World Cup 2026 Wraps Up But Cultural Impacts Will Linger

The World Cup is (sadly) over, but it will generate a lingering impact on a host of media-related businesses, not just in the U.S. but globally. The breadth of the cultural, business and political impacts hit home as I attended the World Cup “Playmakers” event sponsored by NBCUniversal and Telemundo (in the hallowed Studio 8H of course), which broadcast the Spanish-language version of the World Cup on Telemundo and streamed it on Peacock. It’s not just for sports fanatics. Few of us can hope to identify an offside before it gets called, but we all saw and felt the passion of the World Cup and its extensive cultural tendrils in the last month. Media It isn’t exactly breaking news when sports has a huge media impact in the U.S., as the NFL has long dominated our TV ratings. Yes, TV ratings are no longer the sole arbiter of media success. But this World Cup carried soccer/football into rarified air generally enjoyed only by the Super Bowl and the Olympics. Even prior to the Final, the numbers were extraordinary. Just one example alluded to by Telemundo’s CEO Cesar Conde: the Mexico-England quarterfinal match drew over 44 million viewers in the U.S., more even than the U.S.-Belgium match in the last 16. Even more stunningly, the audience on Telemundo eclipsed the audience on Fox. By comparison, the NBA finals, featuring a remarkable run from the New York Knicks, peaked at 33 million viewers for Game 5 and averaged 21 million for the series, less than Telemundo alone delivered for the aforementioned quarterfinal match. And once the U.S. and Mexico were gone, the ratings bonanza only continued. Telemundo, despite Comcast spinning off owner NBCU, just did a big deal to broadcast the European Champions League in Spanish. Can you imagine the fight over broadcasting and streaming rights for the World Cup the next time around? Big Tech’s role from Netflix to Amazon will be massive and unavoidable. Celebrities gravitate to media magnets. The World Cup broadcasts brought out an array of global stars enjoying the matches and their face time, from Tom Cruise to Mick Jagger to Carlos Alcaraz to Matt Damon (hilariously identified as Brad Pitt on the broadcast). But it will also prove to be a growth engine for newer global celebrities, from Andres Cantor (Mr. “GOOOOOAL”) to Norway’s Erling Haaland, a Nordic football warrior suggesting a combination of Dolph Lundgren and Rob Gronkowski. Unfortunately, the greatest missed celebrity opportunity was the U.S. team’s Christian Pulisic who became a bit of an anti-celebrity and seems destined to go down as this year’s equivalent of the famous “Dan and Dave” branding debacle from the 1992 Olympics. What the World Cup giveth in media, it can also taketh away. Music and Fashion Global football purists may have hated some of it, but the link between the World Cup and music is here to stay. The final and its elongated half-time show brought together stars from the world’s four corners: Madonna, Burna Boy, Shakira, BTS, Justin Bieber, Post Malone, Robbie Williams, Nicole Scherzinger and Gustavo Dudamel. That pretty well covers the waterfront of musical eclecticism. In a world where live events of all kinds are at the center of the media business, expect a whole lot more live music at World Cup venues next time around. The NBCU-Telemundo event noted the powerful link between the influence of Latin America in global football and in music. That forum did highlight a missed opportunity for the World Cup in Karol G, an infectious Colombian singer who sells out stadiums around the world and whose top Spotify streams are closing in on 2 billion. Karol G was the first ever Latina to headline at Coachella and has previously collaborated with the Barcelona club on their jersey’s which featured her own Bichota logo (standing for strong, powerful women – it fits). Speaking of fashion, Gabriela Heart joined the NBCU-Telemundo conversation to highlight her collaboration with her home country of Uruguay. Hearst has established a global brand known for using sustainable, “noble” materials to supply “luxury with a conscience.” Uruguay proudly hosted the very first World Cup in 1930 and this year hired Hearst to design its “off-pitch” (off the field) outfits. The Uruguayan looks resonated with the country’s history and culture. Of course, well beyond Uruguay, the “kits” (ok, uniforms) of so many World Cup countries have become ubiquitous across social media in the last month, from Argentina’s iconic baby-blue stripes to the checkerboard of Croatia to the collared jerseys of “Les Bleus” of France. And you can expect to see a flood of genuine and copycat “boots” (sneakers) like the pink ones that adorned so many a player in the tournament. Politics Wasn’t it something to see the embrace in both red and blue states of people from so many different parts of the world? Who wasn’t taken with tiny African nation Cape Verde, which nearly beat Argentina and whose Syndey Lopes Cabral scored maybe the most spectacular goal of the tournament? Boston fell rapturously in love with Scotland’s Tartan Army, joining together in native customs like singing “Sweet Caroline” at Red Sox games. At a time when the Latino community is grappling with the challenges of U.S. immigration policy, U.S. host communities like Kansas City and others enthusiastically adopted and embraced players and fans from Argentina, Spain, Colombia, Ecuador and Portugal. As Cesar Conde pointed out, the most-purchased jersey in the entire tournament belonged to Mexico. No, I don’t think the World Cup is likely to move the needle on the U.S. mid-terms or the popularity of the new Prime Minister of the UK. But a bit of “we’re in this together” is a welcome salve in our perilous times, and when the next World Cup gets still bigger at 64 teams, the heterogeneity will only expand. Sports Ironically, the World Cup may have its smallest impact going forward on sport itself in the U.S. Soccer/football already dominates across the world stage, but it will be hard to transfer the World Cup love on an ongoing basis to Major League Soccer in the U.S. It is still a growing operation, but unlikely to crack the four major sports in the U.S. of (American) football, basketball, baseball and hockey. The U.K.’s Premier League is already carried in the U.S., and some of the World Cup’s biggest stars don’t even play in that league, such as Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane. The Cup probably didn’t do much to propel women’s sports which have a momentum of their own here in basketball and hockey in addition to soccer. As the lovable (and British) commentators Roger Bennett and Michael Davies have noted, soccer is definitely the game of the future in the U.S. - just as it has been since 1972.