The FIFA World Cup has always been an event best enjoyed on the big screen. But the 2026 tournament is shaping up to make that screen work harder than ever before. With 48 teams playing 104 matches over a month of football, your TV will be busy with everything from afternoon fixtures in a lit living room to late-night knock-out games with the whole family gathered around the sofa.
Football can also be surprisingly demanding on television. The ball moves quickly across the screen, the cameras are constantly moving around the pitch and the quality of the feed can vary depending on how you watch the match. Bright stadium lights, colorful team kits, fast-changing score graphics, and dark areas of the stands need to be displayed clearly without becoming a blurry or washed-out mess.
Here, the LG OLED evo AI G5 makes a strong case for itself. When we reviewed the TV last year, the G5 won an Editors’ Choice award for its exceptional brightness, accurate colors, and superb picture quality. These strengths make it particularly suited to the biggest sporting event of the year.
Brighter OLED TV for daytime matches
OLED TVs have long been known for their contrast and deep black levels, but brightness has traditionally been one of their weak points. This is no longer such a concern with the LG OLED G5.
The TV is powered by LG’s a11 AI Processor Gen2 and features Brightness Booster Ultimate, which uses a new light-boosting algorithm and light control architecture to deliver a brighter picture. LG says the G5 can produce images up to three times brighter than the entry-level OLED B5.
And our tests show how significant the improvement is. In HDR Filmmaker mode, the G5 scored 2,385 nits at 10% white space and 1,608 nits at 18% white space. For comparison, its predecessor, the already impressive LG OLED G4, reached 1,510 nits and 1,203 nits during the same respective tests.
These are great numbers for an OLED TV and should make an immediate difference when watching matches during the day. The pitch retains its vibrancy, the white jerseys and scoreboards are clearly visible, and the stadium lights have enough intensity to stand out naturally without flattening the rest of the image.
The G5 also includes an AI Brightness Control system that uses the TV’s built-in sensors to detect ambient lighting and adjust screen brightness accordingly. This is especially useful during a long tournament where one match may start under the midday sun and another after midnight. You don’t have to constantly fiddle with picture settings when the lighting in your room changes.
LG has also certified the relevant G5 screen sizes as Reflection Free through intertek testing. Of course, no TV can completely beat direct sunlight, but the combination of higher brightness and improved reflection control should make the G5 a more practical OLED TV for living rooms where drawing the curtains isn’t always possible.
Perfect Blacks and Richer Colors Make the Pitch Pop
Brilliance is only half the story. The LG OLED g5 still retains the key advantage that makes OLED TVs so desirable: precise, pixel-level control over the image.
Each pixel in the G5 can independently light up or turn itself off. This means the TV can display highlights as well as deep shadows without creating the distracting halos or bloom that can be seen on backlit TVs.
During a football match, this helps the G5 maintain the contrast between the brightly lit pitch, the darker stadium seats and the score graphics sitting in the corner of the screen. The green of the grass looks richer, the colors of the team jerseys remain distinct and the player details are not lost when the camera moves to the shaded areas of the stadium.
The G5 received UL approval for Perfect Black and Perfect Color, along with Intertek certifications for 100% Color Accuracy and 100% Color Volume up to DCI-P3. These terms may sound like something written for a spec sheet, but the practical benefit is easy to see: the G5 is designed to keep colors accurate and vibrant in bright and dark scenes without oversaturating the image.
This was one of the highlights of the TV during our viewing. SDR colors and white levels were nearly perfect in testing, while HDR colors were spot on. Football broadcasts aren’t always the most cinematic pieces of content you’ll watch on television, but accurate paneling is still important. The football field should look natural green rather than fluorescent, and skin tones should remain balanced under different stadium lights.
Keeping up with every pass, tackle and counter attack
The TV may have beautiful colors and high brightness, but it doesn’t matter if the picture falls apart as soon as the ball starts moving.
Soccer puts a lot of pressure on movement control. Cameras often move from one end of the pitch to the other, especially on counter-attacks, while quick passes and long-range shots require the TV to keep fast-moving objects visible without excessive smearing or judder.
The LG OLED G5 is well equipped for this. Its OLED panel has an extremely fast response time, as individual pixels can change state almost instantly. The TV also has a 120Hz refresh rate and supports OLED motion, giving it a strong foundation for keeping fast action clear and easy to watch.
Broadcast football won’t suddenly hit 120 frames per second as TV supports higher refresh rates. The real benefit is that the G5 has enough display head and pixel sensitivity to handle motion cleanly while processing incoming tape.
Processing is more important than many people realize because sports broadcasts are rarely clean. Depending on your provider, the tape may be heavily compressed, delivered at a lower bitrate than premium movie streams, or upscaled to less than 4K resolution by the time it reaches your TV. Fast camera pans across the pitch can expose compression artefacts, while distant players and crowd shots look softer than they would on the big screen.
