SBJ Unpacks: What the World Cup taught U.S. sports industry

Tonight in Unpacks: The FIFA 2026 World Cup showed that the U.S. sports ecosystem can handle the biggest of events. In this week’s cover story, SBJ’s Alex Silverman examines how those lessons could apply to LA28, the Super Bowl and the 2031 Women’s World Cup.

Also tonight:

• Chime making debut as MLS ASG presenting sponsor
• Illinois adds jersey patch in one of college sports’ biggest deals
• Why Kalshi won the World Cup
• Op-ed: The best World Cup brand activations happened beyond the final whistle

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Austin Karp opens the week with thoughts on a recent trip to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the WNBA’s All-Star Game weekend, the Packers’ financials and comments on private equity and more.

The 2026 World Cup put virtually every facet of the North American sports ecosystem to the test: facilities, event operations, broadcast reach, corporate support, consumer demand and security at every level. The execution was not flawless, but by almost any measure, the industry delivered.

By now, you’ve heard the top-line numbers: 6.8 million fans in attendance; 104 matches at 99.7% capacity; 62.8 million viewers for the World Cup final. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has said the governing body could top $15 billion in revenue for the four-year cycle ending in 2026. There’s an endless supply of other data points, too, with more set to emerge in the coming weeks and months via after-action reports and economic impact studies.

Distilling it all into an assessment of the event’s legacy, particularly just days after Spain hoisted the trophy, is premature. But some takeaways for the industry in the United States are already apparent.

The tournament established a new commercial benchmark for FIFA, offered thousands of professionals their first taste of working a mega-event, forced unprecedented coordination between local and federal agencies and provided host cities some hard-earned experience working with FIFA.

These developments come at a consequential moment, with the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles less than two years away and the 2031 Women’s World Cup expected to be awarded to the U.S., Mexico, Jamaica and Costa Rica later this fall. Plus, given the success of the World Cup, other international sports properties that had already viewed the U.S. as a lucrative growth market are likely to bring even more events to American shores.

“Every federation in the world, if they’re not yet, should be doing an event in the United States every few years,” said Ricardo Fort, a veteran sports marketing executive with stints at Coca-Cola and Visa. “It is just too good. Everything works too well. It’s too professional for you not to be doing it, not to mention the commercial benefits of being in the States.”

The fact that the U.S. — the world’s richest and most sophisticated economy — is a leader in the sports business world isn’t exactly news.

But prior to 2026, the country had gone more than two decades without hosting either a World Cup or an Olympics. None of the 11 U.S. venues used this summer had previously hosted a World Cup match, and America’s stadium landscape had been almost entirely remade since 1994. There were also legitimate questions about whether a politically divided country could muster the cooperation needed to put on an event of such scale.

The tournament’s 39 days offered a vivid reminder of what separates the U.S. market: deep consumer demand, an unmatched corporate base and top-tier facilities.

“FIFA were gifted a platform to showcase its event like never before,” said John Kristick, who served as executive director of the North American bid to host the 2026 World Cup. “Our stadiums have to be seen as one of the biggest contributors to this success, not just in terms of the platform for the players, but for fan engagement, for the premium experience, for the pictures on TV. All of that was done, yes, with FIFA’s guidance, but because of infrastructure that we already had in place, as well as Canada and Mexico.”

Host cities: A key element of the World Cup’s success was the buy-in and execution of host cities across North America, particularly in the U.S., which staged 78 of the tournament’s 104 matches. FIFA’s move away from the traditional local organizing committee model centralized commercial rights and tournament control, but placed much of the responsibility for funding and delivering the public-facing experience on individual markets.

While FIFA offered host cities the opportunity to raise money to cover costs through the sale of Host City Supporter packages, the limited commercial inventory and restrictions imposed to protect FIFA’s own corporate partners made doing so a challenge. Kristick, who worked with several host cities in his current role as co-head of Playfly Sports Consulting, believes the event could have had an even bigger impact if the host cities had more commercial flexibility, or if FIFA had covered more costs.

