Alex Diggins is a freelance journalist based in Oxford. He specialises in long-form investigative writing, with a focus on travel, adventure and challenging locations.

Once a signifier of luxury or novelty, custom products and services are now within reach of the everyday consumer, thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence, algorithm-led platforms, and the COVID-era digitisation boom. Today, everyone wants to be the main character of their brand experience. 

Personal Worlds

Diverse representation is an expectation, but as individuals no longer allow themselves to be defined in singular terms, there's mounting pressure on brands to understand and sensitively reflect how the intersections between race, gender, class, and ability impact people's everyday lives.

Collective Equity

Being a football fan hasn’t always been easy. In 1985, the 

 notoriously described football as “a slum sport… watched by slum people”. 

Yahoo! Sports

 Things, though, have certainly changed. Today, being a fan is often a key marker of identity – something which will be brought to the fore by this summer’s football World Cup. The competition itself is expected to be watched by an estimated six billion viewers worldwide: the majority of the world’s population. 

Forbes

And FIFA expects more than five million people to attend the tournament in person, as it returns to the US – with games also being held in Mexico and Canada – for the first time since 1994. 

 It will likely be one of the largest cultural events – and marketing opportunities – of the decade. “Football’s appeal has proved almost universal,” says David Horspool, a historian, whose book, 

More than a Game: A History of How Sports Made Britain,

 explores the evolution of fandom. “The way football grew in many cultures made it representative of its community, with all the emotional appeal that goes alongside that.” 

Interview with David Horspool conducted by the author

But what about those fans who can’t afford it? Take England and Scotland supporters as an example. For a fan to fly to the US and attend each group stage match, they would need an average of £6,500 each, or £13,000 for two, according to analysis by the BBC. 

 For a family of four to attend, it’s estimated at £22,000. 

 This makes attending the 2026 World Cup in person either a once-in-a-lifetime treat or the preserve of the extremely wealthy. A large part of the emotive appeal of football lies in its physical presence; fandom among sports comes and goes – the biggest sport of the 19th century, after all, was horse racing, now a niche interest. But the sports which garner the most passionate and enduring fans – such as football – sit in the sweet spot between play and spectacle.

Fans, therefore, want the excitement, sense of community and energy of watching a game live – without the remortgage-your-houses costs. Enter the public viewing party. These large-scale, communal screenings give fans the chance to partake in what historian Eric Hobsbawm called “

” – the global identity of fandom. It’s long been clear that football has an almost unique ability to cut across national borders and class divides, as well as differing cultural and economic circumstances. “A Liverpool fan from Merseyside may well feel they have something in common with a Liverpool fan from Nigeria,” says Horspool. 

 The public viewing party is a sharp way of capitalising on this “imagined community”, especially at a time of peak global interest in the sport, such as the World Cup. So how can brands leverage the prevalence – and popularity – of sports viewing parties?

Football is sometimes described as ‘the universal language’. And the tribal loyalties it evokes often become a key identifier of place-based identity – 80% of surveyed British football fans who attend live games at their local club see their support as an important part of their local identity. 

British Future

 “Sport offers a rare chance to put community on display,” says Andrew Guest, a professor of psychological sciences at the University of Portland, and author of 

Soccer in Mind: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to the Global Game

. “No one watches the United Nations General Assembly meetings, but they do watch the World Cup.” 

Interview with Andrew Guest conducted by the author

 The extensive paraphernalia of modern football teams – the numerous jerseys, flags, slogans, scarves and songs – taps into “the mind’s evolved tendency to divide the world into ‘us versus them’ groups based on what are often arbitrary distinctions,” argues Guest. 

Communal viewing encapsulates this response. We’re evolutionarily primed to signal belonging through fandom, and to find being in a crowd of fellow fans energising, intoxicating and affirming. For some fans, the need for collective belonging outweighs the desire for self-actualisation: an individual’s psychological wellbeing is intimately stitched into the team’s performance. A defeat can provoke genuine grief, while a victory can elicit elation. As Liverpool manager 

, “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” Public viewing parties, therefore, represent an extraordinary commercial opportunity to deepen and extend these feelings of belonging. Approximately 4.2 million fans are expected to watch the World Cup at viewing parties in Mexico. 

Tourism Review

The tournament’s direct impact to Mexico’s economy is predicted to be around $1.243 billion – a large part of that will come from the fan zones, with significant ripple effects to the surrounding restaurants, bars, shopping districts and other cultural spaces. 

And within viewing parties, smart use of tiered access, VIP perks and pre-booking can ramp up the spending boost. For instance, the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup saw sponsors Michelob ULTRA host beer gardens at the tournament's 12 host stadiums. 

AB InBev

 These offered exclusive prizes, watch parties and on-site games, increasing fan participation and spend.

