Streaming Up 46%, Retail Up 3x, Betting Up 57%: What the World Cup Tells Brands About 2026

With 104 matches set to unfold across 16 cities in three countries this summer, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is shaping up to be the largest and most commercially intense edition of the tournament ever staged. A new report published today argues that brands which fail to plan beyond the opening whistle risk wasting one of the decade’s biggest marketing windows.

AppsFlyer, the marketing measurement platform, has released “Scoring Big: The Complete Marketer’s Guide to the World’s Top Soccer Event” in collaboration with digital intelligence firm Sensor Tower and performance agency M+C Saatchi Performance. Drawing on 4.8 billion app installs and four billion remarketing conversions tracked across 19,000 apps during a 91-day window around the 2022 Qatar tournament, the report offers a data-backed framework for turning short-term attention spikes into sustained growth across streaming, CTV, mobile, retail and digital ecosystems.

FIFA is projecting between $2.5 billion and $3 billion in marketing and sponsorship revenue for the 2026 edition alone — a figure that underscores the commercial stakes for brands competing for attention during the five-week window from June 11 to July 19.

Sarah Maina, Regional Manager for the Middle East and France at AppsFlyer, said the scale of this year’s tournament demands a fundamentally different approach from brands. “What Scoring Big makes clear is that brands can’t treat 2026 as a five-week sprint — it’s a marketing stress test and an amplifier,” she said. “Winning requires the ability to localize at scale, orchestrate every touchpoint across streaming, CTV, mobile, and retail, and measure it all with clarity and confidence.”

The numbers behind the noise

The report’s central finding is that mobile has evolved from a second screen into an always-on companion during live sporting events — and every app category responds differently to that shift. AppsFlyer’s minute-by-minute analysis of hundreds of millions of app sessions during the 2022 semi-finals showed that when attention was locked to the television, app usage dropped. But when the whistle blew or drama unfolded, mobile became the instant outlet for emotion, reaction and transaction.

The data paints a vivid picture of what happened across verticals during Qatar 2022. Streaming app installs surged 46 percent on opening day and remained 41 percent above average throughout the first week, with EMEA seeing spikes of up to 70 percent during key matches. In-app purchase revenue climbed 50 percent in Brazil and 33 percent in Mexico. Sports news app installs leaped 72 percent above average on opening day and held 56 percent higher during week one, as fans turned to mobile for real-time updates between matches.

Retail was equally affected. Shopping app installs grew two to three times year-on-year as the tournament overlapped with Black Friday and Cyber Week, amplifying competition and short-term purchase intent. Food delivery installs rose 15 percent globally on opening day, with South America posting the strongest growth at 6.7 percent across the entire tournament — translating cultural passion into new app adoption rather than simply amplifying existing usage.

Betting showed a different but equally telling pattern. US sports betting downloads climbed 57 percent during the tournament despite American football’s dominance, with sessions rising 15 percent and over 30 percent in Canada and Mexico. Brazil, where betting apps were not permitted in 2022 but became legal in 2025, is being closely watched: in the second half of 2025 alone, the country recorded 34.3 million betting app downloads, accounting for 27 percent of the global total.

Jonathan Briskman, Director of Market Insights at Sensor Tower, said the opportunity extends well beyond sports apps themselves. “Sports fans don’t experience major tournaments on one screen. They move between TV, mobile, and web, and that changes how brands should plan,” he said, adding that “the biggest opportunities are often adjacent to fandom: ordering food, placing a bet, booking travel, or following real-time scores. Winning strategies connect those moments into one seamless journey.”

The host-country advantage

The report devotes particular attention to the three host nations and the distinct opportunities each presents. In the United States, the share of adults identifying as soccer fans has grown 28 percent over the past five years — faster than any other major traditional sport in the country. Gen Z, Millennials and Latino audiences sit at the centre of that growth, with research indicating that 44 percent of Latinos in the US are likely to follow the tournament and demonstrate higher brand loyalty when engagement is culturally relevant and localised.

Mexico is expected to be the emotional and digital epicentre of the tournament, with eight in ten Mexicans planning to watch full matches. As viewing shifts toward streaming and second screens, the country’s bilingual audiences and integrated commerce ecosystem allow discovery and conversion to happen almost simultaneously. Canada, meanwhile, has been using large-scale events like the Eras Tour to stress-test its digital and physical infrastructure in cities like Toronto and Vancouver, laying a foundation for the World Cup at an even greater scale.

Notably, the tournament will coincide with the United States’ 250th anniversary, creating what the report calls a “super-cycle” of consumer touchpoints that will reward brands capable of sustaining engagement across longer decision journeys rather than chasing single peak days.

Localised creative and AI step onto the pitch

Beyond the data, the report outlines a practical three-phase campaign framework: invest early while costs are lower and attention is building; activate in real time around key matches when attention peaks in predictable waves; and sustain engagement after the final whistle with a clear retention plan.

Jonathan Yantz, Managing Partner at M+C Saatchi Performance, said creative planning needs to begin long before kick-off. “Tournament periods bring intense competition and creative fatigue. The brands that perform best are the ones that plan ahead, test localized creative, and activate in ways that feel authentic to fans,” he said, pointing specifically to “language nuance, community-led messaging, and creators who can produce content natively for each platform.” His agency is already testing multiple creative iterations for the 2026 edition, including English, Spanish and “Spanglish” versions designed to engage Hispanic communities.

The agency draws a distinction between creators, who produce branded content, and influencers, who build audience trust through endorsement — and argues that micro and niche soccer influencers will offer particularly strong value during the tournament window.

Artificial intelligence is also moving from the margins to the centre of tournament marketing. The report highlights how automation can update advertisements in real time using signals like live scores, product availability and price shifts, while predictive models detect engagement spikes and adjust targeting and bidding instantly. Inside apps, AI-powered recommendation engines are personalising content, offers and journeys based on behaviour. The shift is supported by wider industry data: Nielsen Sports’ 2025 Global Fan Data Study found that nearly three quarters of rights holders now see personalised engagement as their primary revenue driver.

For food delivery brands, the tournament presents a particularly compelling window, according to Roman Hitibashvili, Global Head of UA at Wolt. “This is a powerful opportunity to re-engage existing users and acquire new ones by showing up exactly when people are deciding how to turn a shared sports moment into a shared experience,” he said. “The brands that win in 2026 will be those that move fast, activate in real time, and convert short-term hype into habits through smart re-engagement and relevance.”

Measurement as the deciding factor

Perhaps the report’s most pointed message is reserved for measurement. It advocates what it calls a “measurement trifecta” combining attribution to understand what drives conversions, incrementality testing to validate what is truly producing results, and media mix modelling to forecast and optimise with confidence. M+C Saatchi Performance notes that in a 2024 survey of US marketers, only one in three said they had an established measurement framework in place — a gap the report argues will be painfully exposed under the pressure of a World Cup spending cycle.

The report also stresses the importance of connecting physical and digital touchpoints. With CTV evolving from a pure awareness channel into a measurable growth driver, and out-of-venue experiences expanding the event’s ecosystem through fan zones, digital billboards and hybrid activations, brands need infrastructure that preserves intent as fans move fluidly between screens and spaces.

The bottom line

The overarching message from the report is that the 2026 World Cup represents far more than a tentpole advertising moment. It is a five-week stress test of a brand’s ability to localise, orchestrate across channels and measure with precision. The winners, the authors argue, will not be the brands that simply show up in June — they will be the ones that start months earlier, connect every physical and digital touchpoint, and have a plan for what happens long after the trophy is lifted.