“Because of their inability to really unlock more revenue sources — and we know that much of that was because of the restraints that FIFA placed on them — a lot of great ideas, I think, remained in the drawer,” Kristick said. “Every city initially wanted to have a fan fest for 39 days, and that was part of the original commitment. How much more could we have achieved if every city had the 39-day fan fest, or if the Fan Fest in Liberty State Park would’ve come to be? What else could there have been?”

Local organizers are touting the event as a major success that showcased their cities to the world and engaged their communities, while also acknowledging the need for FIFA to evolve its model for the 2031 Women’s World Cup.

Pam Kramer, CEO of the Kansas City host committee, said that while the city is still waiting for tourism and economic impact numbers, the event has “exceeded certainly all of our measures and objectives so far.”

“One of the things that we set out to do was really establish Kansas City as a hub for sports and soccer business in the Midwest,” Kramer said. “We were very successful in doing that in terms of that exposure, the conversation around Kansas City, the confidence in our people here and just proving that we could do this and do it really well.”

Kramer pointed to the Kansas City FIFA Fan Festival, which drew more than 400,000 visitors over 19 days, as a resounding success, but said the economic model needs to change for next time.

“We were able to do it and do it well, but either we need to have more flexibility on the sponsorship side or the governing FIFA needs to invest more in fan fest, because it is such a central part of the experience and valuable to their sponsors,” Kramer said.

A key question, Kramer said, is whether the city will have enough money left over to implement a meaningful legacy program aimed at promoting “lifelong love of the game.”

Houston took a more institutionalized approach. Host Committee President Chris Canetti pointed to the placement of its Impact Houston 26 initiative within the permanent Houston Sports Authority Foundation to ensure that a temporary event leaves a legacy. The initiative is building or renovating 23 soccer fields in underserved communities and has contracts providing local clubs with no-cost access in exchange for offering scholarships to underprivileged youth.

Government: One of the biggest question marks hanging over the lead-up to the World Cup was how the federal government would perform across a wide range of functions — from security and law enforcement to making the event accessible to fans from around the world. The tournament was not free of political controversy, but staging it without a major security incident represents a massive achievement.

“All of these people that got into the United States, that beautiful balance between national security — making sure we knew who was coming into the country, making sure we knew what bad actors were in the country already — while also making sure that we welcomed those that wanted to come here and contribute something great to the United States of America — that, I think, is an incredible legacy,” said Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House’s World Cup Task Force.

In terms of lasting impact, Giuliani pointed to the country’s investment of $500 million in counter-drone security, along with policy changes allowing local authorities to act against drone threats, as a lasting impact of the World Cup that will help protect future major events. Meanwhile, the U.S. Travel Association’s GREAT USA Coalition is drafting a bill aimed at extending the FIFA Priority Appointment Scheduling System (PASS) for travel visas to future U.S. events.

Much of the task force that facilitated the coordination of 50 government agencies throughout the tournament will remain in place for the 2028 L.A. Olympics, albeit with different leadership. President Donald Trump has appointed longtime Republican operative Richard Walters, currently a White House deputy chief of staff, as the executive director of the Olympics task force.

While the World Cup task force performed well, some inside the Beltway wonder whether a permanent federal body focused on sports would be more beneficial than ad hoc entities for individual events.

“In D.C., there’s been this unprecedented level of attention to the power of sports to bring people together and the diplomatic benefits that it brings,” said Travis Murphy, CEO of sports government affairs firm Jetr Global. “Now that the World Cup is over, that spotlight kind of goes away. There’s no standing committee on sports diplomacy.”

Future leaders: The 1994 World Cup organizing effort became a training ground for a generation of American sports business leaders, including future U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati; 1999 Women’s World Cup chief Marla Messing; longtime MLS and SUM executive Kathy Carter; and Premier Partnerships founder Randy Bernstein. At the venue level, the tournament provided early experience to figures such as soccer event promoter Charlie Stillitano and longtime Fox executive David Sternberg.

