With the World Cup kicking off tomorrow this week’s newsletter is a bumper edition stacked with as many stats as the tournament has teams. OK, maybe not that many…now pass the Curaçao.
Scroll down to read about the opening ceremony, the turn away from booze, and the country that watches the competition the most.
Stats to power your week
🧑🎤An insight on the opening ceremony for our opening paragraph: more viewers are actually looking forward to the opening ceremony (41%) than the group stage fixtures (34%). It’s not all about the action on the pitch, you know. GWI Pulse
🚫Has the World Cup audience changed since the last tournament? It’s broadly the same, but in the host country USA, one of the most interesting audience trends is a 39% growth in following among consumers who don’t drink alcohol - suggesting the tournament is connecting more to people without needing booze. GWI USA
☪️The World Cup may be global, but some nations will arrive in the US with more of a built-in local presence than others. Mexico stands out: around 8,200 in every 100,000 Americans have Mexican heritage, making it the strongest US-based connection among competing nations. Tunisia sits at the other end of the scale, with just 3 in every 100,000 Americans tracing their ancestry to the North African nation. GWI USA
🔌Outside the World Cup, the march of Chinese EVs continues, with a growth from 10% to 16% in BYD awareness outside China in the last year. Another fun fact that highlights the changing car market - more Brits have now heard of Tesla than the homegrown brand Vauxhall. GWI Automotive
Meet the audience: consumers who don’t watch football, but watch the World Cup
Without GWI data
With GWI data
Emerging in front rooms and beer gardens this summer will be a new species of football fan: the people who watch the world cup, but don’t normally like football.
On social media there’s a certain stereotype of a young female audience “in it for the Aperol spritz”, asking about offside rules and offering a consolation of “it’s only a game” to their disconsolate partners when England crash out on penalties.
The reality is a bit different. For one thing, it’s not an especially young or female audience. It skews toward midlife and older working-age adults, relatively settled, educated and suburban. They’re more likely to be settled with a partner, and live outside their country of birth. The World Cup offers a route to shared spectacle, global culture, household viewing, and the rare sense that everyone is watching the same thing.
Chart of the week
Not just the most successful African or Arab team in the history of the World Cup, Morocco holds another accolade - the country with the highest share of World Cup viewers.
That tracks with what we saw in Qatar - their run to 4th place spilled far beyond football circles, from street celebrations to a heroes’ welcome with the players and their mothers received at the Royal Palace. In fact, Moroccan mothers are more likely to watch the World Cup than football fans in Spain.
At the other end of the scale sits the US. Despite being one of the 2026 hosts, only around 1 in 10 Americans typically tune in. A growth market, to put it mildly.
More from GWI
After some last-minute inspiration for real-time marketing during the World Cup? Have a look (or even a refresher) at our World Cup webinar.
And if that’s not enough, we have a whole World Cup content hub waiting for your perusal here.
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