This essay is a follow-up to my article on this website about how to break through the clutter and gain brand recognition for World Cup sponsorships.
Sports marketing publicists representing clients that sponsor the World Cup will be faced with a major problem: how to protect clients from attacks that are certain to occur because of the situation in the Mideast and regional opposition to the games. In this essay, based on my long experience managing and playing key roles on national and international sports marketing events, many of which were subjects of negative media coverage, and by acting as a crises adviser on those and nonsports accounts, here’s what I would do if I had direct control of World Cup promotional accounts.
Because the FIFA World Cup, from June 11 to July 19, will take place in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, as well as Canada and Mexico, protests will certainly receive significant international media coverage that can damage sponsors’ reputations. In order to prevent or lessen the damage to clients, no public relations program will be complete unless it has a defensive element. (More on that later.)
Protests against staging the event have already occurred and are certain to become more vocal and potentially violent in the near future.
There have also been protests against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in security planning and calls for the relocation of Games slated for Boston and other cities by protesters because of U.S. foreign policy and civil rights issues.
Residents and activists in Mexico City have protested against the prioritization of World Cup infrastructure over water access and the displacement of residents. In Canada, there have been protests and rallies against the fatal shootings by ICE agents in the U.S., with warnings that an ICE presence in Canada during the World Cup would result in additional protests. Canadian police officials also predicted an increase in protests as the games drew closer. Protests against mega sporting events have become as common as Shohei Ohtani hitting a home run.
Attacks on brands for backing the Soch Winter Olympics in 2014 despite Russia’s anti-gay policy forced brands to alter marketing plans. Prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Beijing, U.S. Congressmen publicly criticized corporate sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Visa, Airbnb, Intel and Procter & Gamble of putting profits ahead of human rights by supporting the “genocide Olympics.”
Sports history shows that there are many other instances when a well thought out defensive element to a public relations plan could have helped sponsors of international sporting events.
But because of differing opinions about the U.S.’s national and international policies, brands that sponsor the 2026 World Cup face a greater chance of being targeted by protesters than at any time in the history of sports protests.
During the 1936 Nazi Olympic Games, the designation of “official sponsor” was not generally used. Coca Cola was the “official sponsor” and A.G. Spalding & Co. designed the uniforms worn by American athletes. General Motors, Ford, and Texaco were also active in Germany during the Olympics. U.S. government officials, religious leaders and sports executives
urged that the U.S. boycott those games, but were rebuffed by the then called American Olympic Committee and the games provided Hitler with his first international stage. But that was long before protests became better organized as they are today.)
Here’s how I would craft a program to protect clients from attacks by protest groups, which I believe will occur: I would craft a two pronged program, giving clients the option of using one or both of the segments.
Option A: It’s essential that World Cup account groups are staffed with a person who has crisis communications experience, but it is important to remember that every negative print article or TV report need not be answered. .
If the attacks on a brand’s participation continue, the brand should respond with statements acknowledging that they understand the reason for the protests but explain why they believe that the World Cup can bring people from different countries to better understand each other by meetings at peaceful sports competitions.
Sponsors should also publicly demonstrate that sponsoring the World Cup does not mean they are automatically dismissing activist groups’ concerns. That can be done by allocating a portion of the sponsor’s website for essays from activist groups presenting their cases.
Option B: Sponsors can publicly state that international sports events should not award its propaganda–rich games to totalitarian countries. Doing so would accomplish four things: 1) It would generate positive coverage and help the brand break through the clutter of other sponsors. 2) Doing so would elevate a brand to a leadership position that could generate positive earned media in sports and nonsports segments of the media, particularly in opinion columns. 3) Taking a stand gives a brand the option of using it as an on-going public relations program for as long as it wants to and keep the brand’s sports-tie ins in the news between events. 4) It can be revived before every international sports event.
I’ve always believed that an international sports PR/publicity program is incomplete unless it contains a defensive element. And I believe that if public relations agencies have not included one in their 2026 promotional programs for World Cup clients, their plans are faulty. And they better amend them before, not after, there is a protest against a client.
