Zlatan Ibrahimović chose the final moments of Fox’s World Cup broadcast, with Rebecca Lowe seated beside him, to announce that his television career had already run its course.
Asked about the moment on The Dan Patrick Show on Monday, Lowe explained that the announcement hadn’t caught her off guard in the way it clearly caught much of the viewing audience, since Ibrahimović had already told her privately, more than once, that he intended to walk away.
“No, because he had told me a couple of times that he would be done,” she said, before adding that she wasn’t ready to treat the goodbye as permanent. “I said to him afterward, though, what about the return of Zlatan? That’s got a whole other great branding situation. I don’t put anything past that guy.”
The announcement itself materialized at the close of Fox’s postgame coverage, delivered with the same unhurried self-assurance that had characterized Ibrahimović’s entire tenure in the studio. He thanked the audience for rendering his transition into television effortless, characterized the tournament as a singular experiment now concluded, and informed Lowe and the listeners at home that he would not be returning to the desk.
“This was the first and last time for me, so take care, everybody,” he quipped.
Zlatan Ibrahimović: “And this is also my farewell to the studio.”
Rebecca Lowe: “It is?”
Zlatan: “This was the first and last time for me. So, take care, everybody.” ⚽️📺🎙️ #WorldCup #Fox pic.twitter.com/yj63Vpth4v
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 19, 2026
In hindsight, the farewell fit with what Fox executives and Lowe herself had been saying since before the tournament began. Ibrahimović never arrived with the expectation that he was launching a second career in TV, only that he was taking on a singular World Cup assignment.
Fox Sports president Brad Zager told The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand back in March that Ibrahimović had been the very first name the network wrote down when it began assembling its World Cup studio from a blank slate, ahead of every other candidate under consideration, including David Beckham and Jurgen Klopp. Lowe echoed a similar sentiment in June, telling Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp that she believed America was going to fall in love with Ibrahimović, and that her only real hesitation about working alongside him had nothing to do with his ability and everything to do with the awkwardness of having to interrupt him for a commercial break.
“He may never have done studio before. He may never do it again, by the way,” she said at the time. “But he wants to do this, and he wants to work hard. Add in his insanely infectious, attractive personality, and I think you have yourself a brilliant pundit. Zlatan doesn’t fail at anything, so he ain’t going to start failing now.”
That prediction proved prescient across the tournament’s full run, as Ibrahimović emerged as one of the breakout figures of Fox’s coverage, drawing comparisons to Charles Barkley, despite having never worked in television prior to this tournament.
It was also the first World Cup of Lowe’s own broadcasting career, despite a résumé that includes 12 years as the face of NBC’s Premier League coverage and seven consecutive Olympics as NBC’s daytime host, most recently this year’s Milan Cortina Winter Games. It’s also the last World Cup for which Fox holds English-language broadcast rights in the United States, and FIFA is expected to open bidding for 2030 to ESPN, Netflix, and others, so there’s no guarantee Ibrahimović’s exit is the only major departure from a broadcast Fox may not have again.
Still, not everyone in the industry is convinced Ibrahimović’s so-called “retirement” will actually hold. Barkley, the very comparison that trailed Ibrahimović throughout the summer, has announced his own impending retirement from television more than once over the years, only to return each time. Pro Football Talk expressed similar skepticism, as Mike Florio distilled his reaction to the sign-off down to the fact that “Zlatan understands leverage.”
Zlatan understands leverage. https://t.co/3PW1AtEktp
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) July 19, 2026
Fox still holds the rights to the 2027 CONCACAF Gold Cup and UEFA Euro 2028, tournaments the network will undoubtedly want to present as major television events in their own right. Whether that ambition eventually brings this particular studio group back together remains uncertain. Lowe, for her part, already sounds like she is doing everything she can to make that outcome happen.
