It is finally October 8, 2020, the Qatar 2022 World Cup is a little more than two years away, and after some Covid-19 related match postponements, the CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifiers finally return! You tune in onto beIN Sports on your cable or your streaming service and realize that your game is not on. So what now, what has happened?
If you had not heard months ago, BeIn Sports did not buy the rights for the South American qualifiers this time, and actually, no other sports channel like Fox or TUDN did either. As the world’s most exciting qualifiers, this has left fans dumbfounded as now they will have to scramble for ways to stream their favorite games.
There are two ways in which you can catch all CONMEBOL games legally, although it will not be anywhere as cheap as it was before. The first option is streaming with Fanatiz.
With Fanatiz, you can buy a team bundle for $49.95 which includes your team’s first two games plus 3 months free of the site’s regular basic plan. For example, if you follow the Colombian national team, for that price you can watch the first two games against Venezuela and Chile, plus have access to La Liga, Copa Libertadores, Argentine league, and Liga Aguila, among other things. After the first two games, then you would have to pay $29.95 per game as a PPV option.
To put this into perspective, each national team will play a total of 18 games. To watch all 18 games with Fanatiz you would have to invest a grand total of $49.95 (two games), plus $479.20 ($29.95 x 16 games), which adds up to $529.15. Yikes!
Your second viewing option would be by streaming these matches via FITE which is a Pay-Per-View provider. With them, you can pay $29.99 per every single game, which adds up to $539.82 if you would like to watch all of your team’s 18 games.
They are also currently offering a bundle costing $179.99 which allows you to watch all the games from Round 1 and 2 (except Venezuela vs Paraguay match which will be on beIN Sports Xtra). This bundle includes 9 matches which technically gives you an $89.92 saving if you were to pay for every single game.
With these numbers, we can see that the scenario for South American futbol fans in the United States is not a good one unless you have the ability to invest that kind of money. There are a total of 90 games in CONMEBOL qualifiers, and at $29.99 each, that comes out to $2,699.10
Let’s hope that the 2026 World Cup qualifiers are a completely different story.
CONMEBOL 2022 World Cup Qualifiers Schedule
October 8, 2020
Paraguay vs Peru, 3:30 PM Pacific
Uruguay vs Chile, 3:45 PM Pacific
Argentina vs Ecuador, 5:30 PM Pacific
October 9, 2020
Colombia vs Venezuela, 4:30 PM Pacific
Brazil vs Bolivia, 5:30 PM Pacific
