FIFA and TikTok gave 30 creators behind-the-scenes access to this World Cup, from bus arrivals to training sessions to press conferences. It’s the first time FIFA has named a Preferred Platform partner and creators are now part of that deal instead of commenting on it from outside.
It’s a fascinating development which explains a lot about how fans have been consuming this years World Cup.
Twitch executives, brand strategists and a fresh Gen Z survey are telling the same story from different angles. Creators are the infrastructure this tournament runs on: the livestreams, the brand campaigns, the pop-ups, even the avatars fans wear while they watch.
Twitch became a digital stadium
Twitch is one of the clearest examples. IShowSpeed, Jasontheween and Marlon turned IRL livestreams into one of the tournament’s most engaging formats, says Pontus Eskilsson, Twitch’s VP of Global Partnerships.
“By attending matches and streaming their live reactions, they’re giving audiences a front-row seat to the World Cup experience, blending behind-the-scenes access with authentic commentary and real-time fan emotion,” Eskilsson told me.
IShowSpeed took that further. “IShowSpeed launched a large-scale, multi-country tour tied to the World Cup spanning the Caribbean and a broader U.S. tour across 16 host cities in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, featuring 104 matches and surprise appearances from professional football players,” Eskilsson said. Other streamers, like sakurashymko and Jynxzi, broadcast the in-between moments: packing, traveling, watch parties.
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DoorDash sponsored Men in Blazers’ Twitch coverage of matches in Latin America. Each week, chat voted on which cuisine the hosts would eat during their “Match Predictions” segment, based on who they thought would win. A broadcast turned into a running game.
That same appetite for real-time prediction is fueling a rise in prediction market platforms, where fans turn a hunch into an ongoing public conversation instead of a bet placed and forgotten.
The ecosystem around those platforms is expanding as well. Comparison sites like Covers and Sportsbook Review increasingly help users navigate competing prediction services, while opening additional monetization opportunities through referrals, sponsorships and affiliate partnerships.
“We’re seeing Twitch emerge as a ‘digital stadium’ for a younger generation of fans, where games are no longer just watched, they’re shared, discussed, and reinterpreted in real time, streamers are paving the way in the rise of creator-led sports broadcasting by providing commentary and engaging with their audiences in a way that’s unique to their community,” Eskilsson said. “The game is the same game. What’s different is the experience around it: You’re watching alongside a community, reacting to the action as it happens, seeing clips, commentary, and conversation unfold in real time.”
FIFA is already doing what brand strategists predicted
Jo Wong, GM at POP.STORE, called this move before FIFA made it. “Absolutely. The biggest shift is that creators can’t be treated as a side channel anymore,” Wong told me. “FIFA’s TikTok partnership is particularly strategic because it brings creators inside the official experience rather than leaving them to comment from the outside. This is significant because rather than amplifying content, creators are actually translating the event for audiences that traditional sports media doesn’t typically attract or reach.”
Wong’s next line reads almost like a preview of FIFA’s TikTok deal. “The next evolution is formal creator accreditation. Creator access should be treated as infrastructure, not a last-minute social campaign. This is what FIFA is doing right, and what others should learn from looking ahead,” Wong said.
Raj Lala, VP of Partnerships and Digital Media Strategy at Vistar Media, made a similar case for the rest of the industry. “Right now, creators carry the cultural conversation around sports,” Lala said in an interview. “However, organizations often limit their impact by keeping them siloed within their native social accounts. FIFA, broadcasters, and clubs need to think multi-channel.”
Brands are chasing durability over virality
Jo Wong ties brand success to fit, not volume. “There is no winning format across the board for creators and brands,” Wong said. “What’s truly winning is content that is in a format that matches the credibility and DNA of the brand and the creator, and that converts attention into an owned relationship or action.”
Wong pointed to three campaigns in particular. “Campaigns that have caught my attention are from Adidas, LEGO, and Nike,” Wong said. “Adidas is taking the hero-film approach with major global talent and deep category credibility. LEGO is showing the power of social-native storytelling by letting athlete audiences carry the moment. Lastly, Nike is playing the long game with a sustained rollout designed to keep people coming back across the full tournament window.”
