Thanks to a bit of institutional prodding (more on this later) - Belgium have knocked co-hosts the USA out of the World Cup. Impressive work, given a third of Belgians say being successful isn’t important to them, higher than any country except France.
If Belgium and France meet each other down the line, it may be the first heavyweight clash between two countries trying very hard to look like they’re not trying at all.
Scroll down to read about chicken wings, and drinks that give you wings.
Stats to power your week
🎢The World Cup can send fans through an emotional rollercoaster, as Mexicans and Cape Verdeans know all too well. But which feelings define the tournament most? Excitement leads the way, with 65% of viewers saying they feel it - though among older fans, patriotism starts to edge ahead. GWI Pulse
📜Possibly the only thing harder to avoid than the spoiler of a World Cup result is a mention of AI on your social media feed. Is that saturation starting to turn people off? For young people, yes: 43% of 16-24s have chosen to scroll past content that emphasises it. For once, this is a technology young people seem less keen on. GWI Pulse
🎂As America marks its 250th birthday, views on its founding ideals vary, and not how you might expect. Hispanic Americans are the most likely ethnic group to say the US is living up to those ideals in 2026, with 43% agreeing. GWI Pulse
🪽The UK has seen plenty of US fast food brands arrive on its shores in recent years, and Wingstop is the latest to enjoy a strong start. With help from influencers and London’s appetite for fried chicken, visits are up 70% year-on-year. GWI Core
Meet the audience: Occasional energy drink buyers
Without GWI data
With GWI data
A North American World Cup means some unsociable kickoff times for much of the football-viewing world; bad news for sleep habits but good news for energy drinks brands. It got us thinking - who’s the kind of person that buys energy drinks when they need to, and not out of regular habit?
Contrary to the predicted image, it’s not mainly commuters needing a pick-me-up on a slow hump day. Occasional energy drink buyers are typically younger consumers, especially students. And it's not extreme sports driving their usage, but exam sessions, making them reach for a can when deadlines require it.
Energy drinks have been a major growth market in recent years, and expanding it further may mean speaking to these occasional, need-state users.
Chart of the week
With controversy growing over FIFA’s decision to lift the suspension of an American player at the World Cup, there’s another issue to add to the tournament pile-up.
But for consumers, the biggest concern is still the most practical one: cost. Ticket affordability has a net concern score of +45, far ahead of safety (+13), political tensions (+9), and corruption in the game (+8).
More ethical or structural issues - like human rights, environmental impact, and labour conditions - draw concern from around a third of viewers, but opinion is more evenly split. People may care about how the tournament is run, but they care most about whether they can afford to be there in the first place.
More from GWI
Curious what a generic LLM gets wrong about your audience? Our webinar runs the same brief through AI with and without GWI data, so you can see exactly where the gap shows up.
If you want to study lessons from other football tournaments, check out our insights into the last Women’s Euros.
