ESPN+ to televise African World Cup soccer qualifiers

BRISTOL, Conn, (AP) — ESPN has obtained U.S. television rights to African World Cup qualifying and will stream the matches on ESPN+.

Coverage began Wednesday with six second-round matches, starting with the Central African Republic's game against Cape Verde.

Forty nations are in the second round, which runs to Nov. 16, and the group winners advance. Five African nations will qualify for the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

ESPN obtained both English- and Spanish-language rights but is providing only English commentary.

Among U.S. broadcast rights for other qualifiers, ESPN and Fox share English-language rights to U.S. home games, Univision has Spanish-language rights to U.S. home matches, CBS has other CONCACAF English-language rights and NBCUniversal's Telemundo has other CONCACAF Spanish-language rights.

ESPN has English-language rights to European qualifiers, Univision has Spanish-language rights to European qualifiers, FITE TV and Fubo TV have South American qualifiers, CBS has Asian qualifiers and the MyCujoo streaming service has Oceania qualifiers.

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