Wong’s read on durability comes from two different conversations. Asked what brands should do after a campaign ends, she said the smartest ones don’t treat the tournament as a rental. “The brands that win are not just borrowing a creator’s audience for 39 days,” Wong said. “Rather, they are using the moment to build something they still own when the soccer teams return home and we’re moving onto football season.”
Asked separately which creator has run the smartest World Cup strategy, she flipped the question back to brands. “That is the real lesson for the creator economy: smart strategy is not about chasing the loudest post,” Wong said. “Instead, it is about knowing what kind of attention you can earn, what kind of relationship you can build and what kind of revenue or loyalty you can sustain after the moment peaks. Durability is more important than virality.”
Are creators the primary sports media brand yet
Not everyone agrees on how far this goes. Wong is careful about the “primary” label. “Creators are becoming the most effective bridge between major sports moments and younger audiences, but I would be careful about calling them the primary media brand just yet,” Wong said. “A viral post can drive attention, but attention is not the same thing as a durable audience.”
Lala sees it differently. “We are witnessing a fascinating shift where the line between the athlete and the creator economy has completely blurred, deeply reshaping how younger generations consume sports,” Lala said. “For Gen Z and millennial fanbases, creators aren’t just a secondary channel, they are the primary lens through which they view sports culture.”
Both are describing the same tournament. They just disagree on how far along it is.
Creator content is bleeding into the physical world
Off-screen is where the shift shows up clearest. Unilever mobilized more than 50,000 creators across 35-plus brands for the tournament, anchoring that reach with “House of Fresh” pop-ups in New York, Miami and Mexico City.
“Unilever’s activation stands out as a masterclass in combining creator talent with high-impact, real-world fan experiences,” Lala told me. “By mobilizing 50,000 creators worldwide, they have completely scaled their cultural footprint.”
Lala sees the same pattern across out-of-home advertising generally. “Beyond traditional social platforms, we are seeing real-world experiences and out-of-home advertising become the new ‘live feed’ for cultural relevance during major moments like the World Cup,” Lala said.
Programs like TikTok’s “Out of Phone” extension, which Vistar Media supports, now lift native creator content off mobile feeds and onto out-of-home screens in major markets in real time. “Now, creators are central to that real-world amplification,” Lala said.
Roblox is where Gen Z fandom lives now
Roblox shows the same shift happening somewhere else entirely. The 2026 Roblox Digital Expression Report, produced with Ipsos, found 73% of surveyed Gen Z Roblox users identify as active sports fans. Roblox users logged 1.1 billion hours in sports experiences in the second half of 2025, up 154% year over year.
Weekly search interest in soccer on the platform tripled during the 2022 World Cup compared with the prior three months. It’s an early signal of the same pattern now playing out in 2026.
For these fans, the avatar carries the fandom. Gen Z Roblox users bought 42 million jersey avatar items in the back half of 2025, spending 120 million Robux. And 67% say customizing an avatar with sports gear makes them feel part of a team.
Past generations wore a jersey on game day. This generation wears one every day.
The crossover with real-world fandom runs both ways. 61% of surveyed users say engaging with sports on Roblox makes them more likely to watch the sport in real life, and 64% say they play or engage with sports on Roblox they currently wouldn’t in real life. Roblox is quietly building tomorrow’s stadium audience.
The Bottom Line
The broadcast deal and the stadium seat still matter. But this cycle’s real estate sat somewhere else: in the space between the match and the fan.
Creators streaming from the stands. Brands building owned communities instead of borrowing audiences for 39 days. Gen Z fans dressing an avatar for a tournament they’re watching across three screens at once. FIFA handing out media credentials to TikTok creators instead of just broadcasters.
FIFA, broadcasters and brands spent the last cycle treating creators like amplification. This one, they built around them from the start. The next one will start there.