This is where the a11 AI Processor Gen2 and LG’s AI Picture Pro suite come into play. Features like AI Super Upscaling analyze incoming video and intelligently reconstruct details that may be lost during compression or upscaling. Instead of simply stretching a low-resolution image to fill a 4K panel, the processor identifies edges, textures and objects in the scene and tries to refine them to look cleaner and more natural.
AI Perceived Object Enhancer takes a similar approach by distinguishing different elements in an image. During a soccer match, it can help separate players from the pitch, improve the definition of team formations, and make it easier to track the ball in the background. OLED Dynamic Tone Mapping then works on brightness and contrast in real-time, helping to preserve detail in bright stadium lighting while maintaining visibility in dark areas of the stands.
None of these technologies can magically transform a poor broadcast into native 4K HDR quality. However, they can make a noticeable difference when watching compressed streams or low-quality TV shows on the big screen, reducing some of the softness, noise and visual distractions that are more apparent on a premium 4K display. For a month-long tournament where not every match will reach reference-quality video, that extra processing power can be surprisingly valuable.
Multi-View and Sports Alerts Add Practical Convenience
The LG OLED G5 has several smart features that are even more useful during a busy tournament schedule.
Its customized dashboard can display sports alerts along with weather updates, calendar entries and other notifications. With 104 matches spread over several weeks, it makes it easy to keep an eye on upcoming fixtures without reaching for your phone every few minutes.
The G5 also supports Multi View, which allows two sources to appear on the screen at the same time. You can mirror compatible devices via Google Cast or Apple AirPlay and split the screen into two separate views. This can be useful when focusing on another match, watching pre-match coverage from a mobile device or checking stats without completely giving up on the main action.
The TV runs on webOS and includes LG’s AI Magic Remote system, which retails the familiar air mouse controls and scroll wheel. LG has also committed to four webOS upgrades over five years through the webOS Re Program, giving the G5 a longer software life than TVs that receive only minor updates after launch.
Bringing the atmosphere of the stadium home
Picture quality will naturally be the top focus when buying a TV for the World Cup, but sound plays an equally important role in the experience. A football match can feel strangely lifeless without the roar of the crowd, the commentary and the occasional burst of noise after a last-minute goal.
The LG OLED G5 includes AI Sound Pro and AI Object Remastering, designed to separate and balance various audio elements such as voices, music and sound effects. The practical benefit for sports is clearer interpretation without completely drowning out the atmosphere from the stadium.
The TV also supports Dolby Atmos, while buyers looking for a more substantial audio setup can pair the G5 with a compatible LG soundbar. LG’s WOW Orchestra feature allows the TV speakers and soundbar to work together instead of forcing one to replace the other. This creates a fuller soundstage and gives the crowd a little more room to breathe.
A soundbar is always going to be a better option if you want a suitable match-day atmosphere in the living room, but the G5 gives you a sensible upgrade path without needlessly complicating the setup.
A better view from around the living room
The World Cup is rarely a single viewing experience. For bigger matches, the ideal spot in front of the television will quickly be claimed. Everyone else will have to make do with the side of the couch, the dining chair, or whatever corner of the room still has a clear line of sight.
The LG OLED G5 is well suited for this kind of group viewing. OLED panels maintain picture quality well when viewed from an angle, so colors and contrast remain more suitable for people who are not perfectly centered in front of the screen.
The G5 is available in a wide range of sizes including 55”, 65”, 77”, 83” and 97” models, with a smaller 48” option also available. For most living rooms, the 54″ and 77″ models should strike the sweet spot between screen size and practicality. If you have a larger viewing area, the 83” and 97” models can turn the room into something closer to a private viewing room.
Design helps here too. The larger G5 models feature LG’s One Wall design, which allows the TV to fit neatly against a wall with narrow bezels and minimal clearance. A large TV will naturally command attention in any room, but the G5 avoids looking unnecessarily bulky while doing so.
TV that still makes no sense after the final whistle
The World Cup lasts a little over a month. A premium TV should stay useful long after the trophy is lifted.
Once the tournament is over, the LG OLED G5 has a lot to offer. Its pixel-level contrast, Dolby Vision support and FIlmmaker Mode make it a great TV for movies and broadcasts. Gamers also get a powerful feature set, including variable refresh rates up to 165Hz across supported screen sizes and inputs, NVIDIA G-Sync compatibility, AMD FreeSync Premium, 0.1ms pixel response time, and four HDMI 2.1 ports.
So when the living room is no longer occupied by football fans, the G5 can easily return to handling movies, games and everything else you’d expect from a high-end TV.
The strengths of the LG OLED evo AI G5 almost coincide with those that matter during a major sports tournament. It’s exceptionally bright for an OLED TV, handles fast motion with confidence, produces rich colors and accurate contrast, and offers practical features for households trying to keep up with a packed match schedule.
If you’re upgrading your living room setup ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the LG OLED G5 deserves to be at the top of your shortlist.
