I seem to remember you could buy a 'world cup only' subscription during the last world cup. I dont think I did and went down the vpn route, but it was really annoying as that meant i had a bit of a lag and my whatsapp groups with mates overseas would spoil everything! :-)
I have used smartdns for around 8 years now. No problem with lag and 99% of tv watched is via this way, our NOW tv box is just for the bedroom to watch news channels only. No other channels are watched on it.
Have ESPN for the F1, Peacock for the premier league games and then for others like the women's euros it was BBC or ITV players which are free.
NowTV offered World Cup 2022 at $280 but have to increase monthly package to average $340/m for 2 years