The FIFA Club World Cup: A Perfect Warm-Up for 2026 World Cup...
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup is priming the US audience for the 2026 World Cup, here's how...
Happy New Week,
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup kicked off on Saturday, with 32 teams from six confederations competing across 12 venues in 11 U.S. cities. The tournament serves as the perfect rehearsal for its biggest show yet: The 2026 World Cup, especially with five of the venues also hosting matches next year.
This years tournament isn’t just about testing stadium logistics though, it’s a huge opportunity to warm up the US audience for the big event next year. The US haven’t hosted the World Cup since 1994, the US audience is still growing and is growing even faster now. The U.S. now has roughly 62.2 million soccer fans, according to a Nielsen report released this month. The sport also attracts more money from advertisers than any other in the world, with an estimated 41% of all sports sponsorship dollars going to “soccer”.
In order to win the attention of the young American football fan, FIFA brought in the best person for the job, global sensation, IShowSpeed. The biggest football content creator and a living casestudy of how someone with no football knowledge can become completely football obsessed . His story is something every football fan can relate to; discovering the game, getting hooked, and knowing every random fact about your favourite player.
It all started with one simple question: “Who is this Ronaldo guy everyone’s talking about?” That innocent curiosity snowballed into one of the most chaotic, entertaining, and authentic football fandom journeys the internet has ever seen. All captured on his live stream. Speed has been bringing football to many, his energy, curiosity and personality creates something people can belong to. And for Gen Z, that’s the hook.
As mentioned in our Gen Z football report, this new age of fans are digital natives, they are interactive not passive fans, constantly looking for ways to engage, so naturally they favour social and shareable experiences. FIFA knows this, hence why Speed is the perfect gateway to the audience FIFA needs: Gen Z Americans.
IShowSpeed first involvement with the FIFA Club World Cup was when FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, appeared on his live stream and to unveil the tournament trophy. Speed’s raw, over-the-top reactions were instantly clipped and circulated by football pages across the internet, giving FIFA massive organic reach. That’s the Speed effect: not just numbers, but deep, highly engaged audiences. Then yesterday he streamed the tournament opener, Inter Miami vs Al Ahly, which has already racked up over 2 million views on YouTube in less than 24 hours.
This tournament is undeniably a strategic move. With players already knackered after a relentless 2024–25 season, the real winners here are FIFA. By bringing world-class layers and clubs to American soil and pairing with creators like IShowSpeed who acts as a cultural bridge to Gen Z, FIFA isn’t just marketing a tournament; it’s getting more buy in from the U.S. audience. They’re building the emotional connection to the sport so when the 2026 World Cup arrives, it didn’t just arrive, this moment has been a “long time coming”.