From the scale and complexity of the Winter Olympics and FIFA World Cup to a wave of new tournaments, facilities and formats, 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most demanding and innovative years on the sporting calendar. While two global events dominate attention, a packed schedule for the next 12 months will test broadcasters, rights holders and organisers like never before. SVG Europe takes a look at some of the potential highlights.
Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics
Milano Cortina 2026 (6 – 22 February) will deliver significantly more content for rights holders, with an 8.3% uplift in broadcast hours compared to Beijing 2022, all achieved with a substantial reduction in the on-site footprint.
This increase in output comes despite one of the most complex geographies in Winter Games history. The Games will span five venue clusters spread across nearly 300 km, creating some challenges for broadcasters. Milano Cortina is likely to set a new benchmark for efficiency: the expanded broadcast offering will be delivered by OBS with a 25% reduction in the size of the International Broadcast Centre, significant cuts in power usage across the IBC and venues, and shorter set-up times – demonstrating how more output can be achieved with less infrastructure.
2026 will also mark the 50th anniversary of the Winter Olympics, which this year will take place three weeks after the Winter Olympics (6 – 15 March).
Watch OBS’ Nuno Duarte on Milano Cortina plans
FIFA World Cup
Staged just over 100 days after the Winter Games, the FIFA World Cup 2026 (11 June – 19 July) also introduces unprecedented geographic complexity, spanning three countries and 16 host cities, where distance will be a major factor in broadcast planning.
The expanded format represents a major boost in scale, with the World Cup growing to 104 matches, and the first rest day not until some 28 days into the tournament. Building on lessons from the 2025 Club World Cup, the 2026 World Cup broadcast plan includes 60+ fixed production teams, centralised replay and camera operations at the IBC in Dallas, and a hybrid production model to serve global rights holders.
The result will be the largest and most demanding World Cup broadcast operation to date, mixing tournament expansion with new production models designed to scale across time zones, borders, and venues.
SVG Europe unveils packed in-person 2026 events schedule SVG Europe has confirmed an extensive programme of in-person events for 2026, combining large-scale Summits with a series of smaller, more focused Forums. Together, they cover a broad range of creative, business, technology and operational topics that reflect the rapidly evolving landscape of European sports broadcasting and production. View the full list of events here
New for 2026
The World Athletics Ultimate Championship (11 – 13 September) is a new biennial event that will take place for the first time in 2026. The three-night event will take place in Hungary and will fulfil World Athletics’ ambition of having a global championship every year, with the World Athletics Ultimate Championship providing a conclusion to the summer athletics season in the years when there is no World Athletics Championships.
Another new, biennial event making its debut this year is rugby union’s 12-team Nations Championship. With the aim of providing some high profile fixtures between World Cups, two groups of teams will compete in a Northern versus Southern Hemisphere tournament format across six rounds, with three fixtures in July and then in early November, culminating in Finals Weekend at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, UK at the end of November.
Read more: Behind the broadcast scenes of the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship
Handball
2026 will be a big year for European handball, with two biennial events bookending the year. The European Men’s Handball Championship will take place in Denmark, Norway, Sweden (15 January – 1 February). And, at the end of the year, the European Women’s Handball Championship will take place in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey (3 – 20 December).
UK events
2026 will be a bumper year for UK athletics fans, with the Commonwealth Games taking place in Glasgow (23 July – 2 August). Shortly afterwards, Birmingham will host the 2026 European Athletics Championships (10th-16th August) – the first time the event will be held in Britain. Also taking place in the UK will be the Women’s T20 World Cup (12 June – 5 July).
UEFA Champions League final
The 2025/26 UEFA Champions League final will take place at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest – the first time the final will be played in the country. It will also kick off earlier than in previous years, with the match starting at 18:00 CET.
UEFA said that as well as aiding matchday logistics and providing improved access to public transport for fans, the new kick-off time aligns with a more accessible broadcasting window. UEFA hopes the final reach an even broader television and digital audience worldwide, with a particular focus on engaging younger viewers.
Golf
Europe’s female golfers will be hoping they make best use of home advantage and reclaim the Solheim Cup from the US. For the first time ever, the event will be hosted in the Netherlands at the Bernardus Golf (7-13 September).
The Open returns to Royal Birkdale, Merseyside in the north of England (12 -19 July). Since first hosting The Open in 1954, it has been the most regular venue – other than St Andrews – to host golf’s oldest major.
One of the newest formats, LIV Golf, will this year extend its events from 54 holes to 72 holes, bringing it in line with the sport’s more established tours. The 2026 LIV Golf League season begins at Riyadh Golf Club on 4 February.
The second season of virtual golf league TGL starts is already well underway, having teed off on 28 December at the SoFi Center, with a few changes. Fans attending matches will now get the same audio experience as viewers, with the ability to listen to broadcast audio and player conversations via earbuds.
F1
The headline news in F1 is major updates to technical regulations, with changes to the power unit, chassis and aerodynamic rules. 2026 will be another 24-round campaign, with improvements to the geographical flow of races, including the Canadian Grand Prix now following Miami in an earlier slot from May 22 – 24, with the aim of delivering freight efficiencies as some equipment can move directly from one event to the other.
The change also creates a consolidated European leg of the season across the summer months, beginning in Monaco from June 5 – 7 and finishing in Spain, where Madrid will make its F1 calendar debut from September 11 – 13, replacing the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola and becoming one of two F1 races in Spain.
US in Europe
2026 promises to be another year in which US sports look to up their presence in Europe. A packed programme tips off in January, with the NBA hosting a regular season game in Berlin for the first time.
The Orlando Magic will face the Memphis Grizzlies at Uber Arena (15 January). And then a repeat of the fixture will take place a few days later in the UK at The O2 (18 January).
Last year there was a record seven regular-season NFL games played overseas, with Ireland and Spain hosting their first matches. And it looks like there will be at least the same number of overseas fixtures in 2026, with Australia to host a match, plus games in Brazil and Germany and three matches in London and an anticipated return to Mexico.
The NHL announced the opening of a new office in Zürich, Switzerland, at the end of last year, with the stated aim of expanding the League’s footprint across Europe. The league wants to build on the momentum generated by the November fixtures between the Nashville Predators and Pittsburgh Penguins that took place in Sweden, and NHL player participation in the Winter Games – the first time NHL players will have taken part in a Winter Games since 2014.
However, European fans of Major League Baseball will have to wait for fixtures closer to home after plans to play two games in London were ditched due to scheduling issues. MLB had hoped for the Yankees to play the Blue Jays at West Ham’s London Stadium, but the proposed dates were too close to West Ham’s final Premier League match of the season.
Premier League facility
And the Premier League’s highly anticipated new facility will launch this year, with the EPL set to unveil its new in-house setup ahead of the start of the 2026/27 season. Based in Olympia, London, the software-based facility will deliver 380 matches annually with the aim of providing the Premier League with full creative and operational control as it looks to respond more swiftly to platform needs and engage more directly with fans around the world.
