The World Cup is here, and honestly, I almost thought it was too late to write about it. But then I remembered, the round of 16 just wrapped up, quarterfinals kick off today, and the fútbol is just getting good. ¡Estamos en pleno Mundial!
So yes, let’s talk about it. Specifically, let’s talk about what’s happening off the field.
Right now, there are 62.5 million soccer fans in the U.S., and the Hispanic community is at the heart of that number. Almost all of us are watching in Spanish. Not because we have to — because there’s no comparison. Fútbol in Spanish just hits different. The narrators, the rhythm, every time Andrés Cantor screams “¡Goooooooool!”… we’ve all been glued to Telemundo and Peacock for this one, and honestly, there’s nowhere else we’d rather be.
The numbers back that up. Telemundo was 90% sold out months before kickoff, advertiser demand jumped over 400% compared to Qatar 2022, and the Mexico vs. South Korea match alone pulled 14 million viewers, the most-watched soccer game in Spanish-language TV history in the U.S. According to Nielsen, 38% of all U.S. Hispanics identify as FIFA World Cup fans, jumping to 47% among first- and second-generation Hispanics. This isn’t a niche audience. This is the core of the tournament.
According to Nielsen’s FIFA World Cup 2026 Fandom Report, U.S. Hispanic fans don’t just watch. They lead. The data says it all:
- 67% of 1st and 2nd generation Hispanic fans plan to engage with the tournament on social media
- 102% more likely than the general population to have already watched a qualifier match
- 238% more likely to be avid MLS fans
- 46% more likely to recommend brands that show up authentically
- 47% more likely to stay loyal to those same brands
It all makes sense when you think about someone like Messi. I’m writing this from the Dominican Republic, where I have been since it started, where no national team is playing in this tournament. And yet, every bar, every restaurant, every kid on the street is wearing his jersey (yes, some Ronaldo too!). Inter Miami, Argentina, doesn’t matter. That’s not fandom for a team. That’s the pull of a cultural icon, someone so embedded in Latino identity that the flag on the shirt becomes irrelevant. That’s the level of connection the best brands at this World Cup are chasing, and a few are actually getting there.
The Brands That Actually Showed Up
Toyota: This Is What Commitment Looks Like
Toyota is not an official FIFA sponsor. You wouldn’t know it from watching.
Their campaign “Endurance Is Our Game,” created by Conill, their Hispanic agency of record, is built on one of those insights that feels obvious once you see it: for Latino fans, supporting a team is a lifelong commitment passed down through generations. Showing up, win or lose, is non-negotiable. Anyone who grew up in a Latino household knows exactly what that means.
The hero spot, “Tear Storm,” follows a group of friends driving through a torrential downpour in their Toyota truck, singing a reimagined version of “Cielito Lindo,” that iconic melody every Latino knows by heart, with custom lyrics. It’s a playful nod to the llorones, those fans we all know, who spend the entire match complaining from the sideline. Actor and singer Anthony Ramos extends it on social as a charismatic weatherman forecasting an incoming “tear storm.” It’s funny, it’s warm, and it feels like it was made by people who actually get the culture, because it was.
Toyota has been investing in Latino culture for over a decade, and maybe that’s exactly why Latinos, both in the U.S. and across Latin America, have a special place for the brand. They’ve always been in the room.
Google: Betting on Benito
Google is not a FIFA sponsor either. But somewhere in their campaign planning, someone made a very smart call.
Their World Cup spot, “The Most Searched Sport,” has been running during Telemundo broadcasts, and it’s in English. Full English. And yet, every Latino in the room looks up when it starts, because the second those first notes of Bad Bunny’s “NUEVAYoL” hit, something clicks.
Google bet on Benito, and won Hispanic attention without saying a single word in Spanish.
“NUEVAYoL” is not just a popular song. It’s the opening track of Bad Bunny’s 2025 album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, a deeply personal project about Puerto Rican identity, diaspora, and belonging. It’s the song Bad Bunny performed at the Super Bowl LX halftime show earlier this year. It samples El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico. For Latinos, that song carries weight, cultural, emotional, generational.
When “NUEVAYoL” starts playing, language stops mattering.
Yvette Baez, Google’s own head of industry for healthcare, said it best in the HMC 2026 Hispanic Market Guide: “when language fades, culture persists.” Turns out Google wasn’t just saying that. They were doing it, and the spot is still running as the tournament heads into the quarterfinals.
