[2][3] The first American coverage[4] of the World Cup consisted only of a previously filmed telecast of the 1966 Final on NBC.
Previously, ABC's Wide World of Sports had shown England's Football Association Cup on as long as a two-week delay.
NBC's anthology series, SportsWorld[8] provided World Cup soccer qualifying coverage featuring the United States and the Netherlands Antilles.
1986 marked the first time that the World Cup had extensive live cable and network television coverage in the United States.
While it retained all existing sports telecast rights and programs aired by both Telemundo and NBC Universo, the latter network also began to expand its sports coverage, primarily in preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics and the start of the division's contract with FIFA—whose first events included the 2015 U-20 World Cup and Women's World Cup.