Expect the global nature of the 2026 World Cup to be on full display at this summer’s watch parties. Diaspora food, music, performers and multilingual commentary will reflect the truly international – and inclusive – nature of modern football fandom. Latin America’s unique, jubilant football culture will be showcased. And tourists are expected to heed the call – the tournament is predicted to spark a cumulative 23.3% rise in tourism to Mexico throughout the summer, as well as sustained increases over the coming three years. 

 As this year’s World Cup will prove, the “imagined community” of global fandom can be translated into significant economic gains; leaning into the community-led nature of watch parties is key – build it for them, and they will come.

“The actual World Cup games are now so absurdly expensive and exclusive that it’s hard to say they’re a ‘global display of fandom’,” argues Guest. “And most World Cup stadiums are so similar in their architecture that inside the stadiums there’s mostly just a bit of cultural caricature.” 

 Today, the experience of watching a World Cup match in-person is a facsimile of the excitement and community cohesion that’s usually associated with live sport. In this context, fully immersive watch parties can frame their events as an ‘as good as there’ experience – rather than paying thousands of dollars for the real thing. Immersion shifts audiences from passive viewers to active participants in the experience; it builds community even as it heightens the drama and fun. “The main event is just a media text that sparks millions of local conversations and curiosities,” says Guest. 

So how do you drive this sense of immersion? The key is to replicate – as far as possible – the experience of being inside the stadium itself. Cosm, an American brand, specialises in ‘shared reality’ experiences. Like the Las Vegas Dome, they host sports fans in massive, custom-made facilities, with surround sound and 65-foot-high, 8K screens. Their broadcasts are hugely popular – tickets for a 2024 Yankees vs Dodgers matchup sold out within seven seconds. 

Wired

And there are plans to expand the format across sports, from coverage of the NBA, NHL and UFC – the diversity and passion of contemporary sports fandom will be well catered for. 

But immersive viewing experiences offer a chance to go beyond simply replicating the stadium experience. Interactive fan zones, AR/VR activations, projection mapping, games and one-off performances can all serve to make the viewing party an event in itself – rather than an adjunct to a remote sports fixture. A similar trend can be observed in the world of art. London’s Lightroom hosted a 2025 exhibition of 

 projected onto the surrounding walls and floor. Viewers could, of course, have seen many of the same paintings for real – and for free – in the city’s galleries. But there was a playfulness to the show, a sense of interactive community that’s missing in the solitary contemplation of an artwork. The global valuation for the immersive experience economy was estimated at between $146.56 billion in 2025, and 52% of surveyed Americans and Britons attend at least six immersive experiences a year. 

Fortune Business Science

Gensler

 Sports fans and art lovers alike are demanding more – immersive interactivity can meet that need.

One of the central appeals of fandom is its signalling of localised belonging. “The ‘derby’ is a concept at its most powerful in football,” says Horspool. “The emotional power of facing up, and preferably defeating, your nearest rivals is the focus of the greatest attention.” 

 And the globalised nature of the World Cup, which necessarily shifts focus to a different region of the world every four years, intensifies the need for hyperlocalised signifiers. Despite the flattening effect of corporatisation on the competition, every World Cup has its own unique flavour, its particular atmosphere. Think of the raucous sounds of the vuvuzela, which soundtracked the 2010 South Africa World Cup; there, a crucial element of local football culture was adopted by a global community of fans. Expect many aspects of Latin American football culture to be on display at this summer’s World Cup. Matches in Latin America are characterised by their carnival-like stadium atmosphere and ‘ultras’ – groups of supporters who lead continuous chants, drum lines and wave massive flags (‘trapos’) and set off flares. This raucous ambience is likely to be on full show at matches in Mexico.

Sports viewing parties showcase this trend in microcosm. Premium and localised food, drink and merchandise tap into that notion of localised belonging, gesturing to the host country but also creating a miniature community within the perimeter of the viewing zone. While brands shouldn’t seek to directly mimic the signifiers of, say, Latin American football culture – to do so would feel fatally inauthentic – they can tap into aspects of it. How about a mural of giant flags? Or a call-and-response sing-along by a local performer? Or handouts of unique miniaturised trumpets and drums? In this way, fan zones can become their own social currency, enticing viewers to attend and instilling a fear of missing out among those unable to come. In Victoria, Canada, half-time breaks at viewing parties will feature speeches by local politicians, performances by DJ Boitano and Neon Steve and appearances by the World Cup mascots Maple, Zayu and Clutch, who represent co-hosts Canada, Mexico and the US. 

Times Colonist

 All this is to instil the DNA of football watching in a nation without a long tradition of it.

“It is noticeable that TV directors like to include shots of fanzones ‘back home’,” says Horspool. “[This], it is implied, is where the real fans can be found.” 

 To foster this feeling of authenticity and cultural capital – 

 is the true centre of fandom – viewing parties should look to add to the exclusivity of the event. One sure way of doing this is handouts of free samples, branded cups and unique merchandise; for VIPs, takeaway ‘goodie bags’ are an easy way to premiumise the experience. Consider unique hand-crafted jewellery instead of tacky plastic bracelets, for instance. Or gourmet buffets, cooked by celebrated local chefs. Even a one-off performance by a big-name DJ could be effective – ‘you had to be there’ is the feeling brands should look to evoke.

