By Dom Dunne, Commercial Director, Programmatic & LaunchPAD Europe, Bauer Media Outdoor
Have you noticed how broadcasters of all descriptions, not just those traditionally associated with sports coverage, now seem to be securing the rights to live sporting events? Be it football, tennis, athletics, or a myriad of other sports, a wider range of media channels are getting involved in delivering live sporting content from around the world.
Nowhere will this be more evident than during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a tournament set to dominate screens, conversations and culture for weeks on end. A big reason for this trend is that ‘live sport’ remains one of the last true mass-attention environments for advertisers. In an era of fragmented media consumption and second-screen scrolling, major sporting moments still command focus at scale. Whether it’s a World Cup group-stage upset or a nail-biting knockout match, these events unite audiences in a shared experience. In doing so, they create national and international moments that cut across age, interest and background.
As it is, our research shows that 81% of Brits currently follow at least one sport, suggesting that ‘appreciation of sport’ can be regarded as a core feature of British culture. Crucially for brands, when audiences are emotionally invested, they are also commercially attentive, with 77% of sports viewers noticing brands advertising around sporting events.
The impact is measurable and real. We also found that brands advertising around major football tournaments such as the World Cup experienced an uplift in related brand perceptions of up to 68%. This reinforces the idea that when brands show up alongside sport, they are noticed and remembered.
This is particularly crucial near supermarkets and other essential retail destinations, where consumers are making pre- and post-match purchases, coinciding with real-world behaviours, which have a lasting effect.
However, as the 2026 World Cup approaches, brands face a strategic choice: how to move beyond presence alone and truly own the moment as it unfolds.
Keeping pace with live sports
Sport is emotional, unpredictable and exciting, which is why we love watching it so much – it’s extremely dynamic. By comparison, campaigns that lack flexibility or responsiveness often struggle to match the pace and emotion.
As a result, the emotional momentum generated during a match often goes to waste when viewers step away from the screen. The connection between brand and viewer dissipates before the brand has a chance to influence behaviour.
This is where Programmatic Out of Home (prOOH) has found a natural role. Underpinned by rich data signals, it provides brands with the opportunity and means to respond in real time to live events. That could mean adapting creatively based on match moments, time of day, audience movement or even environmental triggers. It also allows campaigns to flex geographically, activating near stadiums, transport hubs, city centres or retail locations where fans are physically on the move.
Crucially, prOOH allows brands to activate data-driven audiences at scale, with the flexibility to respond to where fans are before, during and after World Cup matches, from stadiums and transport hubs to pubs, city centres and nearby retail locations.
With prOOH, brands can react instantly by serving celebratory creative, timely offers or contextually relevant messaging in high-footfall environments while that emotion is still fresh. For instance, a drinks brand can trigger dynamic copy tied to a match result, or a retailer can push a limited-time offer in city centres as fans flood out of viewing venues.
Real-time relevance
Sports-focused OOH drives more than 47% immediate brand usage, demonstrating the power of emotional relevance and contextual placement in shaping real-world action.
prOOH capitalises on this by being inherently situational, bridging the gap between broadcast and the physical world. It ensures that live sporting moments do not exist in isolation on screens and in stadiums, but continue to resonate in the environments where people shop, commute and socialise, making it crucial in modern omnichannel strategies.
Sport is rarely consumed in a single channel. Audiences engage via broadcast, CTV, social and mobile simultaneously. prOOH strengthens that ecosystem by reinforcing messaging beyond the home. prOOH allows a message to evolve, responding to match outcomes, audience sentiment or location-based relevance. This is how brands scale attention efficiently, not by increasing volume but by increasing relevance.
Of course, there is also a broader brand safety and quality to consider. Sport is a premium environment; it commands trust and cultural significance – and OOH shares those characteristics. It is a highly regulated, brand-safe medium embedded in trusted public spaces. When the two combine, brands benefit from both emotional intensity and contextual credibility.
With global events such as the 2026 FIFA World Cup on the horizon, brands are re-evaluating how they approach sponsorship. While many continue to rely on traditional models to drive exposure, there is a growing recognition that these strategies can be strengthened by a more agile, data-led approach that mirrors the pace and unpredictability of live sport.
This year and beyond, sport will continue to deliver mass engagement, but to leverage the opportunity, brands need to do more than simply ‘show up’. They need to do it dynamically. For marketers looking to truly capitalise on live sport, prOOH should be a core pillar of any omnichannel strategy.
Bauer Media Outdoor is a client of Bluestripe Group, the publisher of New Digital Age.
