Rebecca Lowe is joining Netflix as a lead host for its coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup next summer, the streamer’s CCO Bela Bajaria announced at Puck & MoffettNathanson’s “In The Arena” event on Thursday.
Lowe hosted the men’s World Cup tournament for Fox Sports over the summer for the first time, primarily working in the studio alongside Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Alexi Lalas. Outside of covering the tournament, she is the host of Premier League coverage for NBC Sports and covers non-soccer properties for the company, including the Olympics and Kentucky Derby.
Lowe is the second official addition to the Netflix broadcast team in recent weeks, after the company signed Andrés Cantor to serve as a play-by-play voice. Netflix host Elle Duncan has anchored most of the company’s live sporting events since joining the company this year and will “have a prominent role” on the Women’s World Cup coverage, per a report by Richard Deitsch of Sports Business Journal.
Netflix holds English and Spanish-language rights to the 2027 and 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup in the United States, and English and French-language rights in Canada. The streamer is among several media companies to have publicly expressed interest in bidding for the 2030 men’s tournament, which have yet to be awarded.
Speaking to John Ourand of Puck at the “In The Arena” event Thursday, Bajaria reiterated that Netflix has interest in potentially covering the tournament. “We’re going to have those conversations. We have a relationship with FIFA, obviously, and we’ll see where those rights [are] available, what they cost.” She previously made similar comments in an interview with Alex Sherman of CNBC.
Bajaria also emphasized that Netflix remains committed to its event-based strategy rather than trying to bid for full-season rights packages, a point that has been reiterated ad infinitum by Netflix executives.
“The strategy for us to just say, ‘What’s an event?,’ and eventize a moment,” Bajaria said. “It can be a Christmas Day game, it can be Opening Week, it can be opening game of MLB, it can be Women’s World Cup, so it’s just what is sort of a sporting event. We can create a lot of conversation around [it], make it very sort of appointment television. That’s sort of what we gravitate towards — really creating a big moment, something that feels unmissable — and that can be sports or it could be other live events.”