Position watch parties as festivals, not the headline act

At its most elemental, a football match is a simple thing: two teams, 90 minutes; one set of fans goes home in misery, the other, jubilant. The action – and commercial opportunities – are contained within the stadium space, and the couple of hours fans spend there. Communal watch parties, by contrast, offer a more expansive, holistic experience. If a live match is akin to a one-off headliner, then watch parties are better understood as festivals – immersive, interactive communities with their own culture, traditions and ‘micro-activities’, such as games and musical performances. In fact, FIFA is running with exactly this model at its two ‘Fan Festivals’ in 

 – featuring live match broadcasts, music and localised food offerings, they will foreground social interaction first; watching the actual sport comes second. In general, fan zones can programme culture and activities that stadiums cannot – diaspora food, alternative commentaries and music. Such cross-fertilisation breaks down the traditional silos between rival teams – in the “imagined community” of the fanzone, tribal loyalties begin to blur and break down. Communal watch parties “make sports a rare type of civic space”, says Guest. 

 Brands would do well to lean into this heterogeneity, embracing the ‘happy chaos’ of a good fanzone, focusing on encouraging social mixing and celebrating the diversity of the crowds.

Bottle football’s spirit of ‘happy chaos’

Technology has massively elevated the at-home viewing experience. So, to continue to entice fans out of the house, fanzones need to be a ‘value-added’ experience. This is where unique offerings, immersion and interactivity come to the fore – visitors must feel they are gaining something by being there; and, conversely, that they would miss out if they simply tuned in at home. The FOMO effect is a powerful tool here. But there must be an organic element to a successful watch party, too. Football fans are especially wary of anything which seems overly corporate, or too ‘managed’ – a key element of footballing culture is its purportedly working-class roots, and a suspicion of authority comes with the territory. As 

, the football writer, puts it, “Who would buy an executive box, if the stadium was full of executives?” To succeed, then, the monetisation of fan zones should be done subtly. The emphasis should be on enhancing engagement, rather than spectacle for its own sake. To this end, long video ads on big screens should be avoided, as should massive logos splashed everywhere. Instead, consider incorporating branding into the more entertaining parts of the fan zone – could you have a sponsored ‘kiss cam’, for instance? Or maybe even sending up the corporate nature of the fan zone – could you have a branded bin moving through the crowds, encouraging fans to vent their anti-capitalist frustrations 

 recycle at the same time? Crucially, fans must feel 

 are the drivers of the atmosphere and the energy of the fanzone. “Part of football’s appeal is that it 

 middle-class,” says Horspool. “It’s supposed to be unbridled, unapologetic, noisy and over-the-top.” 

 Bottle that spirit, and brands will go a long way.

Watching at home on the sofa is comfortable; battling traffic to watch with thousands of strangers is not. To fight the inertia of the easy option, fan zones must provide a compelling ‘why’. They need a genuine sense of occasion, distinction and scarcity. Brands can achieve this through limited-edition menus, hyperlocal entertainment and exclusive giveaways. The goal is to cultivate a one-off event – a unique moment where attendance is a reward in itself. Cracking this emotive aspect is critical. “Companies tend to focus on the business side of sports fandom,” says Guest. “[Instead] pay more attention to fans with deep roots in the community. Work hard to balance play and spectacle, building community and profit-making.” 

 Sports are already a powerful vector for this balance. Brands such as 

 have shown how customers can be made to feel like a tribe by offering free lifting events and yoga classes. A successful viewing party must tread the same line – chaotic and unpredictable, bounded and with clear rules, its contradictions are its essence. Rather like a football match, in fact.

 fans to attend the 2026 World Cup in person, with up to 

 watching coverage – the majority of the world’s population

 of surveyed British football fans who attend live games at their local club see their support as an important part of their local identity

 countries, including the US and the UK, roughly 

 of respondents said they attend at least 

Brands can frame watch parties as interactive festivals to tap into fans' shared desires for shared identity and community

To combat the friction of leaving the comfortable at-home viewing experience, brands can create exclusive, limited-edition moments that trigger the fear of missing out

Brands can avoid overly corporate setups that fans often reject by providing the raw materials for attendees to naturally create their own authentic atmospheres

David Horspool is an historian and editor at the 

More than a Game: A History of How Sports Made Britain

Andrew Guest is a professor of psychological sciences at the University of Portland. He is the author of 

Global

Sports

With World Cup tickets increasingly out of reach for ordinary fans, public watch parties represent a vital space for collective belonging. But how can brands overcome the comfort of the living room to design immersive and engaging events that capture the happy chaos of live sport?

Analysis

Alex Diggins

David Horspool

Andrew Guest

Related Macro Behaviours

Personal Worlds

Collective Equity