McDonald's Exits World Cup Sponsorship as Leagues Put Ads First

McDonald's is ending its 32-year World Cup sponsorship after this year's tournament "underperformed our expectations," CFO Ian Borden told investors during a quarterly earnings report last week. The exit lands amid a broader pattern: sports leagues are trading fan experience and player safety for marketing revenue, and some of their biggest sponsors have started to notice.

The clearest case is FIFA's "hydration breaks" introduced at this year's World Cup. FIFA pitched the three-minute stoppages in each half on player welfare grounds, citing forecast high temperatures. Players and coaches criticized the breaks for disrupting the flow of the game. During the tournament FIFA denied profiting from them. Post-tournament, FIFA has bragged about the breaks' sponsorship haul and will now require them in future World Cup broadcast deals regardless of the host nation's weather.

What does this change for players?

Perimeter advertising boards, increasingly LED screens placed waist-high around pro soccer fields, pose a documented safety risk. Players run at full speed just feet away while wearing metal-tipped cleats, and injuries are not hypothetical:

• British midfielder Jordan Henderson left the World Cup with a broken wrist requiring surgery after toppling over a sideline ad board.
• Paraguay's men's team coach called for a reassessment after his striker crashed into an ad screen during a game against Australia.
• Togo international Samuel Asamoah broke his neck in a collision with an ad board a year ago; he survived but is partially paralyzed.
• Billy Vigar, a young British player at Chichester City club, died in a similar headfirst tumble shortly before the Asamoah incident.

Players and lower-level leagues without major broadcast sponsor demands have called for years for reviews of "pitch perimeter safety." The fix is simple: move the boards back, since space often exists between the ads and the seats. But sponsors pay for constant on-screen presence, and that inventory depends on the boards hugging the field.

The pattern extends beyond soccer. The US Open this year gave free tickets to social media creators, drawing backlash from players and fans. Influencers livestreamed and vlogged through matches, ignoring tennis etiquette; at least one player stopped midmatch to complain about the smell of weed from the audience.

The NFL shows the same trajectory from a different angle. NFL RedZone, launched in 2009, ran for years on the tagline "seven hours of commercial-free football." Commercials arrived in 2024, and the show now carries roughly 16 ad breaks per Sunday. ESPN acquired the NFL Network and RedZone distribution rights last year.

What does this change for the sponsor mix?

All five major US leagues — the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS — hold partnerships with gambling companies including DraftKings, Fanatics and FanDuel, with in-broadcast integrations for betting lines and prop bets and top players as endorsers. The same five leagues recently formed a lobbying coalition pushing state laws against sportsbook users who threaten or harass players.

The leagues' vetting record is equally instructive. DraftKings and Fanatics advertised during this year's Super Bowl; FanDuel ramped up marketing before the game. Before the sportsbooks, Temu bought six Super Bowl ads in 2024 on NFL and CBS airtime. Before Temu, crypto exchanges — including FTX — held major NFL and Super Bowl sponsorships.

The sponsors, though, are pulling back. Beyond McDonald's, publicly traded brands including Adidas, Visa, Hershey and Coca-Cola are struggling to justify their sports marketing investments. As mainstream consumer brands reconsider sports budgets, leagues drift toward sportsbooks, GLP-1s, crypto exchanges and other categories that reputable advertisers avoid. For practitioners, the lesson is direct: leagues will sell the inventory, but the association risk now sits with the brands that stay.