"Outside Christian Pulisic, people may not be familiar with some of these players." That's Fox Sports' own Senior VP of Brand Marketing, Whit Haskel, summing up the challenge — and quietly, the opportunity — of hosting a World Cup on home soil.
It's an honest admission. The USMNT has a genuine shot at a deep run in front of their own fans this summer, and Fox Sports holds exclusive English-language rights to all 104 matches. But casual American sports fans don't yet know the names. So the network is doing something about it.
Giants on the pier, heroes from the heartland
The most visible piece of the campaign so far has been hard to miss — literally. Forty-foot inflatable versions of Lionel Messi, Lamine Yamal, and Pulisic showed up on the Santa Monica Pier last week, drawing fans and photographers in equal measure. Before that, the trio made stops in World Cup-themed towns: Belgium, WI; Brazil, IN; Holland, MI. Then the Indy 500. It's corny, it's fun, and it's exactly the kind of thing that gets shared on phones by people who've never watched a full 90 minutes.
The more substantive push is the Hometown Heroes campaign — pre-match and in-broadcast segments tracing USMNT players back to where they came from. Pulisic from Hershey, PA. Tyler Adams from New York. World Cup captain Tim Ream from St. Louis. For a country where local identity runs deep, it's a smart angle. You don't need to know the offside rule to care about a kid from your city playing on the world's biggest stage.
Fox also launched a full World Cup ad last month built around that exact emotional logic. Set to Elvis Presley's "The Impossible Dream", it features Pulisic scoring a last-second corner kick winner against Brazil in the World Cup final — at MetLife in New Jersey, on July 19. Tom Brady, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Bruce Arena, and Mike Eruzione from the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" team all appear. It's unabashedly sentimental, and it's designed to make non-soccer fans feel something.
Chasing 87 million potential viewers
The numbers Fox is working with are worth understanding. According to YouGov's FIFA World Cup 2026 global brand handbook, around 87 million Americans say they have at least some interest in the tournament. The newer fans skewing into that group are younger (35% aged 16–24), more female (53%), and more racially diverse (29% Black) than the established soccer fanbase. That's not a niche audience to be converted — that's a mainstream one waiting for a reason to tune in.
Fox's answer to reaching them is the Fox Sports Creator Club, a new influencer initiative run in partnership with LA-based agency Digital Media Management. The network is recruiting "hundreds and hundreds" of creators in World Cup host cities — not just soccer accounts, but food influencers, culture creators, NFL fans, baseball fans. The logic is straightforward: soccer reaches its ceiling if it only talks to people already watching soccer.
- Creators apply to attend Fox Sports events and activations
- In return, they tag Fox and share content from their own platforms
- Perks include personalised Adidas sneakers, jersey customisation, and access to viewing events nationwide
"We only reach a certain number of people on our platforms," Haskel said. "We have to go way outside our platforms to connect with other sports fans."
Fox peaked at 16.78 million viewers for the 2022 World Cup Final between Argentina and France. With the tournament on US soil and the USMNT in the mix, that ceiling looks very different this time around — and every casual fan who knows Tim Ream's name before kickoff is someone more likely to stay through extra time.
