The World Cup Sponsor Everyone Ignored

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One week after NHL Schedule Release, MLB's numbers tell a very different story.

Just 17% of teams (5-of-30) created Schedule Release videos.

Two years ago, that number was 47% (14-of-30).

That's a 64% decline.

Instead, most clubs stuck to a standard graphic or carousel, with only 30% (9-of-30) doing anything beyond the traditional approach.

Why the drop?

My best guess is timing.

Compared to last year, MLB's Schedule Release arrived more than a month earlier. The question is whether teams had enough runway to develop larger creative concepts.

That said, here’s the group that took a step outside the box:

San Francisco Giants: My favorite of the bunch. The team asked fans at the All-Star Game about their favorite baseball memories, then dubbed over the answers with iconic Giants moments against those same teams.

Baltimore Orioles: An unboxing video featuring the broadcast team comparing 2027 opponents to Pokémon cards.

Detroit Tigers: A clever crossover where Paws picked up the story immediately after appearing in the Detroit Red Wings' Schedule Release video.

New York Mets: Another mascot-led concept where Mr. Met drew their opponents.

Chicago Cubs: A Partiful-inspired schedule carousel.

From a sponsorship perspective, another stat jumped out:

Only 13% of teams (4-of-30) attached a sponsor to their Schedule Release content.

All four came from the AL East.

• Yankees × Motorola: Motorola wasn't tagged, but product placement appeared on three of the seven cards in the team's schedule carousel.

• Red Sox × Dunkin': Matchups were displayed on stickers attached to various Dunkin' drinks and menu items.

• Blue Jays × TD: TD branding appeared on the lead card of the carousel, given they’re the sponsor of the club’s home opener. The bank also earned additional visibility through the club's jersey patch.

• Rays × Orlando Health: Orlando Health branding was featured on the lead card as the season presenting partner of Tampa Bay's season.

Once again, in partnership with Gondola, we've compiled every MLB Schedule Release video and graphic in one searchable database. You can filter by views, engagement, trending, and Gondola Score to see how each team approached the moment and which executions performed best.

I came away from MLB and NHL Schedule Release with the same conclusion.

The reason these leagues attract less sponsorship around Schedule Release than the NFL isn't simply a popularity gap.

It's a packaging problem.

Too often, teams sell Schedule Release as a standalone activation, and those conversations happen late in the sales cycle when partner budgets are already committed elsewhere.

Teams can create the most value by selling a year-round platform.

Schedule Release becomes the anchor for monthly schedule look-aheads, matchup content, schedule update graphics, sweepstakes, website integrations, email placements, and more.

The result is a larger sponsorship story that's easier for brands to justify and easier for sales teams to monetize.

If you'd like my full framework for packaging, pricing, and selling Schedule Release for maximum value, check out my complete playbook here.

• Beyond The Rights 🍟

• Groundbreaking Giveaway 🏗️

• Bagging Attention 🧳

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
Inside McDonald’s Winning World Cup Playbook

Everyone's been talking about the brands that didn't sponsor the World Cup.

Levi's.
DoorDash.
Kraft Heinz.
British Airways/Norwegian Airlines.

And they deserve the praise.

They proved you don't need FIFA rights to win attention.

But somewhere along the way, the marketing conversation became so focused on ambush campaigns that we stopped paying attention to the brands that actually paid for the tournament.

One official sponsor put together one of the smartest sponsorship activations of the summer.

McDonald's.

The company has been a FIFA partner since 1994, and according to Tracksuit's latest World Cup brand tracking, it's one of just three sponsors ranking in the top three for awareness, consideration, and preference alongside Coca-Cola and adidas. That's what three decades of consistent sponsorship can build.

But heritage wasn't enough.

McDonald's backed its investment with one of the most complete activation plans I've seen this year.

Build a campaign people want to collect

The centerpiece of McDonald's activation was the FIFA World Cup Meal.

Every qualifying meal came with a blind-box collectible cup featuring one of football's biggest names, including David Beckham, Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Son Heung-min, Lamine Yamal, Christian Pulisic, Alphonso Davies, Santiago Giménez, or Grimace.

It's a familiar formula, but one McDonald's knows exceptionally well.

