McDonald’s is set to end its 32-year sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup, bringing to a close a partnership that began during the 1994 tournament in the United States.
The decision follows the company’s largest-ever World Cup marketing campaign during the 2026 tournament. Developed by Wieden+Kennedy New York, the campaign was launched across more than 110 countries and was positioned as McDonald’s biggest marketing initiative of the year.
However, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Ian Borden, said during its second-quarter earnings call that although the campaign had boosted business performance and generated considerable enthusiasm across the company, it had “underperformed versus our expectations.” Growth in the US market also slowed during the period.
The decision reflects a broader change in McDonald’s marketing strategy, with the company increasingly focusing on its own intellectual property (IP) and brand platforms rather than depending heavily on what executives have described as “borrowed equities”, including major entertainment franchises, sporting events and cultural partnerships.
Borden had previously warned that brands could not rely solely on external partnerships to achieve sustainable growth. He cautioned that companies cannot simply “promo” their way to long-term growth through a continuous schedule of external collaborations, indicating that McDonald’s intends to be more selective about how it draws cultural relevance from outside brands and properties.
FIFA has confirmed that McDonald’s existing sponsorship agreement will expire at the end of 2026. The fast-food company has clarified that its decision is unrelated to recent controversies surrounding FIFA and that it will continue to invest in sports through other partnerships.
The development marks a notable departure from the broader trend among marketers towards increasingly expensive sports sponsorships. After three decades of paying for access to one of the world’s largest audiences, McDonald’s appears to be reassessing whether such arrangements offer sufficient value compared with developing cultural platforms and intellectual properties that the brand can own and control independently.