The 2026 World Cup kicks off on June 11, and the global soccer event is posing thorny challenges for brands looking to activate around it. With games spread across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, transportation difficulties and rumors of shady ticket reselling, there\u2019s a growing tension between the scale of the event and how accessible it actually feels to fans.<\/p>\n
Layer on the U.S.\u2019 massive creator economy (forecast to reach $37.1 billion this year<\/a>) and the reality that soccer still trails far behind America\u2019s dominant sports, and you get an unusually tricky marketing environment. Rather than centering activations in and around stadiums or relying on fans to tune into television broadcasts, brands are investing in creators ahead of kickoff, commissioning bespoke sponsored content, branded long-form series, and more, to drum up World Cup buzz from afar.<\/p>\n \u201cCreators are going to be the key to success of how to build the fandom,\u201d said Matt Grandchamp, svp and head of revenue at digital media publisher NowThis. \u201cThe logistical nightmare that is the World Cup in New York and New Jersey\u2026 what can brands do?\u201d<\/p>\n Continue reading this article on digiday.com<\/a>. Sign up for Digiday newsletters<\/a> to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2026 World Cup kicks off on June 11, and the global soccer event is posing thorny challenges for brands looking to activate around it. With games spread across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, transportation difficulties and rumors of shady ticket reselling, there\u2019s a growing tension between the scale of the event and how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}