With 48 teams playing 104 matches across 16 cities in the United States, Mexico and Canada, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is officially underway, setting the record for being the biggest tournament to date with the most host nations, most matches and organizers’ claims of record attendance.

While fans focus on the action on the field, broadcasters are tackling a challenge of their own: delivering a seamless viewing experience to millions of fans across connected TVs, mobile devices and digital platforms.

At NAB Show, the session “Streaming the World Cup at Scale: Delivering the World’s Biggest Event for a Massive Audience” brought together leaders from Globant, TelevisaUnivision and FOX to examine the technologies powering one of the world’s most demanding live events. The conversation explored how modern streaming operations are being designed to support unprecedented audience scale while maintaining reliability, minimal delays and quality performance. Speakers highlighted the importance of platform resilience during peak demand and the growing role of real-time engagement features that shape fan experiences.

For Alexandro Campos, vice president of Product and Engineering at TelevisaUnivision, success starts long before kickoff.

“I think the first thing we do is analyze traffic spikes, how it’s going to look at the World Cup and capacity planning,” he said, highlighting the importance of scalability for a seamless cross-platform performance such as this one.

As live streaming continues to evolve, AI is also becoming an important tool.

“AI is actually helping bring to life new features, new capabilities,” said Elissa Christie, senior vice president of Product Operations and Delivery at FOX, pointing to innovations that enhance both operational efficiency and viewer engagement.

As audience expectations continue to rise, this year’s World Cup serves as an important opportunity for the next generation of streaming innovation. The lessons shared during this session demonstrate how media companies are preparing not only for this month’s global event, but also for the future of large-scale live content delivery.

Signal of the Week

Want to learn more about how the FIFA World Cup prepares for production? Read our article “How Technology and Broadcast Innovation Are Powering the 2026 World Cup” summarizing the session “The Word Cup: Broadcasting the Biggest Event in Sports” to gain insight into what it takes to bring an event of this magnitude to life.

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