Why is this out of the gate bad? Note that this is not taking FIFA to private equity, but creating an investors owned subsidiary to run events and commercial operations where the non profit arm will still own 80% of it. With the right protections it could help FIFA make more money and reinvest in the sport, particularly women’s football. FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA. Soccer is by far the most popular sport on the planet, the fact that it makes a lot less money than hockey is insane.

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jotajota24 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Why is it bad to sell 20% of the biggest tournament in the world to a private company lead by people involved with the most corrupt administration in the history of the US? The model has been working fine for decades, why does it matter that it makes less than american sports?

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tedggh an hour ago | parent [-]

The most beloved, most watched sport in the world making less than the American/Canadian hockey league is a commercial failure. Non profits are generally inefficient at running businesses. With the right guardrails a private arm that knows how to run a business could help FIFA make a ton of money. And yes a lot of rich guys will become even richer too, so what?

	▲	RAM-bunctious 6 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		But FIFA is the governing body of a sport, not a business. Hearing you say this is like hearing someone say that the United Nations is a commercial failure. Its purpose is to regulate and administer international football on behalf of its member associations, enforce compliance with its regulations, organise international competitions to relieve the member associations of the hassle, administer anti-doping programmes and related integrity measures (lol), and, through its membership of IFAB, help determine and promote the consistent application of the Laws of the Game worldwide. Its revenues only exist to support those functions. Is there a need for it to have profit motive? Would the world be better if it decided it should have one? I don't see how the answer could be yes to either question. The mention of guardrails is a little Onion-esque given the organisation and people in question
	▲	triceratops an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> help FIFA make a ton of money It's a non-profit. So who cares? Why is more money automatically good? > making less than the American/Canadian hockey league is a commercial failure They aren't alike. The NHL doesn't happen once every 4 years.
	▲	kzrdude an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		The point of Fifa is not to make money. The point of it is to further the interests of the sport. Besides, your tally of sports incomes is wrong since you didn't include UEFA revenue, which is also football money, in the count.
	▲	gspr 15 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Good thing it's a sport and not a commercial operation then!
	▲	rassimmoc an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		guardrails, yea pedotrump pissed all over existing guardrails in this wc. and you want to sell him a piece of fifa :D
	▲	LocalH 28 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> a commercial failure Not everything has to have the teeth of capitalism continually biting down harder and harder. Plateaus are ok (and this is nowhere near a plateau)

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sailingparrot 14 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You are comparing apple and oranges, it makes no sense.

> Soccer is by far the most popular sport on the planet, the fact that it makes a lot less money than hockey is insane.

Soccer makes much much more money than the NHL, it just doesn't all go to FIFA because the vast majority of matches are not organized by FIFA.

The premier league alone makes more than the NHL and that's just one of the european countries. La ligua, bundesliga also each make close to what the NHL makes with much smaller populations.

The fair comparison to FIFA is the IIHF. They make $35M for the hockey world championships vs 15B for the football world cup, you are slightly off, a rounding error.

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triceratops an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA.

FIFA holds one significant money-making tournament for a month every 4 years (all due respect to the Women's World Cup in terms of prestige, but its revenue is a small fraction of the Men's World Cup). The NHL runs 6 months a year annually.

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mattm 15 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Closer to 10 months actually - Oct (Sept if you include the pre-season) through June.

But just to add on for comparison, the NHL has 1312 regular season games. Plus 4 rounds of best-of-7 playoff series with 16 teams making the playoffs. Let's say an average of 5.75 games per round, that's 86 playoff games bringing us to ~1400 games per year.

Over 4 years, that's 5600 games. The FIFA World Cup had 104 games this year. It's actually pretty impressive that the WC can even make 40% while hosting < 2% of the games that the NHL has. Or put another way, 1 WC game is equivalent to 54 NHL games - 2/3 of one team's full regular season.

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tedggh an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That’s part of their poor commercial vision. Even the World Cup brings less revenue than one season of the NBA. Doesn’t even make sense to compare it with the NFL.

	▲	bl0b 37 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		So what. The point of the World Cup is a worldwide celebration of soccer, interchange of culture. It belongs to the people. It's one of the only things left whose purpose is not just to make as much money as possible.
	▲	triceratops an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Again, it doesn't last as long as one season of the NBA or play as many games. A single NBA season has over 1200 games - over 12 times as many games as the most recent World Cup (104). And that was already the largest-ever WC. Does the NBA have 12x the revenue of the WC? > Even the World Cup brings less revenue than one season of the NBA This isn't even true btw. The 2026 WC made $15b and the 2025-26 NBA season made $14.3 billion. [1][2] Most of the WC's participating teams represent places poorer than the places NBA teams hail from. You can't run the World Cup like the NBA. That's not how the sport works. 1. https://www.sportico.com/leagues/basketball/2025/nba-revenue... 2. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/18/fifa-record...

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millhouse_ams an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

NHL/NFL/NBA are national leagues, the FIFA world cup a tournament that takes place every four years. You’re comparing apples and pears.

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xxs 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As a pundit - more 'water works', the addition in the last world cup was beyond lame.

>FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes,

That's entirely irrelevant, if FIFA even makes zero - most of the money is in the local leagues. FIFA is just there for the world cup

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rassimmoc an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

don't be naive. Never in the history of humanity did corrupt billionaire pedophiles do anything help the sport/fans/women/..... They want a piece to get the foot in the door. 10 years from now, we wont even recognise football anymore.

I don't care what american billionaires make with nhl/nfl/..., hands fucking off of football.

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warkdarrior an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Soccer is by far the most popular sport on the planet, the fact that it makes a lot less money than hockey is insane.

Maybe fans would prefer that it stayed that way.. making just enough money to keep the sport going, without the profit motive.

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monkey_monkey 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> Soccer is by far the most popular sport on the planet, the fact that it makes a lot less money than hockey is insane.

The NFL makes much less money than nVidia The world has gone mad! That's just insane.