How the World Cup boosted The Athletic’s audience and sponsor roster

This summer’s FIFA World Cup marked the setting of a lot of records, from US viewership to Kylian Mbappé’s 22 World Cup goals to the sheer amount of beer consumed in Boston.

It was also a time of record audience and sponsor growth for The Athletic, the New York Times-owned sports newsroom that offers extensive soccer coverage across leagues including the Premier League, the Champions League, MLS, and the NWSL.

The Athletic was in a transition period during the last men’s World Cup in 2022, which took place shortly after the publication’s acquisition by the Times, when it was also brand new to selling ads. During that year, The Athletic had only about five sponsors. The following year, the outlet sold out of Women’s World Cup content sponsorships.

So far in 2026, it has 25 official advertising partners, not counting smaller deals like one-off banner ads, according to Chief Commercial Officer Sebastian Tomich.

“The Athletic’s commercial business has been growing pretty substantially every year,” Tomich told Marketing Brew. The fact that the tournament was hosted in North America contributed to more opportunities to work with US brands like Google, Amazon, and EA Sports compared to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, he added.

Training camp: Tomich said the teams at The Athletic started prepping for the tournament about two years in advance, with a “cross-functional group spread across every team in the company” that met at summits and off-sites. With more than 70 Athletic journalists covering the World Cup, the company’s marketing team worked to promote their content with PR campaigns, retail integrations, and brand partnerships, he said.

Content cup: Google Search ran a campaign called “The Language of Soccer” that included profiles of one fan group from each competing nation. It was promoted across The Athletic’s app, website, social channels, email marketing materials, and via creator partnerships.

Live content was another asset that Tomich said his team leaned into, like The Athletic’s live blogs, which were fully sponsored by Heineken from 3pm–8pm ET every day of the tournament.

Partnerships stretched beyond written content, too; Amazon Fire TV sponsored a 30-minute daily streaming show called The Athletic FC: Daily Cup, which featured hosts from The Athletic’s soccer newsroom. Casamigos and Netflix also sponsored other Athletic products tied to the World Cup, Tomich said.

Altogether, the World Cup was a “massive, sponsorship-driving event for us,” he said. It also led to a 40% YoY boost in readership during the first few weeks of the tournament, according to The Athletic.

Switch the field: Like many other organizations involved in the World Cup, the team at The Athletic is invested in continuing US soccer fandom long-term. Tomich said he hopes the tournament will produce some more Premier League fans in the states, since England’s top pro soccer league is a big area of coverage for The Athletic.

Tomich and his team are also already fielding campaign briefs for the Women’s World Cup in Brazil next summer, he told us.

“Women’s sports will come front and center, particularly on the commercial side,” Tomich said. “A lot of marketers are going to have a women’s sports strategy for next year. Our hope is that [it] continues every year, and it’s not just a blip, but we’re already seeing it.”

Pass the torch: The year after next brings the LA Olympics, and with Paris coverage having “way outperformed expectations,” Tomich said he’s already thinking about the 2028 Games, which he anticipates will bring continued growth for The Athletic.

“The good news is there’s a big sporting event every six months,” he said, “so come the Women’s World Cup next year, come LA28, it just feels like we’re in a better position every time.”

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