This Was the World Cup of Influencers

World Cup 2026 was always going to be a tournament built for the digital age: global, relentless, thrilling and argumentative, with every moment refracted through countless screens.

More than 50 million viewers watched World Cup action across the three host nations during the opening weekend. By the end, Spain had beaten Argentina 1-0 in the final. But while television still commanded vast live audiences, the tournament's cultural afterlife increasingly played out elsewhere.

On TikTok alone, World Cup-related content generated surpassed 1.2 trillion views globally, making it the platform's biggest content moment to date. FIFA's official World Cup account attracted almost 28 billion views during the tournament, while its Creator Correspondents programme put 30 creators from 22 countries behind the scenes.

Then there was New Zealand’s Tim Payne. After Argentinian creator Valentín Scarsini described him as the World Cup's “least-known” player, Payne's Instagram following rocketed from around 4,000 in late May to 5.6 million by the tournament's opening day. He became a case study in how quickly the gravitational pull of a World Cup could transform an athlete into a creator-economy phenomenon.

For brands, that shift created an obvious opportunity. The action might have happened on the pitch, but much of the conversation happened around it: reactions, memes, podcasts, travel diaries, dressing-room glimpses and fan commentary. The route in was the creator ecosystem.

Goldman Sachs has estimated that the creator economy's total addressable market could reach $480bn by 2027, roughly double its 2023 size. At the World Cup, brands had six weeks to discover what that economy could do when attached to football's biggest cultural event.

“Influencers and creators will be central to how the World Cup is experienced, particularly for younger and more globally dispersed audiences,” says Will Butterworth, strategy director at Edelman. “What’s different heading into World Cup 2026 is the scale and sophistication of that role."

The world of online attention

Sports viewing is no longer a single-screen activity. Fans can watch the match while following a creator's live reaction, scrolling through TikTok debates about the starting XI and listening to a podcast dissect the same incident before the players have left the pitch.

“Influencers and creators are no longer just amplification channels; they are cultural interpreters, shaping how moments are framed, shared and understood in real time,” continues Butterworth. 

Nor is this simply a Gen Z story. Nielsen's 2025 Global Sports Report found that the number of fans aged 50 and over using streaming to watch sport had grown 21 per cent in two years, suggesting that new viewing habits are spreading across generations.

Sky Sports explored the same tension during the Premier League season with In The Box, putting Arsenal and Tottenham fans, including Michael McIntyre, Gary Lineker, ChrisMD, Jordan Stephens and Grime Gran, together during the North London derby without letting them see the match.

The premise turned absence into entertainment. Missing the football was the football content.

It also captured a broader shift. Traditional broadcasters still own the premium live rights, but creators increasingly own what happens around them: the reaction, interpretation and debate. 

“In the UK brands are no longer just thinking about how to plug into TV coverage – large audiences are now coming from visual podcasts like ‘The Rest Is Football’ [moving onto Netflix for the tournament], ‘The Overlap’, or creator collectives like the Sidemen, who will likely dominate Gen Z engagement on YouTube with on-the-ground content in the US,” says Daniel Wood, SVP of sports and entertainment at WPP Media.

For Wood, fan creators documenting their own experiences represent the scale of the long tail.

“Initiatives like TikTok’s World Cup Creator Correspondents programme, where selected creators are given behind-the-scenes access, show how platforms are actively positioning fans as part of the official broadcast ecosystem. In that sense, fans are increasingly becoming broadcasters in their own right.”

TikTok ultimately selected 30 Creator Correspondents, giving them access to everything from training sessions and press conferences to warm-ups and team arrivals.

That opportunity extended beyond creators with enormous followings. Micro and nano influencers could build World Cup content around narrower communities, interests and identities, adding travel, food, fashion and lifestyle to the football itself.

“You might say that this World Cup will be one of the last remaining monocultures,” explains Jim Stump, group creative director at T&P. “The fact social media has broken linear broadcasting as the dominant sports viewing method – everything’s so much more fragmented than it’s ever been.” 

Stump expected much of that content to involve travel and lifestyle “woven into football content” as creators moved between host cities in Mexico, Canada and the United States.

The pace mattered too. With faster editing, clipping culture and generative AI tools, a World Cup moment no longer needed until the morning papers to acquire a second life. A meme could emerge before half-time and feel exhausted by the final whistle.

Winning through culture, not football

Rexona was one of the brands that went hard at that opportunity, unsurprising given parent company Unilever's growing emphasis on social and influencer marketing.

It’s a brand that prides itself in fan experience, synonymous with its long-standing ‘Won’t Let You Down’ tagline. 

“We’ll be working across the full spectrum – from nano creators through to ambassadors – on how they bring value,” explains Em Heath, global brand director at Rexona. “Our ambassadors, for example, help create local connection and emotion, and they also help drive awareness of ticketing opportunities and get people excited about the possibility of being at the World Cup.”

During the tournament, Unilever built both physical creator spaces and a 24/7 social operation. Its House of Fresh creator hubs appeared in host cities including New York, while The Locker Room operated as a round-the-clock social media hub designed to respond to cultural moments across platforms including TikTok and YouTube.

The model was deliberately flexible. Rexona could host creators in person, but it did not need to bring every relationship under one roof. “We’ll also be briefing creators to produce content themselves. We don’t always need to meet them in person - there are many ways to work with them. Some relationships will be in person, others more remote.”

Speaking previously to Creative Salon, Heath pointed to the scale brands increasingly believe major sporting events demand. “When Coca-Cola went to the Olympics last year, they sent something like 10,000 creators, and honestly, that’s what you’ve got to do.” 

