General view of the exterior of San Francisco Bay Area Stadium ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Group B match between Qatar and Switzerland on June 13, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
Fran Santiago | Getty Images
As people around the world tune into this summer’s World Cup, some of the brands generating the most buzz aren’t even official sponsors of the tournament.
The list of official sponsors for this year’s World Cup, hosted in cities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, include global household names like Adidas, Coca-Cola and Qatar Airways.
But even before the tournament began, the spotlight fell on companies like Levi Strauss & Co., Taco Bell and Texas-based convenience store chain Buc-ee’s. Some have garnered traction on social media for their creative marketing strategies, while others have benefited from organic customer response with the influx of international players and fans.
McDonald’s celebrated the tournament with limited-time menu items and cups. Taco Bell leaned into a new campaign to support fans in celebration or support depending on the outcome of a match.
According to marketing research firm WARC Media, advertising spending on this year’s World Cup tournament is expected to reach $10.5 billion. That’s just below spending for the 2018 World Cup, hosted by Russia, which totaled roughly $12.6 billion.
Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower told CNBC that World Cup advertising spend increased 42% week over week in the days leading up to the first game. The firm tracked that Taco Bell and Duracell have both increased their advertising spend in the past few weeks, though the top 10 World Cup advertisers by spend over the past three months have been sponsors or broadcast partners of the event.
According to market research firm Meltwater, in the ramp-up to the World Cup, non-sponsor brand collaborations generated nearly double the engagement of official sponsors, reaching roughly 61 million engagements versus just 33 million.
The firm told CNBC that while sponsored advertisements led in volume, distribution and creative quality helped propel non-sponsors to higher engagement, with the most social media engagement coming from TikTok.
Since the tournament began, non-sponsor brands have surpassed 57,000 mentions on social media versus just over 43,000 for official sponsors, the company said.
“A big takeaway from this World Cup is that you don’t need an official sponsorship to own the cultural moment anymore,” Meltwater CEO John Box told CNBC. “The brands that will win the next tournament aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets, but instead the ones who are set up to see what’s trending in real time, the creativity to connect it back to your brand, and the speed to act before the moment passes.”
World Cup results
Kylian Mbappé’s Nike soccer cleats during a French national team training session at Bentley University in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 20, 2026. The number 58 on the cleats represent the goals scored by Mbappé for the national team.
Johnny Fidelin | Icon Sport | Getty Images
According to Meltwater, Coca-Cola and Adidas accounted for half of all sponsor mentions in the buildup to the tournament. But in the final 11 days before the first match on June 11, McDonald’s became the clear winner, with engagement share rising from 2.6% to 23%.
Of the non-sponsors, Lego accounted for 82% of the top 50 most engaging non-sponsor posts across social media platforms, Meltwater said. The construction toy company’s World Cup campaign delivered 12 times the sponsor average in the days leading up to the tournament.
Nike, who is not an official tournament sponsor, saw its World Cup advertisement — featuring celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Travis Scott and Lebron James as well as scores of World Cup stars like Norway breakout Erling Haaland and Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo — rake in more than 70 million views on YouTube.
Sneaker rival Adidas counts roughly 7 million views for its advertisement featuring actor Timothée Chalamet, Argentina captain Lionel Messi and more.
That gap is indicative of the winners and losers of the off-pitch advertising battle during the tournament, according to Andrew Rohm, a professor of marketing at Loyola Marymount University.
“It was just interesting how those two brands took totally different approaches to their four- to five-minute pieces of content, and I loved the Nike approach because it was totally on-brand, irreverent, unexpected, in your face,” Rohm told CNBC. “You don’t have to be an official sponsor to tie back into the cultural social importance of a worldwide global event like the World Cup, especially if you have assets like Nike has that you can deploy towards that.”
When it comes to the advertising winners of this year’s World Cup, Rohm said it’s a battle between “the expected and the unexpected.” The companies that aren’t official sponsors and are therefore not restricted by FIFA are able to have the most fun with their marketing, he said.
One brand making the most of its non-sponsor status is denim brand Levi’s.
Because the company isn’t an official backer of the tournament, its branding on the host stadium in Santa Clara, California, had to be removed before matches.
The Levi’s logo, loosely shaped like a jeans pant pocket, was shrouded in a white covering — but the move counterintuitively generated buzz for the company on social media from amused fans. In a similar move, razor brand Gillette’s cover for its logo on the stadium in Massachusetts mimicked shaving cream foam to make light of the situation.
“What started as a naming rights sponsorship restriction at the Levi’s Stadium became the most commented and shared post in Levi’s history,” Kenneth Mitchell, Levi’s chief marketing officer, wrote last week. “Leaning fully into it with a profile change on our social channels sealed the deal.”
Mitchell added that “strong brand iconography” worked on the company’s side, as its distinctive logo remained recognizable even under the covering.
According to Meltwater, Levi’s led the strongest example of non-sponsor visibility through its marketing, with its mentions increasing by 44% since the start of the World Cup. Engagement with the company increased nearly four times after it leaned into the stadium covering marketing, the research firm found.
A shifting ad strategy
Jared Watson, an assistant professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said he’s seen brands having more fun in their marketing during this year’s tournament.
“I think what you’re seeing play out, especially this year, is these brands that are taking sort of a rebellious or a cheeky approach to where they’re not officially being aligned with FIFA, and so a lot of consumers are in support of these marketing initiatives, in part because it feels somewhat adversarial to what’s happening,” Watson told CNBC. “It’s kind of stripping away that capitalistic intention from FIFA.”
Watson said brand success has not come from the marketing alone, but also that some companies are picking up on the frustration consumers feel with the commercialization of global soccer.
FIFA introduced mandatory hydration breaks during matches, for example, baking in more time for ads without breaking up the game. The breaks have drawn criticism from fans who say they’re unnecessary and a money grab.
“There’s a little bit of a stick-it-to-the-man mentality of we like to see these brands that are rebelling and pushing back because it’s kind of in the spirit of what the World Cup is, which is unity and meritocracy,” Watson said.
FIFA said in December the three-minute breaks were intended to prioritize “player welfare” and “part of a focused attempt to ensure the best possible conditions for players.”
Some brands have also found more organic success as fans around the world experience the culture of the World Cup host cities, posting about their newfound affinity for American general store chain Buc-ee’s and salad dressing company Hidden Valley Ranch.
“One of the things that we’ve seen, which I think has helped a lot of brands that maybe hadn’t proactively decided to jump into the advertising fray, is we’ve seen the delight with sort of basic American things,” Watson said. “That has allowed a lot of these brands to kind of slipstream or somewhat reactively jump on these trends and gain some earned media.”
And in an age of artificial intelligence, marketing that creates an emotional connection and has a human appeal stands out, according to Kelly Cutler, an associate professor of marketing at Northwestern University.
“I think it’s particularly timely, because I think people feel a little bit sensitive right now with all of the media around AI and all the discussions around AI,” Cutler said. “So that understanding at that human level of how important it is when your team wins or loses is so basic and fundamental and creates such a connection.”
Cutler also said the marketing cuts through generations — younger consumers are more aware of when they’re being sold to and are more often resistant. Companies that can develop a deeper bond with Generation Z will find the “golden goose of marketing,” she said.
For sponsor companies constrained by FIFA regulations, she added, the World Cup may have broader implications for future brand partnerships.
“The organizations, obviously they want those sponsorship dollars, and they don’t want to experience this type of situation where the brands that are paying nothing are getting a lot of traction and hitting all the headlines and having these really interesting outcomes,” Cutler said. “So I do think that it’s going to be interesting to watch how this impacts future sponsorship programming.”
