Need to understand how sport is connecting with audiences around the world today? In this series by analysts and creatives at We Are Social Sport, we spotlight the emerging communities and behaviours around the biggest events in the sporting calendar. These are not just homogenous groups of “fans” – we delve into the tribes and sub-communities that make sport a rich and influential cornerstone of global culture.
It’s also important because we believe that brands too often engage with sports partners and sponsorships with surface level insights, leading to surface level content and campaigns. By delving deeper into the culture and behaviours of fans – and challenging preconceptions – marketers stand a greater chance of participating meaningfully in sport and maximising brand impact.
Our second edition covers the stars of the summer: the fans that showed up during the 2026 World Cup.
The real stars of the World Cup
The 2026 World Cup wasn’t short of controversy, including accusations of corruption, political influence and misconduct levelled at the organisers of the tournament. Amid talk of what all of this meant for football, it was the fans who brought the joy and defined the culture of the World Cup.
With an expanded group of 48 nations competing, the tournament was a truly global culture clash. FIFA’s digital channels alone enjoyed record engagement with an estimated 20bn views across all platforms. Fans brought local culture and colour to our feeds, but also transcended tribal loyalties, flexing creativity and rebelling against stereotypes of what football fandom looks like.
The lesson: to really understand the biggest spectator sport on the planet, don’t just follow your team, follow the fans.
The other World Cup winners
Football is arguably the biggest sporting family on Earth. So how do you find the most influential tribes and the social behaviour cutting through in football culture?
Wholesome Fandoms
Fan culture at the 2026 World Cup was, on the whole, distinctly wholesome. A country whose global reputation has been recently defined by the current occupant of the White House was keen to show a different side to itself. We saw the midwest state of Kansas embrace the Algerian national team who trained there, with a post on X documenting this celebration and earning 11.4 million views and 50k likes. We saw similar scenes in Boston, where locals welcomed Scots to their city. This energy spilled onto pitches too, where camaraderie and togetherness were venerated, while foul play and poor sportsmanship (not least in the final) were treated with disdain.
🗣️ “I want to say thank you to Algeria for choosing Lawrence, Kansas.” 🇺🇸
Despite the global appeal that men’s football commands, it can be exclusionary. Fandom at this World Cup was more inclusive, thanks in part to social platforms helping people find their own communities – but also because sport now blurs into culture at large. It happened via fashion, where creators on TikTok analysed the luxury bags that players and staff carried. It also happened when creators like Sports with Logs lowered the barrier to entry by doing reality TV-style breakdowns that cover gossip, tea and drama. There are more cerebral ways in too, like Joey D’urso exploring politics, covering the correlation between catholic nations and success at the World Cup on TikTok. In the US in particular there was a rise of podcasters who have diverse appeal, like Adam Friedland and Trevor Noah, inviting a non-sport focussed audience into World Cup conversations.
Haaland mania: rejecting the blandification of football
Even if he’s already one of the most decorated footballers in club football, Erling Haaland was still a breakout star of this tournament, introducing himself to the American audience while also winning in feeds globally. In a footballing landscape accused of producing cookie-cutter personalities, Haaland’s distinctive look and charisma stood out. From memes that satirise his hairstyle and his gait to female look-a-likes going viral in their own right, fans of all stripes took a shine to him. And unlike other footballers, he got involved in the comments section, via Snapchat, and used press conferences to share his sense of humour.
According to Talkwalker, conversations related to Haaland reached an estimated 153.8 billion impressions. A post comparing Haaland to a spring onion got almost 3 million likes alone.
The desire to be part of something bigger
As early as 1970, the World Cup was described as one of the “last great communal rituals available to our society”, but demonstrations of fan synchronisation at this World Cup in particular have lit up platforms and group chats. People want to flex and celebrate the power of collective action, whether it’s Norway’s visceral Viking Row, England’s singalong to Wonderwall or the mass following of tournament underdogs like New Zealand’s Tim Payne (from 5k to 5.5 million) or Cabo Verde’s Vozinha (from 50,000 followers to 29.5m). The tournament also followed parades in London (Arsenal) and Manhattan (New York Knicks), where fans descended en masse to the streets in other clear examples of ground-up community identity and organisation.
Every World Cup final I always think of this beautiful piece by Hugh McIlvanney pic.twitter.com/BTdDKfcSMu
The fan creativity that stood out at this World Cup created its own narratives and rules. Photographer Flo Pernet wasn’t given official accreditation to be pitchside in North America, so she used TV screens to inform her creative direction and capture the tournament. The Portuguese FA noticed and collabed with her on an Instagram post that received over 1.5million engagements.
Learn from Fly Norwegian and British Airways, who used social to make a friendly bet with one another about swapping their logo on Instagram depending on who won the quarter final. Fly Norwegian’s original post received 8.8 millions impressions and over 325,000 engagements organically, while getting picked up by fans and press across the world.
Show up at the blurred line between sport and culture
Rather than activating their World Cup sponsorship solely via sports creators, Airbnb tapped up Matty Matheson: a proud Canadian chef who featured in hit TV show The Bear. They createda series with him that focused on learning about football and its fan culture, leaning into the fact he’s a novice in the space.
Respond to unexpected currents of influence on social with agility and speed
The Portuguese Football Federation noticed a sports photographer who was gaining the attention of fans with her distinctive style that captured the World Cup through TV screens. Rather than standing on the sidelines, they got involved and commissioned Flo, whose work appeared on their channels to the tune of over 1.5m engagements.
React to the stories that fans are gravitating towards based on the power of your idea, not just your rights
Across the World Cup, there were narratives that fans organically gravitated towards. The real image of Messi bathing an infant Lamine Yamal was one story that kept trending as Argentina and Spain progressed to the final. Huggies spotted an opportunity, reacting with an image of an empty baby bath (they’re not a sponsor of Yamal or Messi) with the caption “they grow up so fast”. It inserted the brand into the moment and earned press and social media coverage. Their post on Instagram earned 60,000 engagements alone.
Thought Leadership
