Soccer’s U.S. Growth Fuels A World Cup Advertising Boom.

The World Cup’s growing popularity in the U.S. translated into a massive increase in advertising this year, with Guideline estimating the tournament generated roughly $2 billion in U.S. ad revenue — about five times what it measured four years ago.

Guideline’s first game-by-game analysis of World Cup advertising shows that about $1.5 billion flowed to television, while streaming and simulcast advertising generated roughly another $500 million.

The dramatic increase reflects both growing U.S. interest in soccer and a tournament that was much more advertiser-friendly domestically. The 2026 World Cup was played across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, giving American viewers more games in favorable time zones and advertisers more opportunities to reach audiences during prime viewing hours.

“I think there’s been a sea change in terms of soccer in the U.S.,” Chief Insights and Analytics Officer Sean Wright says in a Guideline podcast.

One of the biggest changes from the 2022 World Cup was how much viewing — and advertising — occurred on streaming platforms.

Guideline estimates streaming ad impressions increased from roughly 2 billion during the 2022 tournament to about 7 billion this year. Wright says younger audiences helped fuel the shift, pushing estimated streaming and simulcast advertising revenue to roughly $500 million. That growth is notable because streaming was already well established four years ago. Wright says the difference isn’t simply that more streaming platforms now exist.

“It’s part of the shift in consumption in terms of audience,” he says. “It’s a lot of the younger audience coming in and consuming soccer in a huge way.”

The findings continue a trend Guideline has seen across major sports, with streaming taking a larger role in live-event consumption and the advertising that follows it.

Advertisers Pay To Get Into Game

More viewers were only part of the revenue increase. Advertisers also paid substantially more for World Cup inventory. Guideline estimates an ad unit in the final cost just under $2 million, compared with roughly $500,000 during the 2022 final. Wright says $500,000 this year was closer to the average unit cost for inventory during a typical World Cup match.

He cautions that those figures reflect paid media and don't necessarily represent an advertiser’s total investment. Sponsorships, official marketing rights and other arrangements can push the actual cost higher.

U.S. matches were among the tournament’s biggest advertising draws. Excluding the final, Guideline says two U.S. knockout-round games each generated about $40 million in advertising. The final itself produced an estimated $150 million across the Fox and Telemundo broadcasts.

Guideline’s data also points to a significant increase for Spanish-language streaming.

During the 2022 World Cup, about one-third of the streaming advertising dollars tracked by Guideline went to Telemundo’s Spanish-language coverage. This year, that share increased to just under half. Wright says much of the streaming activity came through Peacock and believes the size of the increase suggests Spanish-language World Cup coverage attracted viewers beyond exclusively Spanish-speaking audiences.

The growth is already raising questions about how media companies can wring even more advertising revenue from future tournaments. Looking toward the 2030 World Cup, Wright expects broadcasters to explore additional commercial opportunities around breaks in play, while streaming platforms could develop more ways to monetize coverage across digital endpoints.

“There’s tremendous interest right now in trying to figure out what this thing is worth for 2030,” Wright says. And there’s little evidence that advertiser enthusiasm for the sport has peaked.

“For right now, no signs of it slowing in terms of overall health,” he says.