Even without a local organizing committee like Alan Rothenberg’s in 1994, the 2026 World Cup has provided a new generation of professionals with invaluable life and career experience.

“I wouldn’t have been in the position I was in [leading the United Bid] if it weren’t for World Cup ’94 and the experience that I had to get into sports,” Kristick said. “Now, we have another generation. If it’s not 10,000, it’s 5,000 individuals who can claim their part in helping put on this event. And it’s now for them to build off of that.”

Added Kristick: “Our next leaders in the sports industry, many of them, I’m sure, will come from a background of being involved with World Cup 2026.”

Record-setting World Cup

The 2026 World Cup, expanded to 48 teams, set the following records over its 39 days in North America.

Total attendance: 6,810,966

Average game attendance: 65,490

Stadium capacity: 99.7%

FIFA Fan Festival attendance: More than 9 million

CHARLOTTE -- S.F.-based mobile banking firm Chime is set to make its debut this week as the presenting sponsor of the MLS All-Star Game in Charlotte. The first-year MLS sponsor will have its logo on the front of the kits worn by the MLS All-Stars in Wednesday’s game at Bank of America Stadium against the Liga MX All-Stars and present a halftime show featuring R&B singer Ciara.

Filling the presenting sponsor position for the All-Star Game, which had been vacant since MLS’s deal with Target expired after the 2024 season, was a key priority heading into the 2026 season. While financial terms of Chime’s deal with the league were not disclosed, the All-Star sponsorship is among MLS’s most valuable assets.

“It is our marquee event, if you think about it,” MLS EVP/Partnership Marketing & Media Solutions Jen Cramer said. “And it’s no longer just a game. There is the game itself, but it’s starting to become more of a platform that allows our partners to engage fans through all the things that we saw just this past summer [at the World Cup]: sport, music, food, community and hospitality.”

While Chime has a history in sports marketing, including seven seasons as the jersey patch for the NBA’s Mavericks and a recent debut as a jersey sponsor for the WNBA’s Portland Fire, the agreement with MLS is the company’s first at the league level.

“Having the All-Star game right on the back of the World Cup is really how we made the calculation,” Chime Chief Marketing & Growth Officer Vineet Mehra said. “We feel like it’s going to be a huge win for MLS, for soccer in the United States and for Chime to be just a part of the storytelling on what a big movement this is becoming here in the U.S.”

On Saturday, Chime brought its Compound Combine event series to the NASCAR HOF on Saturday morning, offering young fans the opportunity to participate in a series of financial literacy-themed soccer skills challenges alongside MLS legend Landon Donovan.

Soccer Celebration: The league’s own All-Star festivities also kicked off over the weekend, with more than 10,000 fans attending its annual Soccer Celebration at Romare Bearden Park over two days. More than a dozen MLS partners had a presence at the festival, including AT&T, Audi, Campbell Snacks, Caterpillar, Celsius, Coca-Cola, Continental Tire, Discount Tire, DoorDash, Febreze, Jameson, Michelob Ultra and The Home Depot.

For the first time, The Home Depot held a watch part as part of Soccer Celebration on Saturday night, screening Charlotte FC’s road game against Red Bull N.Y. The initiative is part of an effort to continue on the brand’s momentum in soccer coming out of the World Cup, during which it sponsored both FIFA and U.S. Soccer.

“For the first time, a lot of our stuff across everything we were doing, whether you saw Beckham on the TV spot or then you saw Beckham’s backyard or then you saw us in social, it was all really interwoven,” The Home Depot VP/Integrated Marketing Allison Kolber said. “So, moving forward, we’ll continue to think about how we can bring our communications closer together across touchpoints to make sure that we’re making the maximum impact with the campaigns we put into market.”

AT&T, which returns as the presenting sponsor of Tuesday night’s MLS All-Star Skills Challenge, will be putting on a fireworks display after that event at Truist Field. It marks the first time since 2019 that the league is holding its Skills Challenge at a different venue than the All-Star Game, a sensible move given that it historically draws a smaller crowd. At the All-Star Game, AT&T will offer its new Turbo Live service, which grants fans access to a data boost for streaming and sharing.

