Your guide to watching the 2018 World Cup

Soccer (also known as football across the globe, except for America) is considered by many as the world’s most popular sport, and every four years, the beautiful game reaches fever pitch through the FIFA World Cup. For the 2018 edition of this glorious tournament, Russia will be playing host for a whole month, starting on June 14th until July 15th of this year. Okay, it is a major bummer that the United States did not qualify for this summer’s event, but that does not mean that people can’t enjoy watching the games. So here goes …

Cable and Satellite TV

For those soccer fans watching from the United States, they should know that all 64 World Cup matches will be broadcasted in English on Fox and Fox Sports. For those who prefer to watch the games with less measured commentary, they should watch it in Spanish by way of Telemundo (owned by NBCUniversal). 

Mobile Apps

It might be near impossible to follow all 64 games in the comfort of your home, but subscribers of cable and satellite TV services might be delighted to know that the mobile apps (Android and iOS) of Fox Sports, Telemundo, and NBC Sports (Spanish language) also deliver matches. Note though that Fox and Telemundo will be requiring pay TV authentication in order to allow users to watch games through these companies’ apps. 

Streaming Services

There is no shortage of non-traditional pay TV services these days, and the extra good news is that brands like Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV, and PlayStation Vue all carry Fox, Fox Sports, and Telemundo. On top of that, these brands also have apps on streaming boxes (like Roku and the Apple TV), game consoles, and for Android and iOS handsets.

For everything else

Streams are often shared on social media (more on this later) while games are playing live, but the quality may be all over the place (and it varies if you are watching through a mobile device or through a personal computer). Thankfully, Fox and Telemundo are broadcast channels, which means that with the right antenna, games can be watched on a regular TV. Of course, nothing still beats pay TV.

Social media and highlights

By teaming up with Fox Sports, Twitter has secured the rights to stream FIFA World Cup Now live from Russia. Just to be clear about everything, these are not live games, but a show that features match previews, game recaps, player/coach interviews, and of course, game highlights, along with the usual Twitter memes and reactions.

Speaking of highlights, Telemundo has joined forces with Google in order to serve game highlights (in Spanish) to soccer fans based in America. Whenever a user googles a specific match, game result, or national team, he will be redirected to a YouTube vid that will show goals, halftime recap, and other game info.