The brand combined two playbooks it has refined over the years:

• Celebrity-driven meal campaigns.

• Limited-edition collectibles.

The result was simple.

Buy the meal, open the cup, and hope you pulled the player you wanted.

If not, come back and try again.

That mechanic naturally encourages repeat purchases throughout the tournament, but it also creates something equally valuable: conversation.

Fans started posting their quests for the cups across social media.

The cups delivered a one-two punch of purchases and participation.

Pick talent that survives the tournament

One thing that stood out was how McDonald's approached talent selection.

Instead of building the campaign entirely around current stars, they assembled a roster that blended football legends with today's biggest players.

• David Beckham

• Ronaldinho

• Thierry Henry

Alongside...

• Lamine Yamal.

• Son Heung-min.

• Christian Pulisic.

• Alphonso Davies.

• Santiago Giménez.

The lineup also represented multiple continents and generations, giving the campaign relevance across dozens of markets.

That mix also reduces tournament risk.

If an active player makes a deep run, the brand can ride that momentum.

If they exit early, Beckham, Ronaldinho, and Henry remain just as culturally relevant.

The campaign wasn't dependent on one team, or one player, lifting the trophy.

One production day became dozens of posts

Last month, I wrote about how Nike beat adidas in one important area during the World Cup: they treated distribution as part of the creative process, using a single production day to generate dozens of pieces of content for talent to publish after the hero film launched.

McDonald's followed a remarkably similar playbook.

The campaign launched with a hero film that generated 27.5 million Instagram views.

But instead of treating that commercial as the finish line, they broke the shoot into dozens of additional moments.

On McDonald's channels, fans saw:

• A carousel highlighting each player's collectible cup.

• Ronaldinho and Lamine Yamal attempting to kick a football through the Golden Arches.

• Grimace trying to keep up with football royalty.

• A playful "Ronald...inho" reveal built around Ronald McDonald's name.

Then the athletes extended the campaign on their own channels.

Ronaldinho shared a behind-the-scenes carousel with Yamal from the Golden Arches challenge, collaborating directly on Yamal's account.

Yamal provided some product placement in the lead card of a carousel as the tournament began.

Beckham leaned into the campaign's running joke. First, he shared the commercial scene where he opens his meal hoping for his own cup and gets Thierry Henry instead. That same post included the follow-up where he finally gets his own cup. He even shared a video of his mother opening her own cup—only to be disappointed she pulled David instead of Thierry.

Henry embraced the joke too, posting the scene where he loudly sips his drink to ruin Beckham's lunch, along with dedicated content celebrating his own collectible cup (no wink included).

Son posted a picture with his cup and even recreated his famous photo celebration, except this time, a Polaroid emerged from his hand, showing his McDonald's cup.

Pulisic recreated his signature "shhh" celebration from the artwork on his cup.

Davies accepted a collaboration with McDonald's Canada highlighting the campaign roster before sharing his own reaction to seeing his cup for the first time.

Giménez followed a similar approach, collaborating with McDonald’s Mexico on the hero video before posting a video where his trademark nasal strip magically appeared on his collectible cup.

In total, eight athletes generated ten additional posts across their own channels.

It's almost the exact principle I highlighted in the Nike piece.

The hero asset is important.

The distribution system around it is what turns one production day into weeks of content.

Creators expanded the audience

McDonald's also understood that athletes shouldn't be the campaign's only distribution strategy.

Dude Perfect recreated Ronaldinho and Lamine Yamal's Golden Arches challenge, a natural fit for creators whose audience already expects trick shots.

The group also released a longer-form "Average Dudes vs. Professional Footballers" episode that focused more heavily on campaign storytelling.

Michelle Khare brought the same concept to her audience, teaming up with Angel City FC’s Angelina Anderson to see how many attempts it would take to score through the McDonald's sign.

Meanwhile, local creators across dozens of markets introduced the collectible cups to regional audiences in ways that felt native to their communities.

Rather than relying on one audience, McDonald's built multiple entry points into the same campaign.

Leave room for real-time pivots

Not every memorable moment can be planned months before kickoff.

Tim Payne proved that.

After Argentine creator Valen Scarsini encouraged fans to make the tournament's least-followed player famous, Payne's Instagram following exploded from just a few thousand followers into the millions within days.

