The World Cup is a public good. What else are we missing?

Prepared by Rashaad Ali

7 July 2026

Credit photo:The Sporting News

Every four years, an extraordinary global sleep deprivation event occurs. Mass hysteria grips the streets.  Nations and tribes forget they are frenemies. Families forgive past grudges and bond over shared sporting trauma. There’s nothing quite like the World Cup. 

The biggest tournament in the world far eclipses all other sporting events. It does not feel like a stretch to say the fever is greater than most national elections. People who do not ordinarily watch football watch the World Cup, bringing many out of dormancy once every four years, the pinnacle of community and family activity. I myself got into football through my mother (a Liverpool fan of the 80s), my earliest football memories being France 98. Yes, the head of Zidane winning it for the host nation, but for me it will always be Dennis Bergkamp’s outrageous goal against Argentina, one that defined elite sport as art. 

Cognitive dissonance required

Football is also home to some of the worst moral paradoxes. Increasing ticket prices are pricing out many working-class supporters. Football clubs operate as mega corporations and investment vehicles for the ultra-rich. Players on exorbitant wages, bought by clubs that pay exorbitant transfer fees. The hyper-commercialisation of every inch of the game not covered by glass ensures our eyes are continuously feasting on energy drinks and betting ads. Private ownership of clubs essentially uses their investment for “sportswashing” - a practice of using sports to improve their reputation and distract from less savoury activities. Football has become a display of wealth inequality broadcast live (provided you have paid for the right channel subscription). Some cognitive dissonance is required for fans.  

Keeping football free

This year, RTM has provided Malaysians with free access to all 104 World Cup matches. While not all matches are live, with some subject to delayed broadcast, this highlights the country’s dedication to ensuring the beautiful game is accessible to all football-mad Malaysians. On one hand, we have been spoiled over the years. RTM and Astro (with a subscription) have ensured football is readily accessible. This is no small thing because broadcasting rights for the World Cup are renegotiated every tournament. Broadcasting rights are a significant revenue for FIFA, the global football non-profit governing body and organiser of the World Cup. I asked a friend in England what his access was like, where a combination of BBC and ITV ensured the World Cup was free for all. “It’s basically a public good here”. 

Sports as a public good

A public good is a commodity or service that is readily available to everyone, free (“non-excludable”), and shared collectively (non-rivalrous). Typical examples include clean air, public parks, and indeed, public broadcasting. Perhaps at first glance, sports might be a weird thing to consider a public good. But on the other hand, perhaps not. Thinking back to any time our athletes have participated at the highest level of sport, it inevitably brings the nation together, sometimes grinding life to a halt. Let us not forget our penchant for public holidays declared off the back of big victories. 

In that sense, sport already functions as a public good. RTM’s free World Cup broadcast emphasises this. Nothing transforms a nation like the biggest competition in the world, with the spirit of the World Cup its own evidence. This past week, social media has been flooded with communities embracing one another. Mexican and South Korean non-verbal bonding, Scottish fans literally drinking the city of Boston dry. For us over here, so much communal time is spent on the World Cup, with family and friends, at home, or at the neighbourhood mamak, despite our tiny country having yet to qualify for a single World Cup. One can only imagine how electric it would be should we one day qualify. In times when our country focuses on the fault lines, the things that separate us, the us and thems, we have a ready-made catalyst for national harmony.

America and hyper-commercialisatio

This is especially relevant in the face of football hyper-commercialisation and its disconnection from the real world. None exemplifies this better than the World Cup being hosted in Mexico, Canada, and, crucially, the US. Rampant hypercapitalism has long overtaken American sports, with football now firmly in its sights. Soaring ticket prices using dynamic pricing models, transportation to stadiums tripling in price, and controversially, the introduction of “hydration breaks” during games, a thinly-disguised interruption to sell more ads on broadcast. There are valid concerns that these practices will now be adopted as the norm rather than the exception worldwide, subsequently ruining the communal experience for everyone. As it is, some countries require multiple subscriptions to watch a single league, making digital piracy more rampant.

Sports is political

We have not even considered how the US itself is embroiled in global conflicts and genocide complicity. It is literally at war with Iran, whose national teams play their games on American soil. Under the Trump administration, the country’s hard-right stance has seen the denial of entry to many fans, national team staff members, and even match officials. Four years ago, when the World Cup was hosted in Qatar, much attention was paid to the host country’s poor human rights record. It is no surprise to see America get a free pass this time around. The hypocrisy is stark, but any observer of global politics will tell you this is nothing new. In their game against Bosnia, Folarin Balogun of the US received a red card, suspending him for the next game. This decision was later suspended by FIFA after Donald Trump pressured the organisation to allow their star striker to play against their next opponents. At the time of writing, the US has lost to Belgium 4-1. No amount of American exceptionalism could have bridged the gulf between the two teams. 

The game we love is under threat. Sport builds the ties that bind communities together, yet it is constantly enclosed by capital, resold to us as a product. Governments privatising public goods is increasingly mooted as a solution, selling off our rights to the highest bidder. It is easy to decry the increasing price barriers to football, but far harder to imagine care work - childcare and elderly care - as a collective responsibility rather than a private burden. Yet the same governments that champion free World Cup access due to its cultural value are quietly defunding the public services and infrastructure that sustain everyday life. 

Goods that sustain basic dignity require constant investment and attention. We have long stopped thinking about quality of life beyond wealth accumulation. The World Cup is a great example of intangible benefits for the masses. If sports can be a public good, so can everything else that holds society together.