McDonald's surprise exit from the FIFA World Cup shows how big brands are rethinking sports sponsorships

McDonald's is exiting the playing field.

The fast-food giant's astonishment decision to end its 32-year run as a FIFA World Cup sponsor shows how important earth brands are reassessing the cost, clutter, and business come back of sports' biggest properties.

McDonald's ran its largest-ever World Cup promotion shove during this summer's tournament, and McDonald's CFO Ian Borden stated on an August earnings call that the attempt "underperformed versus our expectations."

The business stated final week that it had decided not to renew its current deal, which is because of end this year. It additionally indicated to FIFA that it isn't looking to allocate in next year's Women's World Cup, according to a individual acquainted alongside the matter.

Sports sponsorship is seen as a way for brands to access huge, live earth audiences and affiliate themselves alongside the feel-good aspect of athletes' achievements. Management consultancy Kearney estimated the earth market for sports sponsorship and in-venue promotion at $52 milliard in 2025 and expects it to develop by 8% to 9% annually through 2030, reaching concerning $80 billion.

While many marketers continue to expend heavily on sports, they frequently discover it difficult to measure the business uplift from their sponsorship outlays. Research from Forrester, published in 2025, established that 76% of US business-to-consumer promotion executives who invested in sponsorships the previous twelvemonth reported struggling to compute the come back on investment, or ROI, of their sports sponsorships.

"They are gaining a lot of traction about brand awareness, but can't necessarily compute the difficult and accelerated ROI numbers to demonstrate to their CFOs that the prosperity and long-term dedication for these kinds of sponsorships are necessary," Mike Proulx, a Forrester VP, told me.

For McDonald's, the figures evidently didn't validate a renewal. The agreement was appreciated at $40 myriad annually, per the investigation resolute GlobalData Sport.

For a globally recognized brand specified as McDonald's, the range for the World Cup to provision another spike in brand awareness and connected revenue may have reached its ceiling. Heineken appeared to create a akin recalculation final twelvemonth whenever it stated it would end its 30-year UEFA Champions League alliance in 2027. The brewer stated it was shifting its sponsorship concentration to platforms "where expend is proportionate to value creation," during retaining Formula 1 and adding Premier Padel.

McDonald's CMO Morgan Flatley stated in a declaration final week that sports remains crucial to its promotion strategy. At the company's September capitalist day, Flatley stated she was focusing her campaigns "on McDonald's gathering of iconic IP, not person else's." The business continues to sponsor dozens of sports properties, including France's Ligue 1 top-flight football association and the All-American Games.

The 2026 World Cup reached nearly 6 milliard group worldwide throughout distinct platforms, according to FIFA, which helps explain why brands continue to expend heavily to be connected alongside it. While FIFA has not disclosed a final sponsorship total for the 2026 World Cup, its latest prosperity forecasts $2.8 milliard in marketing-rights income throughout all business partnerships in the 2023 to 2026 cycle. That would be concerning 59% additional than it generated throughout the 2019 to 2022 Qatar cycle. For the 2026 tournament, FIFA additionally introduced a program that allowed presenter cities to market local protagonist packages, making the sponsorship market increasingly crowded compared to former years.

Rory Natkiel, originator of sponsorship effectiveness consultancy Box Count, stated the additional host-city partners risked shrinking McDonald's "share of property" — the part of the event's business notice it could realistically command.

That energetic could create smaller or newer sports properties additional appealing to mature earth brands. While they power not recommendation the earth measure of long-standing events akin the World Cup, they can provision greater elasticity to tailor promotion to particular audiences and channels than the tightly controlled multiyear packages from important entitlements holders allow. For a business akin McDonald's, that could open up an chance to recommendation consumers an cognition they recall fairly than a sponsorship they merely expect.

"If they commencement going into new sports and trying to diagram a distinct spectators to the earth football spectators — padel for a slightly additional premium audience, or any it power be — it does create a new compelling viewpoint and a new avenue for creativity," stated Rory Stewart-Richardson, a longtime sports sponsorship executive.

Stewart-Richardson stated he wouldn't be amazed if another bequest brands commencement recalibrating their sponsorship deals, focusing additional on local markets and digital activations, alongside an accent on "building from the person out fairly than trying to buy into impermanent traditional relevance."