Google bet on Benito, and won Hispanic attention without saying a single word in Spanish.
IKEA: The Living Room Is the Stadium
IKEA doesn’t do surface-level Hispanic marketing. If you’ve followed their campaigns over the years, you know they consistently bring genuine cultural insight to their creative, and “El Lineup de Tus Sueños” is no exception.
Created by agency alma specifically for the U.S. Hispanic market, the campaign is built on a simple but spot-on truth: for Latino families, watching the World Cup at home is not a passive experience. The living room becomes the stadium. The couch, the coffee table, the TV setup, every piece of furniture has a role to play, just like a starting lineup.
So IKEA leaned into exactly that. The campaign reframes their products as the “starting lineup” of the ultimate fútbol viewing experience, mirroring the broadcast format of a team lineup reveal. It ran across OLV, CTV, linear TV, paid social, radio, OOH and digital, with influencers extending it further.
It’s the kind of idea that feels obvious in hindsight, which is usually the sign of a genuinely good insight. IKEA found the intersection between their product and how Latino families actually live this tournament, and built something that feels earned rather than opportunistic.
Verizon: Betty La Fea Goes to the World Cup
Verizon is an official telecommunications sponsor of FIFA World Cup 2026, and they did something unexpected with that placement. They built a dedicated Spanish-language campaign around the cast of Betty, la fea, featuring Ana María Orozco and Jorge Enrique Abello.
For context: their English-language counterpart used the Austin Powers cast. Two completely different creative directions, built for two completely different audiences. That’s a strategic decision that says this team understood that dubbed content doesn’t work, and that U.S. Hispanic consumers deserve their own creative, built around characters and cultural references that actually mean something to them.
Betty, la fea is not just a telenovela. It’s a cultural touchstone across Latin America and U.S. Hispanic households. Using that cast for a World Cup campaign is the kind of insight that comes from actually knowing your audience, not just targeting them.
Verizon put roughly 90% of all the FIFA inventory they purchased behind this campaign overall, split between the English version and the Spanish version. The Spanish-language creative was developed by agency The Community. That’s not a footnote, that’s a commitment.
Fun fact: José Arcieri, co-founder of Yucalab, was assistant director on the original Betty, la fea. So yes, we have a personal connection to this one.
Other Brands That Didn’t Forget the Hispanic Market
Other brands worth noting: Modelo made their largest soccer investment ever sponsoring every Telemundo pre-game broadcast, Bank of America became FIFA’s first-ever official global banking sponsor, The Home Depot extended its longtime relationship with the Mexican National Team to FIFA 2026, and Coca-Cola brought J Balvin into the mix with a World Cup anthem that ran across U.S. Spanish-language TV. Anheuser-Busch, McDonald’s, Volkswagen and Xfinity are also part of the official partner roster. Plenty of logos in the building, not all of them equally felt.
But before I wrap, I have to mention Adidas. Their World Cup film “Backyard Legends” might be the most talked-about spot of the tournament, and for good reason. Messi and Bad Bunny in the same frame, with Lamine Yamal, Jude Bellingham, Timothée Chalamet and Trinity Rodman, set in the streets with a full 90s vibe. My aunt, who doesn’t even watch soccer, saw it during halftime on Telemundo and said: “those two together? ¡Qué duro!” When a brand manages to stop people who aren’t even fans, that’s when you know the cultural casting was right. Quite the investment, Adidas.
The Game Is Still On. Is Your Brand Playing?
We’re in the quarterfinals now, and the brands that did their homework are already seeing the results. Toyota built something culturally genuine without being an official sponsor. Google grabbed Latino attention with a song, no Spanish required. IKEA found the insight hiding in plain sight in every Latino living room. Verizon made a bet on Betty and put real money behind it.
What all of them have in common is that they understood something the data has been saying for a while: soccer fans are the most sponsor-receptive audience in American sports, but only when the brand feels like it belongs. Nielsen found that 73% of U.S. World Cup fans find sponsors more appealing than non-sponsors. But that goodwill isn’t automatic. It’s earned through cultural fluency, not just media spend.
The World Cup only comes around every four years. This one, on U.S. soil, with 62.5 million soccer fans and the Hispanic community at the core, won’t happen again in our lifetime, or at least not anytime soon. Some brands understood that early. Others are still figuring it out.
But there are still matches to be played, moments to be made, and yes, opportunities for brands to show up in ways that actually matter. The question is whether they’re paying attention.
Are you watching? And more importantly, is your brand?
