 4K live streaming while offering audio personalization features like dialogue enhancement. Success here establishes a blueprint for future high-stakes live events, as competitors like Fox Sports and ESPN face increasing pressure to match these high-fidelity benchmarks. Watch for Peacock's concurrency performance during the opening match on June 11 to see if the AC-4 efficiency gains translate to improved stream stability under heavy loads.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is a massive undertaking for NBCUniversal and its partners, with matches spanning 16 cities across Canada, Mexico, and the United States from June 11 to July 19. According to NBC Sports reports from June 2026, Telemundo and Universo will share the linear broadcast load, while Peacock serves as the exclusive daily streaming home for all matches in Spanish. To broaden initial reach, Peacock is providing limited access to its 'Select' tier subscribers for the first eight matches of the group stage before reverting to its Premium and Premium Plus tiers. Per Forbes in June 2026, competitor FOX One—the English-language rights holder—is offering its 104-match slate via a direct-to-consumer service priced at $19.99 per month.

Technical integration for this event began following a year-long joint engineering effort between Dolby and NBCUniversal, first teased at CES 2026. The shift toward premium formats like Dolby Vision 2 and AC-4 reflects a broader industry pivot toward treating streaming as a primary, rather than secondary, broadcast medium. Research from Guideline.ai in April 2026 noted that live sports now account for 40% of overall television revenue, underscoring the high stakes for Peacock's technical performance. Beyond visual fidelity, the deployment of the AC-4 codec—reported by Dolby as being 50% more efficient than older standards—is a critical response to the growing data demands of 4K and 8K video, which can require bitrates between 20MB and 90MB per second as cited by industry analysts in early 2026.