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10 Data-backed Insights About Football Fans to Help Plan Your Next FIFA World Cup Sponsorship

  • Writer: Duncan
    Duncan
  • 6 days ago
  • 6 min read

With the FIFA World Cup 2026 now around the corner, many of our clients are in the in-depth stages of planning their sponsorship activations.


While we help our clients with the uniform, merchandise and gifting aspects of their activations, we recognise that we are part of a much broader strategy to communicate each brand story to a huge international audience.


To help in that endeavour, we've pulled together 10 of the most striking and (we hope) useful statistic about football fans that we've found from various publicly available sources. We've credited the original source and also provided a list of the sources at the end.


We hope these statistics shed some light on the fans you'll be connecting with and ensure that your sponsorships hit the right note at this unique cross-continental FIFA World Cup.


Just a quick note for our American readers, as a British company we'll stubbornly be using the word football to refer to soccer (even when talking about US fanbases!)


  1. There may be more neutrals in the stadiums than you expect


Source: estimate based on multiple sources
Source: estimate based on multiple sources

For this opening statistic we've aggregated multiple media and official sources, and created a rule-of-thumb estimate. While this number will vary from match to match, we nonetheless felt that understanding the profile of stadium attendees would be an important part of any sponsorship activation. For many, this breakdown might be surprising.


Factors that affect this breakdown would be the size of each team's fanbases, the distance of each team from the game (eg expect to see more Iran fans at the Qatar World Cup than this tournament in North America), diaspora populations and a variety of other factors like ticket prices versus national prosperity etc.


The stats available indicate that around 10% of tickets are sold to each nation's fan associations. Guaranteeing about 20% of the audience being diehard fans. The general sale of tickets makes up about 65% of ticket sales per game - with the rest going to hospitality and FIFA sponsors and partners.


However, while for some games the majority of those general sale tickets may go to the teams' fans, reports from FIFA about the nationalities of purchasers shows a suprising trend. 2 of the top 7 purchasing nations on the general sale in 2022 were from countries without a team in the tournament (UAE and India).


FIFA also released data showing that approximately 1 million travelling fans attended the World Cup, but with 3.4 million tickets available then you would expect that the majority of tickets are going to locals/residents - the majority of which will be neutrals. Although of course some will be resold and many travelling fans will attend more than one game.


As a counterpoint, anecdotal reports from the Mexico-Argentina match in Qatar 2022 (which saw a record World Cup stadium capacity of 88,000+) indicate that the vast majority of attendees were fans of the teams. THis is perhaps reflective of the passionate commitment of many Latin American fanbases.


So while some matches will see a large % of attendees from the countries playing, our research offers a word of warning. For many matches FWC matches, the neutrals may actually outnumber the supporters.


  1. Interest in football (soccer) is growing quickly in the US


Source: forsoccer.com report on US fanbase
Source: forsoccer.com report on US fanbase

Multiple public sources demonstrate the massive growth of football in the United States. In fact a recent report from Global Web Index stated that football is now the second most popular sport amongst Gen Z, behind American football (NFL). And Google searches for football related terms have nearly doubled in the last five years.



The annual forsoccer.com report has identified a massive upsurge in fans joining the ranks in the past year, with there being a 400% growth of this cohort between 2023 and 2024.


  1. Changing profile of new football fans in the US


Source: forsoccer.com report on US fanbase
Source: forsoccer.com report on US fanbase

Approximately 50% of new US football fans (those who became fans within the last year) are female, compared to just 28% of established fans (those who have been fans for 5+ years). New fans are also more likely to be black than existing fans.


While it may be tempting to think of new fans as being young, the report also identifies that many new fans are finding the sport later in life. Indeed, of those fans that found the sport within the last 5 years, 39% of them are aged 43 or over. And indeed, on this graphic shared, new fans are more likely than existing fans to have found the sport after age 25.



4. Globally, female football fans are most engaged during the FIFA World Cup


While only 20% of women surveyed in this Nielsen report expressed interest in the Champions League, and 14% in the MLS; 34% of women were interested in the FIFA World Cup. 


 

5.  Latin American fans are significantly more gender-balanced than other regions



It seems that football is a truly collective passion in Latin America, with 62% of women in LatAm saying that they regularly watch football vs a 37% global average.


In fact more females regularly watch soccer in Latin America (62%) than males in APAC (58%) and North America (35%) according to the GWI dataset.

 

6. Some Asia-Pacific countries without a team in the World Cup will nonetheless be very engaged



India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand all over-index against the global population for interest in football. And India was one of the top 7 countries of residence for ticket holders at the last FIFA World Cup in Qatar.


7. The 2026 World Cup could be a particularly good opportunity to connect with Hispanic American consumers


The MLS has reported that 30% of its fanbase is Hispanic, which over-indexes against the US population by about 60% (Hispanics make up approximately 19% of the US population). And 63% of Hispanic Americans under 24 name soccer as their favourite sport.  

 

  1. Hispanic American fans might have multiple allegiances


When asked about if they had to support only one team at an international tournament, Hispanic-Americans over-indexed for Mexico and under-indexed against the US Men's Team. While Hispanic-Americans are typically more likely to be football fans, they might also be primarily fans of a different team than the US Men's National Team. 

 

Source: forsoccer.com report on US fanbase
Source: forsoccer.com report on US fanbase

 

9. There's a growing interconnectedness between esports, gaming & football — especially via the game FIFA.


Globally, younger football fans demonstrate an enormous interest in esports, with 84% of respondents being quite, very or extremely interested in esports. Football fans also over-index against the general population for daily gaming habits, with approximately a quarter of younger fans (up to 34) playing a games console for 2 or more hours a day.


Indeed, in the US, an increasing number of gamers are becoming football fans as a result of their hobby.


Source: forsoccer.com report on US fanbase
Source: forsoccer.com report on US fanbase

FIFA is undoubtedly the most popular esports title amongst football fans. Which suggests that some sort of crossover promotion might be an advantageous approach for sponsors of this upcoming World Cup.


 

 

10. Social and environmental responsibility are the values most expected by football fans from brands



The primary qualities football fans seek from brands are eco-friendliness and social responsibility, with older fans being the most inclined to prioritise these. Listening to feedback ranks as the third most desired behavior.


However, it's notable that none of these qualities exceed 50% in importance, indicating that most fans, regardless of age, place limited emphasis on brand behavior.


Index of sources


Here’s a collation of the best public resources on the profiles of global football fans.


 
 
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