The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 has finally come to an end with Argentina becoming the winner. The stunning performances of Argentina’s Lionel Messi and France’s Kylian Mbappe spruced up the final game, giving thrills to the audience. The tournament, which is an outcome of years of effort and investments by FIFA, earned close to $7.5 billion through commercials. According to reports, it is $1 billion higher than the revenue generated in the Russia World Cup 2018.
For FIFA, the World Cup is the main source of income. FIFA’s estimated revenue budget for the World Cup 2022 was about $4.7 billion. Of that, FIFA struck commercial contracts of about $3.8 billion. It constituted about 82 per cent of the total target. The rise in earnings is due to the cost savings by FIFA in Qatar. FIFA could save money as the whole tournament was organised in one city. All stadiums were within a 50-kilometre radius of Doha. Hence, FIFA could cut down travel costs and extra infrastructure.
FIFA’s earnings come mainly from five main categories -Television broadcasting rights, marketing rights, hospitality rights and ticket sales, licensing rights and others. Of them, television broadcasting rights make the largest contributor, about 56 per cent of the total earnings. Marketing rights come second with 29 per cent. The remaining categories constitute 15 per cent of the 2022 revenue budget.
The revenue target for television broadcasting rights was $2.64 billion during the 2022 football world cup. The total budget for marketing rights sales was $1.35 billion. The licensing rights budget was $140 million. In Qatar, tickets were 40 per cent costlier as compared with the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018. The final match ticket cost was about Rs 66,200 on average. The ticket revenue is estimated to be about $1 billion. FIFA expects it would jump almost 50 per cent in the 2026 World Cup.