“It helps them basically give them a more enhanced experience so that they can stream, post, share videos, engage on social media, share photos with their friends and families back home or with each other during the game,” AT&T AVP/Sponsorships & Experiential Sabina Ahmed said.

Illinois is slated to unveil one of the nation’s most significant jersey patch deals to date, a five-year, $30M agreement with Busey Bank, according to those involved with the deal.

The agreement centers on a Busey Bank jersey patch that will be featured across Illinois football, men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball, soccer and men’s and women’s golf. The company’s branding will also appear on apparel worn by Illinois coaches such as Bret Bielema and Brad Underwood.

RELATED: SBJ College Patch Deals Directory

“We knew early on that we wanted [to work with] Busey, and thankfully they had an open mind and were willing to work with us on this,” Illinois AD Josh Whitman told SBJ. “In the best partnerships, the benefits flow both directions and we feel really strongly that because of where our brand is right now, that we’re going to be able to help Busey elevate. But at the same time, there’s going to be great opportunities for us to continue to grow from our relationship with them.”

Illinois has been preparing for a jersey patch for months given Whitman’s chairing of the NCAA’s Division I Council, which was responsible for approving changes to the organization’s rules around jersey commercialization.

Whitman told SBJ that Busey Bank was the first and only company the school approached for such a deal, given it had been one of Illinois’ more significant sponsors.

As part of the deal -- which is effectively an expansion of Busey Bank’s involvement at UI -- the company will retain title sponsorship of the Illinois Athletics Fighting Illini radio network and remain a fixture in a number of events, such as Busey Bank FamILLy Movie Night at Gies Memorial Stadium, Field Trip Day at Illini Women’s Basketball, and the Busey Bank Kid Captain of the Game.

“They do a lot of different things that we had previously administered in silos,” Whitman explained. “[The patch] was a chance for us to bring the entire Busey relationship under one umbrella and look at all the different things that we thought would be important to them as we discussed the idea and tried to really check a lot of different boxes in one really big relationship.”

The agreement also comes on the heels of Illinois reworking its deal with Learfield, which brokered the Busey Bank agreement.

Learfield has been responsible for 19 jersey patch agreements across 17 schools -- nine of which are in the Power Four. Illinois is the third Big Ten school to announce a jersey patch deal, along with Wisconsin and Michigan State.

“[Josh] wanted to revamp the way they were commercializing the business at Illinois, and that’s really come to fruition,” Learfield President of Sports Properties Kim Damron told SBJ. “He’s significantly increased the revenue overall and is a true partner. Our visions align on what we want for the property there and this partnership is proof of that.

“It’s a five-year deal at significant dollar amounts, and Josh was instrumental in working with the Learfield team on getting this one done.”

You wouldn’t think a $15 offer would drive prediction app trials in an age of $100, $200 and even $365 sportsbook signup promos.

And yet here came Kalshi, which blew up to the tune of $12.4 billion in volume — $27 billion if you count parlays, executives from the exchange said — during the 4½ weeks of World Cup play, adding about 1 million new customers during the tournament.

The exchange operator opened June with a $1 million sweepstakes pool to be split among all users who correctly predicted the World Cup winner. Once the tournament started, Kalshi occasionally layered on a $15 bonus for new customers who wagered $10 on a game. Those popped up frequently during the knockout stage and were in play for both matches on the final weekend.

Free money always helps.

But maybe those signup promos had little to do with Kalshi’s World Cup roll.

You didn’t see them tagged on to the end of its now familiar Timothée Chalamet dentist chair spots. Or bolted on to its more soccer-centric campaign featuring a slew of stars from previous World Cups (This long-form spot is especially amusing).