And the World Cup raised the stakes again.

“Bigger than what we saw at the Olympics because this is the World Cup and it lasts nearly six weeks, with 104 matches and 48 teams,” she continues. “We need to match that scale. The Olympics is massive in its own right, with over 200 nations, but the Men’s World Cup is the largest sporting event in the world.”

Unilever's Locker Room put that theory into practice, with creator, community and football specialists producing reactive work intended to stretch match moments beyond the pitch.

The hub will feature a collaboration between its Personal Care brands - Rexona/Degree, Dove, Dove Men+Care, Axe/Lynx - alongside a "dedicated team of creator and community experts at Unilever” to assist with live coverage. 

Diageo is another brand looking to lean towards creators for some of its World Cup content. For Rick Pineda, VP of global sports partnerships at Diageo, the drinks category is one that has always utilised influencers because of its very nature. 

Across its drinks portfolio for the tournament, which consists of Don Julio, Casamigos, Buchanan’s, Johnnie Walker, and Smirnoff, the brand isn’t just tapping into social media influencers. 

“At the top end, we launched our 1942 limited-edition World Cup bottle with Thierry Henry and Roberto Carlos - those are mega influencers,” he says. “We also have strong relationships with influencers across the full spectrum, and we’ll be leveraging that. Whether it’s bringing them to matches, having them host events or viewing parties with our products and their communities, that will be a core part of our strategy.”

The spectrum extended beyond conventional social creators. Buchanan's partnered with Grammy-winning Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Rauw Alejandro on social content, while the Scotch brand also appeared in his World Cup music video.

The point was not simply to borrow reach. It was to find people who could give a brand a credible route into the surrounding culture.

Losing sight of the athlete

By 2026, being an elite athlete increasingly meant having a media platform of your own.

Players offer brands something most creators cannot: fame generated by the event itself. But creators can offer intimacy, specificity and relationships with communities that a sporting superstar may never reach.

So are athletes now influencers? And should brands prioritise them over creators?

“The star power of an athlete will always offer a level of borrowed fame and saliency that’s difficult to replicate, particularly around a World Cup, where players sit at the centre of global attention,” says Butterworth. “However, influencers and creators are building highly engaged, often niche audiences that value authenticity and relatability over pure star power. Their influence operates differently, less about reach in a single moment, more about sustained cultural relevance.”

Comparing the two, he believes misses the point. “The most effective campaigns increasingly combine both: athletes provide the cultural gravity and credibility, while creators extend the story into fan communities in ways that feel more personal and participatory.”

Stump similarly points to athletes who have cultivated identities beyond sport, citing England forward Marcus Rashford's campaigning on free school meals as an example of influence extending well beyond the pitch.

Wood, meanwhile, notes that some players have built audiences larger than those of the teams and competitions they represent. The distinction is becoming less useful. The more interesting question for brands is what kind of influence they need.

“The World Cup belongs to everyone. Yes, it doesn’t exist without 11 players on each side on the pitch, but the fans are what make it what it is - and content creators are part of that fan community. So I think there’s a role for both.” 

Not every brand needs an athlete, she adds, pointing to Rexona's sister brand Dove.

“If they’re activating around the Men’s World Cup, it may not make sense for them to partner with male athletes in that setting. They might instead focus on amplifying female voices around the tournament."

She continues: “There’s no shortage of athletes working with brands - many have double-digit partnerships already. The challenge is making sure each brand brings something unique to those partnerships.

"For example, if I’m working with someone like Cole Palmer, it has to look completely different from how Nike or Burberry or Pringles might work with him. It has to feel distinctive and authentic.”

That is where the creator question ultimately becomes a brand question. Reach is easy to recognise. Distinctiveness is harder.

The synthetic fan

And then there were the creators who were not actually people.

AI-generated influencers had already begun appearing around football before the World Cup, raising a more awkward question for brands: in a sport built on belonging and genuine emotion, what does a synthetic fan add?

Edelman’s 2024 Trust Barometer revealed 74 per cent of people trust “people like me” over traditional institutions, finding room for creators; and while AI continues to shape the modern digital landscape, AI creators may well be used to create more trusting partnerships. 

There’s a belief that AI creators are getting harder to spot, and therefore aren’t an issue, however, their appearances were clear during last season in the Premier League, with some even posting dancing videos in the players’ dressing rooms.

Wood points to AI-generated creator Scarlett Parker, whose football content attracted attention after she appeared to be sitting alongside Thierry Henry at the Emirates.

For Wood, the problem is not simply whether viewers can spot the technology. It is what synthetic fandom contributes when the real thing is already abundant.

 “When feeds are already full of authentic, fan-driven celebration, especially around big moments like title wins, AI content can feel disconnected, inauthentic and driven by clickbait rather than genuine fandom and could lead to brand trust erosion.

“As a sports fan, I’d much prefer to see AI creators used sparingly if at all,” he concludes. “Sport is fundamentally about the human experience: passion, joy, heartbreak and genuine emotion. With so many real people already bringing that to life in incredible ways, it’s hard to see why that needs to be recreated artificially. For me, it feels like an unnecessary step.” 

The 2026 World Cup made that human appetite difficult to miss. For 90 minutes, the players still owned the spectacle. Before kick-off, after the whistle and everywhere in between, creators fought for the rest of the attention.

And, increasingly, brands followed them there.

This piece has been updated since the completion of the tournament in June.