World Cup Coverage at Risk as Paramount Targets Warner Bros.

World Cup racing has already gone through two chaotic seasons of new formats, new broadcasters, and new paywalls — and now the entire streaming future of the sport is getting thrown into even more uncertainty. Warner Bros. Discovery, the company currently responsible for World Cup broadcasting through Eurosport and Max/Discovery+, is now the target of a massive corporate showdown. Today Paramount launched a $108 billion hostile takeover bid, while Netflix has a competing offer that Warner’s board initially backed.

Whoever wins doesn’t just inherit movie studios. They inherit the entire sports infrastructure that controls how World Cups reach fans worldwide. And for die hard wolrd cup fans, that matters a lot more than any Hollywood headline.

If Paramount wins, they get all of WBD’s sports assets in one fowl swoop — Eurosport included. Paramount already handles major live sports like the NFL and Champions League, meaning they actually have the capacity to fold mountain biking into a broader, more stable sports ecosystem. That could lead to cleaner coverage, unified platforms, and fewer hoops for fans to jump through to watch their favorite races. But Paramount is also known for cutting aggressively after acquisitions, and niche sports often land on the chopping block.

If Netflix wins, things get murkier. Their offer was structured around content and studios, not sports. Live sports are still new territory for Netflix, and they don't have the infrastructure WBD uses now. It was thought that they would likely separate the studio and the sports streaming, but the results and official word on that is unclear at best. If they carve off pieces of the company, World Cup streaming rights could end up in limbo while they figure out what to do with them — and could potentially lead to yet another round of reshuffling.

After years of inconsistent broadcasts, confusing packages, and geo-locked streams, the last thing the World Cup needs is another disruption. But until this corporate battle settles, the entire broadcast pipeline is in flux again. For race fans, that means one thing: don’t get too comfortable with how you watch races now. Change might be coming — and not necessarily on the UCI’s timeline.