The legends spots featured some of the better known retired players from eight countries — Clint Dempsey (U.S.), Memo Ochoa (Mexico), Marcelo (Brazil), Falcao (Colombia), Rio Ferdinand (England), David Villa (Spain), Raphael Varane (France) and Angel Di Maria (Argentina) — wearing Kalshi-branded knockoffs of their familiar national team jerseys, dialing each other up in a humorous effort to spread the word that Kalshi was giving away tickets to the final, without ever hinting at what Kalshi is, or does.

The Chalamet spot, in which his only line is to mumble Kalshi while a dentist explores his gaping mouth, is ... honestly, I still can’t describe it. Cryptic? Curious? Nonsensical? I don’t get it. I haven’t found anyone who gets it. But if you’ve seen it, you remember it. It’s an earworm, but with visuals.

You could tag them with a “Sign up now to get $,” the standard, tactical hook that DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars, Bet365 and other sportsbooks employed as they rolled out in state after state. Kalshi has chosen a different tack.

“You’re not inundating them with confusing messaging or incentives that may not be appealing to a passive fan or passive consumer,” said Adam Barrick, Kalshi’s head of sports partnerships, a former DraftKings sponsorship director whose six years there included the company’s transition from DFS to sportsbook. “We’ve really seen a lot of success with that.”

Kalshi’s World Cup run should best be remembered for the substantive strategic pivot that put its logo alongside FIFA prediction category sponsor ADI Predictstreet, which paid handsomely for global rights to promote an exchange that is not yet available in the U.S or much of Europe.

The key decision

At the start of the tournament, ADI struck a deal to pass U.S. rights to World Cup IP and marks along to Fanatics for use on its prediction app, available in states in which Fanatics does not offer its sportsbook. But the deal and ADI’s FIFA contract left it free to co-brand its highly visible pitch-side billboards to other prediction apps.

Initially, Kalshi viewed a FIFA sponsorship as prohibitively expensive. It didn’t need to market globally and could effectively reach its U.S. audience through clever social campaigns and TV spots on Fox.

“We had a strong inkling that the [FIFA sponsorship] category would exist, but we also felt extraordinarily confident that there were multiple ways to create effective awareness around an event like the World Cup,” Barrick said. “We went into it with a strong degree of confidence, but it all comes down to execution.”

With the U.S. team still alive entering the knockout rounds and a broad swath of the country deeply engaged in all things World Cup, Kalshi reconsidered the value of having its logo in a rotating position alongside the pitch. It paid $20 million to have its logo alongside ADI Predictstreet’s beginning in the round of 32, Bloomberg reported, in a deal that opened the door for the two companies to work together on future products.

“Over the course of open and continuous dialogue with ADI, this opportunity came about,” Barrick said. “We pride ourselves on being able to be nimble and not locked into a one-size-fits-all approach.”

The World Cup offered countless opportunities for human connection, which is exactly what the tournament should be about. Long after the final whistle, and long after Spain lifted the trophy, it’ll be the experiences around the event that leave a lasting impression.

The host countries have fallen for soccer in a big way: U.S. World Cup-related experiences have more than quadrupled versus the 2022 tournament in Qatar, according to Eventbrite data. Full disclosure: My team at Sparks had a front-row seat to this shift. We were the connective tissue pulling together fan experience programming across seven of the 11 U.S. venues this summer. So what did we notice resonating with audiences throughout this year’s tournament?

Play and parties

First up — and perhaps a little unexpectedly — is Lego. It provided fan zones within stadiums in all three host countries, the U.S., Mexico and Canada, where kids and adults got their photos taken, played with figurines of star players and saw models of the trophy. This ties in with the film via W+K Amsterdam in which famous footballers build a Lego World Cup trophy that’s finished off by a kid. The cherry on the cake for all these activations is a giant World Cup trophy made out of 1.3 million Lego bricks that is currently standing proud in the Rockefeller Center.

Adidas and Nike have also understood the power of IRL activations. Adidas Home of Soccer popped up in L.A., New York, Toronto, Atlanta and Houston, inviting fans along to watch parties for matches and then entertaining them afterward with appearances from musicians including Pink Pantheress. Crucially, these free activations have been anchored to each individual city’s soccer culture rather than taking a cookie-cutter approach and replicating an identical experience. That’s been fundamental to their appeal.

