Unexpected Ways That the World Cup Has Entered Popular Culture in 2026

The FIFA World Cup is one of the biggest sporting events of the year, as fans all over the world tune in to watch the best players compete across stadiums in North America.

One of the most interesting aspects of this year’s event is the way that soccer has now entered so many aspects of popular culture, as we can see in the following examples.

Our appetite for learning more about previous World Cups has led to a large number of documentaries based on them. Naturally, each country around the world tends to focus on tournaments held there or in which the home team performed well. They show how the sport has changed over the years and also how the way fans interact with it has altered.

In the UK, several documentaries show the way England won the trophy in 1966, with Goal! The World Cup 1966 being chosen by FIFA as the official film of the event. The Lost Down Mexico Way film takes a look at a group of English fans who went to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and never came home. Meanwhile, Argentine fans can find several documentaries about their triumph in Qatar in 2022.

This list of bingo slot games here confirms that many popular slots have been reimagined with a soccer theme. If we look at Wolf It Up Again Soccer and Kong It Up Large Soccer both are based on classic animal-themed slots but now have a World Cup background. Cops n Robbers Bigger Big Money Soccer and World Soccer Grand Chance are other examples.

New online slots have traditionally been released in time for major events or holiday seasons. However, by revamping existing games instead of creating a slot from scratch, they can add new titles at short notice and also appeal to those players who have enjoyed the original.

A huge sporting event like the World Cup has always been an interesting opportunity for companies to advertise their products and services. Yet, the 2026 event has seen these campaigns move away from standard billboards and commercial TV spots. Leading brands have taken the opportunity to launch marketing campaigns where they combine their brand image with the excitement for soccer in new ways.

Uber Eats has a campaign that focuses on how fans order food for watching games at home. Heinz Canada and Gillette decided to use creative tactics that tie in the tournament’s strict guidelines for covering up non-official brands, helping them to go viral online. OpenAI is among the tech firms that have used the World Cup to create new ads, such as one showing how their tools can be used to boost fan engagement.

All of these examples let us see how the World Cup has been incorporated into popular culture in different ways. It’ll be interesting to see whether the next major sporting events introduce additional changes that make them an even bigger part of our daily entertainment.