This summer, The World Cup returns to the United States for the first time in 32 years. While the ‘94 World Cup featured a US team on the rise and a dream final between Italy and Brazil, US soccer fandom was in its infancy then.
In 2026, the average American is much more informed about the global game, thanks to global distribution rights for the preeminent European leagues and the Champions League, which combines Europe’s best teams.
Like its American cousin The Super Bowl, advertising opportunities associated with the actual matches are quite pricey. But brands have a vast array of options to reach fans without needing to be an official sponsor.
And companies that are targeting North America have additional opportunities, considering Mexico and Canada are serving as co-hosts with the US.
Over one billion viewers tuned in to watch Lionel Messi finally deliver the World Cup back to Argentina in the 2022 final, and the month-long tournament generated sustained attention across every major market simultaneously.
But this massive opportunity comes with unique challenges that make supply-side curation essential for brands hoping to capitalize on World Cup fervor.
The tournament’s compressed timeline, global reach, and premium inventory scarcity create the perfect conditions for curated marketplace deals. Here’s why supply-side curation is becoming the go-to strategy for World Cup advertising.
The Global Cross-Device Viewing Challenge
World Cup viewers don’t watch on a single screen. They stream matches on mobile during work hours, watch replays on CTV at home, check highlights on tablets, and follow live updates on desktop.
Instead of managing separate campaigns across CTV, mobile web, in-app, and desktop with inconsistent targeting, curated deals bundle sports publisher inventory across all devices. This will enable brands to reach the same fans from live match streaming to post-game analysis to fantasy league research.
If a soda brand wants to reach soccer fans throughout the tournament, a curator packages ESPN, Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, and The Athletic inventory across CTV live streams, mobile match trackers, and web recap articles. The brand activates “soccer enthusiast” audiences using contextual signals and publisher first-party data, following fans across their entire viewing journey with unified frequency capping.
Premium Inventory Scarcity Drives Curation Value
Broadcasters and sports publishers with broadcasting rights charge premium CPMs for live match adjacency, and direct deals often sell out months in advance. Smaller brands or those who miss direct deal windows struggle to access quality sports inventory at scale.
Curated PMPs democratize access to premium sports inventory. Supply-side platforms aggregate sports publisher inventory that might be unavailable through direct buys, packaging it with performance guarantees and brand safety controls. Multiple advertisers can access the same curated marketplace at different price points based on their targeting criteria.
The Potential for Publisher Proliferation
World Cup advertising attracts both endemic (sports brands) and non-endemic (financial services, auto, CPG) advertisers. Each category needs different inventory mixes and audience profiles.
There’s a good chance that even publishers that do not have broadcast rights will do what they can to capture some of this broad audience by discussing the games or featuring international fans who traveled to watch in person.
Endemic Advertiser Curation: Sports apparel brands want hardcore soccer fans who engage with tactical analysis, player stats, and team news. Curators package deep sports content from specialized soccer publishers with “high-engagement sports fan” behavioral data.
Non-Endemic Advertiser Curation: A bank wants to reach affluent World Cup viewers who might open new accounts, not necessarily die-hard soccer fans. Curators bundle premium business and lifestyle publisher inventory that happens to cover the World Cup as a cultural event, enriched with “high-income household” data.
Time Zone Complexity Meets Unified Targeting
North American World Cup matches happen across multiple time zones, creating scheduling chaos for global campaigns. Brands need to reach fans in each market at locally relevant times with consistent messaging.
Supply-side platforms can package regional sports publisher inventory with time-of-day targeting and local audience data. A global brand can activate a single curated marketplace that delivers ads to European fans during lunch, American fans during breakfast, and Asian fans during evening hours, all optimized for local viewing patterns.
The Path Forward
The 2026 World Cup in North America will be the most programmatically traded tournament yet, with expanded inventory across streaming platforms and digital publishers. Brands that master supply-side curation now will have a competitive advantage when the tournament arrives.
For advertisers, World Cup curation means unified global reach, cross-device consistency, built-in brand safety, and premium inventory access through single deal IDs. It also means avoiding demand-side data fees.
For publishers, it means maximizing revenue from finite sports inventory by packaging it intelligently for multiple advertiser categories. Supply-side curation turns the World Cup’s complexity into its greatest programmatic opportunity.
Using Glossary’s data expertise and media curation, brands can connect with additional fans, whether they’re tracking their fantasy teams on a second screen or consuming post-game highlights. Activate a prebuilt or customized audience to expand your reach.
About 33Across
We help marketers connect data to media activation, simplifying programmatic targeting across digital channels to drive more efficiency and higher campaign performance.
Why It Matters to Marketers Targeting Live Sports
Marketers need to efficiently reach fans with competitive messages aligned with their multi-screen viewing preferences. Glossary’s intelligence can consistently target and bundle sports publisher inventory across CTV, mobile web, in-app, and desktop.
Find out how to apply rich data signals and activate your campaign across digital channels using supply-side curation.
