McDonald’s is ending its 32-year sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup, bringing to a close a partnership that began with the 1994 tournament in the United States. The move comes as the fast-food giant shifts its marketing focus towards developing proprietary IP and strengthening its own brand platforms.
The move follows McDonald’s biggest-ever World Cup marketing push during the 2026 tournament. Created by Wieden+Kennedy New York, the campaign rolled out across more than 110 countries and was positioned as the company’s largest marketing programme of the year.
However, McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call that while the campaign lifted the business and generated strong enthusiasm across the system, it had “underperformed versus our expectations”. The company also recorded a slowdown in US growth during the period.
The decision reflects a broader rethink of McDonald’s marketing model, with the company increasingly prioritising its own intellectual property and brand platforms over what executives have described as “borrowed equities”, including major entertainment franchises, sporting events and cultural partnerships.
Borden has previously cautioned that brands cannot rely on a constant calendar of external tie-ups to drive long-term growth, suggesting that McDonald’s intends to be more selective about when it taps into cultural relevance through third-party properties.
FIFA has confirmed that McDonald’s current agreement will expire at the end of 2026. The company has said the decision is unrelated to recent controversies surrounding FIFA and that it will continue to invest in sport through other partnerships.
The move comes amid a broader focus on the role and returns of large-scale sports sponsorships in brand marketing. After more than three decades of associating with one of the world’s biggest sporting events, McDonald’s appears to be reassessing the balance between buying access to established audiences and building cultural properties it can own and develop over the long term.
