Buying into football has never been easier. Being remembered is the hard part.

By Matthew Mower  |  Head of Strategy

Madonna’s Zoolander tribute, Infantino’s questionable trainers and Argentina’s histrionics. The fever dream that was the World Cup is firmly in the rear-view mirror, but only a mere two weeks separates us from the madness of club football. The intermission feels far more necessary than any enforced hydration break. If it hadn’t quite resonated before the World Cup, there is a lot of football and it’s everywhere.

Fan demand has kept pace with the supply, but what has grown faster is the number of brands in the room. Over the course of July, we received our usual deluge of emails titled “how can we get involved in football”. Brands are looking to leverage the world’s leading passion point more and more – there are now around 415 sponsors of the Premier League clubs alone. According to Sport Business, over 1,300 new partnerships have been struck in the sport globally so far in 2026.

Access to football has become commoditised and it means that the deal doesn’t make you distinctive by default: David Beckham’s infinite brand appearances at this World Cup is a case in point.

Rather than assessing the point of entry, the better question for brands is: what do we have that football actually needs? What is the value I can add to the experience that fans will remember me for? What are the stories I can tell through football better than anyone else?

1. Understand the culture
A category brief asks who watches football. A cultural one asks what football does in people’s lives. Only the second tells you what the game is missing and that’s where a brand can add something rather than just appear.

EE found it. “Yes Boys” runs on a football truth, not a marketing one: the grassroots coach is often the most trusted adult in a boy’s life. EE’s research found 78% of coaches have had a player confide in them about something with nothing to do with football. They made the Mentor-Badge, a free resource built with the Home Nations FAs to give coaches tools for the job they were already doing alongside a film that used real fans, authentic tifos and Born Slippy. 

2. Prioritise sole & exclusives
Most sponsorship assets buy visibility but sole and exclusives can buy the fan conversation.  At the 2026 World Cup, Michelob Ultra commissioned a new Superior Player of the Match trophy from Victor Solomon, the designer behind the NBA’s Larry O’Brien, and awarded it after every one of the 104 matches by fan vote.

A named moment inside every single broadcast, post-match reactions and a fan vote, so supporters aren’t passively consuming, they’re participating in it. Repeated 104 times, it stops being an asset and becomes part of the tournament’s rhythm.

3. The best assets aren’t always the most expensive
We would all love the budgets to work with the World Cup but sponsorship doesn’t have to cost millions to cut through. Specsavers doesn’t sponsor a club, a league or a shirt. For the last twenty-four years they’ve sponsored referees, the least glamorous constituency in football. It was the asset nobody else was bidding for because nobody could have told a better story than “should’ve gone to Specsavers” through it.

And it’s more than just branding. Through the partnership, Specsavers has helped train 5,000 referees and also provides live audio commentary for visually impaired fans at Hampden Park.

4. Go where fans are making things, not just watching them.
Supporters now produce a huge share of what football actually is: the clips, the arguments, the designs that outlive the match.

Puma invited Manchester City fans to design the club’s third kit: 180,000 submissions, a public vote, and the winning shirt on the pitch this season. Adobe has taken a similar position as the Premier League’s Official Creativity Partner, putting generative tools in fans’ hands to make Fantasy badges and matchday graphics.

Powering supporter contribution buys standing no media facing asset can replicate.