Mike and Ike will also be a presenting sponsor for a major Dignitas Fortnite tournament, “Flavor Brawl,” held in October. This tournament will be hosted by esports streamer AussieAntics on his Twitch channel. The broadcast will include custom Mike and Ike brand integration, according to the company.
Retail media, loyalty, and sports marketing are helping counter the retailer’s Foot Locker drag.
Chase is challenging Amex on experiential rewards.
On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how advertisers can transition from World Cup storytelling into domestic league campaigns, what makes football audiences unique from an advertising perspective, the number that best encapsulates the advertising opportunity within the English Premier League, what makes America's Major League Soccer attractive compared with established European leagues, and more. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Principal Analyst Bill Fisher, and Senior Forecasting Analyst Oscar Orozco. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube or Spotify.
Spectacle events surrounding sports are pulling viewership numbers that rival, and sometimes exceed, the games themselves. That creates new openings for advertisers to reach passionate audiences in low-stakes, high-excitement environments. Major sporting events reveal broader cultural trends. "Amazon is in such a unique position to give us an idea of broader consumer sentiment because of its scale and reach," our analyst Sarah Marzano said on a recent episode "In the Game." The same principle applies to sport-adjacent spectacles, which reveal an unsatiated hunger for collective experiences that traditional game broadcasts don't satisfy.
The old athlete-brand relationship playbook is changing quickly as athletes become creators. Instead of waiting for networks or press offices to shape their narrative, athletes are building the studio themselves, streaming from on their smartphones, with no scripts in sight on platforms like Amazon’s live-streaming service Twitch. When WNBA stars Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman turned the 2026 All-Star Weekend into a 72-hour Twitch livestream with a peak audience of 36,000 concurrent viewers, or when former Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown processed a trade to the 76ers with nearly 30,000 viewers, they were doing more than traditional press hits. They were talking directly to their fandom and sponsors followed.
Creator content rewrites World Cup viewing: Livestreams beat TV for many fans, giving brands new ad paths as media rights steer where audiences watch.
Capital One’s 20-year renewal ties the bank to a $1 billion rebuild and expands cardholder perks into a loyalty play.
Amex’s pop-ups need to captivate younger consumers’ attention as the cohorts gains buying power.
Media companies, tech giants, and retailers could face dramatic shifts if sports viewership declines, Meta loses billions in youth safety lawsuits, or AI transforms every product placement into personalized ad inventory. Sports rights spending is on track to hit about $70 billion a year by 2030, and every dollar of it comes out of something else. "The amount that media companies are paying for sports rights continues to climb. It's gonna be about $70 billion a year by 2030, and it's taking away from what they do otherwise," said our analyst Ross Benes on a recent episode of "Behind the Numbers." Three scenarios below look unlikely today. Each would rewrite how these businesses operate.
Football season is a delivery app season. As the 2026 NFL and college football seasons kick off, fans will be inviting friends and family over to watch the games, and they will be ordering the snacks and drinks to feed them. That gives brands a window through commerce networks to reach hungry fans on delivery apps, introduce new products, and help them plan the right mix for their guests.
Disney turns streaming into an ad engine: FYQ3 results show SVOD, sports, and parks combining to keep advertisers invested despite broader subscription churn.
The NFL’s fan base is broadening, and advertisers now have a more diverse audience to reach over live digital channels. The upcoming season, which kicks off with its first preseason game August 6, will have more international games than ever as the league continues to grow a global audience. US digital live sports viewership will reach 122.7 million, up 6.1% YoY, according to EMARKETER’s forecast. The NFL’s current media rights agreements include two streaming-exclusive deals (Netflix and Prime Video), and four deals with broadcasters that include linear retransmission on streamers (ESPN, Paramount+, Peacock, and Fox One).
Ad spending rises in June from World Cup demand: Marketers should treat the lift as temporary and keep budgets focused on channels that prove ROI.
Live sports remain advertising's last reliable mass-reach environment, and 2026 is proving the point: the NBA Finals shattered viewership benchmarks, the FIFA World Cup is reaching US audiences across every screen, and leagues are moving content onto streaming channels. This FAQ covers how sports audiences are changing, where the ad dollars flow, and how marketers should plan sports investments in 2026.
On today's podcast episode, we discuss the audiences for "spectacle events," including one-off marquee sporting events like UFC 250 and sporting occasion-adjacent events like the NFL Draft. We also explore the best ways to market around these moments and share some interesting examples of how companies are engaging with fans. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Analyst Marisa Jones, and Principal Analyst Max Willens. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube or Spotify.
Record demand lifted revenues, while the company bets its marketing spend will strengthen long-term brand appeal.
53.3% of US digital buyers purchased clothing online in the past 30 days, more than 20 percentage points ahead of the next-closest category, pet products (32.5%), according to a February survey from Bizrate Insights and EMARKETER.
Consumers showed resilience, with spending driven by the FIFA World Cup and higher tax returns.
Campaigns from Coca-Cola and Unilever boosted sales while generating customer insights and brand lift set to outlast the event.