they really do is represent months of planning across merchandising, advertising and media investment.   FIFA expects sponsorships to contribute US$1.8 billion this year, the highest revenue ever generated by a standalone sporting event. FIFA’s veteran partners include Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa and Lenovo, who will maintain a year-round presence across the governing body’s competitions, while tournament-specific sponsors such as McDonald’s, Hisense, Unilever and AB InBev are tasked with bringing the 2026 World Cup to life through campaigns, products and fan activations. The opportunity for many retailers, global and local, begins months before the opening whistle that began on June 11. Christopher Salib, founder and retail consultant at Pharotique Category Management Group, said retailers who performed best had suppliers and stock organised three or four months in advance. “The retailers who got ahead found a supplier already set up for this, locked in stock 3–4 months out,” he told Inside Retail. Just as important was timing. “Two to three weeks of shelf presence before kick-off is what builds momentum,” Salib explained, giving shoppers time to buy for watch parties, gifts and the opening rounds. The same principle applies to advertising, as Ben Baker, managing director of Vistar Media APAC, explained, tournaments such as the World Cup change the way people move through cities. Fans commute to venues, gather with friends and visit shopping centres and entertainment precincts, which gives brands an opportunity to meet consumers “mid-journey” rather than “mid-scroll”, using out-of-home advertising to appear where purchase decisions are often made. Rexona’s “unmissable match” Rexona offers one example of how that thinking has evolved. Working with media agency Mindshare and broadcaster SBS, the brand has launched an omnichannel FIFA World Cup campaign in April, spanning social media and outdoor advertising. The brand also introduced and utilises the “intensity radar”, a predictive tool that analyses player form, match tension, technical quality and fan sentiment to identify the tournament’s must-watch fixtures, feeding daily content and SBS’s “Rexona unmissable match” editorial segment. The concept has also moved into Australia’s major supermarket retailers through limited-edition FIFA packaging. Mindshare group connections planning director Elizabeth Gulliver stated “the media works as a connected system.”  Hisense “own the moment” If one retailer has become synonymous with the pre-tournament shopping ritual, it is Hisense. Unsurprisingly, the lead-up to the World Cup prompts a familiar household calculation: is it finally time for a bigger television? The electronics brand is now into its eighth year as an Official Sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26. Beyond branding, the company is using the tournament to showcase its latest display technology through product innovations and fan activations across digital and physical platforms. Hisense Group vice president Catherine Fang said the ambition is to transform “billions of living rooms into front-row seats”.  Considering all the goals, trophies and national pride, the World Cup has also become a contest for attention. Every four years, billions of eyes converge on a single event, and retailers see those moments as an opportunity to sell far more than football merchandise but televisions, deodorant, fast food, snacks and everyday household products, wrapped in the language and emotion of the tournament. Whether retailers are in the moat by a partnership or simply taking advantage of the event through playful packaging, planning is key. As Salib observed, “the pattern is the same in every major tournament: the retailers who treat it as a 12-month category planning exercise outperform the ones who treat it as a four-week marketing moment.” For retailers, the opening whistle is rarely the beginning but the moment preparation demonstrates its worth.