Meanwhile Nike teamed up with retail partner The Shoe Palace to host The Corner Kick, a similar offering in L.A., where the focus has squarely been on soccer culture, with DJ sets and foosball to keep fans entertained between games.

Be there for the trials and tribulations

What really hit home with this World Cup was when brands grasped that the World Cup isn’t all about the moments on the pitch; it’s also about the highs and lows in between matches, when emotions are real and you can really connect with audiences.

Uber understood this perfectly. The ride-hailing app introduced a range of initiatives in-house, including “Sorry for Your (Team’s) Loss.” This gives supporters of losing teams discounts on their Uber rides home, providing Uber-branded tissue packs for tearful fans lamenting their team’s ejection from the tournament. It’s a brilliant example of a brand being there not for the moments of glory, but for the gut-wrenching trials and tribulations of supporting the beautiful game.

Local customs, global stage

Some of the most delightful and memorable moments from this World Cup have come from specific countries’ customs and traditions.

Cast your mind back to the start of the World Cup and the unforgettable effect that the Scottish fans had when they landed in the U.S. After Scotland’s 28-year absence from the World Cup, The Tartan Army’s occupation of Boston and Miami included the ancient Scottish tradition of placing traffic cones on statues, such over-zealous beer drinking that Boston’s bars and pubs ran dry, and treating unsuspecting Americans to regular enthusiastic blasts on the bagpipes.

Norway’s Viking row, which saw Norwegian fans in the stands of stadiums enthusiastically rowing, quickly became one of the most endearing and viral sights of the tournament. When Norway qualified for the quarterfinals, fans in Oslo and Bergen rowed so loudly and energetically as they celebrated that seismologists recorded an earthquake.

Norway’s striker Erling Haaland told reporters: “Seeing thousands rowing with you ... gives you goosebumps.”

And The World Cup of Personal Branding Goes To …

Haaland has performed an exceptional job in building his own brand during the tournament. The Manchester City player has grown his Instagram following from 40 million to 60 million during the World Cup; his Reels have been viewed more than 683 million times since the start of the tournament. Unafraid to poke fun at himself, Haaland has embraced his time in the U.S., shopping for cowboy hats in Texas and praising Americans. Google jumped on the Haaland bandwagon: Put his name into Google and a string of Norwegian vikings start rowing across your screen.

When experience steals the show

This World Cup has shown brands the power of investing in activations — often at a local level — that are both meaningful and memorable. Despite the exponential growth of the creator economy, some of the tournament’s standout content didn’t come from paid creators. It came from the grassroots. It grabbed attention. It resonated. And it enhanced the fan experience. Watching that infrastructure get built this summer only reinforced it: The brands that win aren’t just showing up with a footprint; they’re showing up inside an experience that’s been made to feel whole.

There’s an evergreen lesson in there for brands, both for huge global sporting tournaments and outside of them.

Melissa Levy is president at experiential agency Sparks.

• The NFL submitted public comment with the CFTC calling for tighter restrictions on sports prediction markets than the regulatory agency laid out as part of an initial rule-making proposal it made public in June, reports SBJ’s Bill King.
• The Travelers Championship, considered one of the top stops on the PGA Tour, is the first event to be confirmed for the tour’s Championship Series that will debut in 2028, writes SBJ’s Josh Carpenter.
• The Islanders received 80,490 submissions in their contest for fans to design the club’s next alternate jersey, notes SBJ’s Nick Veronica.
• The U.S. Tennis Association announced the initial entry list for its 2026 U.S. Open Mixed Doubles Championship, the second edition of the event, reports SBJ’s Rob Schaefer.
• For the upcoming SummerSlam, WWE and ESPN are tapping the popularity of WWE superstar Danhausen to fuel a immersive fan experience in the greater Minneapolis area centering on a roaming, Danhausen-themed ice cream truck, notes SBJ’s Na’Andre Emerson.