Most brands would've simply enjoyed watching the story unfold.

McDonald's joined it.

After Scarsini publicly challenged the brand to create a Tim Payne cup, McDonald's replied, "Ok, deal."

Then they actually made one.

Even better, they partnered with Scarsini to surprise Payne with the cup himself.

That's a great example of campaign flexibility.

Most global sponsorship activations lock every asset months before launch.

McDonald's built a strong campaign framework, but left enough room to react when culture handed them an opportunity that perfectly fit the collectible concept.

Instead of forcing another marketing moment, they amplified one fans had already created.

Full-funnel thinking

The campaign didn't stop once people started collecting cups.

Late in the tournament, McDonald's introduced a new mechanic.

Instead of requiring fans to purchase the FIFA World Cup Meal, anyone who spent $7 through the McDonald's app received a free collectible cup.

It's a subtle shift, but an important one.

The cups were already driving restaurant visits. Now they became a tool for increasing app adoption and encouraging existing users to transact digitally.

That's full-funnel sponsorship thinking.

The same campaign that generated awareness and social conversation also became a vehicle for growing first-party customer relationships.

I'll be watching McDonald's August 4 earnings call closely to see whether executives discuss the campaign's impact.

The Takeaway

Buying World Cup rights is expensive.

Activating them properly can cost just as much.

McDonald's treated the sponsorship fee as the starting line.

• The company invested in world-class talent.

• Designed content that naturally multiplied across athlete and creator channels.

• Adapted in real time when culture handed them an unexpected opportunity.

• And finished with a conversion mechanic designed to grow app engagement.

What’s wild is that this wasn't even the only campaign McDonald's was running.

During the same stretch they were also launching a Devin Booker basketball shoe, Squishmallows and BT21 Happy Meal toys, a KidSuper merch collaboration, a line of McCafé Refreshers, the return of Fried Apple Pie, and a new McCrispy strips recipe paired with the launch of Caesar Sauce.

That's what mature sponsorship organizations understand.

The rights don't create the ROI. The activation does.

🔍️ SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

For the first time in 14 years, Allianz Stadium's turf is being dug up and relaid as part of a major England Rugby renovation project. Stiga capitalized on the moment with a great behind-the-scenes video and a comment-to-DM call to action (powered by ManyChat), giving fans the chance to win a piece of the pitch.

Fan-designed team gear continues to be a trend this month. G42 launched a global design challenge inviting cycling fans to create AI-generated helmet designs, with the winning entry set to be worn by UAE Team Emirates-XRG at the 2027 UAE Tour.

Brands were front and center as players returned to their football clubs for preseason camp. Juventus players arrived at their medicals in Jeep vehicles, while Lucozade product placement was hard to miss as Liverpool staff prepared the club's facilities for players' return.

I've always enjoyed those videos where people walk up NASCAR tracks to show just how steep they are. McLaren put a fresh spin on the concept at the Belgian Grand Prix, rolling a TUMI suitcase down Eau Rouge to showcase the corner's dramatic gradient.

Speaking of content evolution, several teams and leagues have embraced a simple format: set up a microphone with a question prompt ready for them. Formula 1 took the concept a step further to promote Allwyn's F1 Predict League, asking fans whether Kimi Antonelli or George Russell would finish ahead, then having them cast their prediction by dropping a ball into the corresponding bucket.

🚨 ICYMI
Sports Industry News & Insights

New Sponsorship Benchmarks: SQWAD released a new College Sponsorship Activation Report packed with benchmarks on fan participation, scan-to-play rates, promotional opt-in rates, and offer redemption rates.

Beyond Live Games: Pregame and Postgame content matter. According to an NRG study conducted in the U.S., 66% of surveyed Gen Z sports fans (online respondents ages 14–29) said they enjoy going to YouTube for content before and after live sporting events.

A Head Of The Game: Rich Johnson makes the case for why the F1 helmet has become one of the sport's premier sponsorship assets [via The Activation Newsletter].

Kingdom Creators: The Kansas City Chiefs are launching their first-ever influencer program.

Sponsors Want Content: In a 2026 Stats Perform study, 70% of sports organizations said sponsor expectations have shifted toward digital content, while 38% said those expectations have changed "considerably."