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While many are familiar with the World Cup, the Club World Cup may be less well known. After its relaunch in 2005, it became an annual event until 2023. Now, in 2025, it has been revamped into a larger tournament featuring 32 teams from all six confederations, held every four years, similar to the World Cup format.

The 2025 Club World Cup is being hosted in the US. With the event in its final week and the highly anticipated 2026 World Cup taking place in the US as well, we thought it may be good to look at some companies that have a lot of exposure to these events.

• One clear beneficiary from these events is the suppliers of apparel and equipment. The majority of kit (uniforms, equipment etc.) providers in the Club World Cup are Nike (NKE), Adidas (ADDYY), and Puma. Adidas, which also provides the official match ball, has replicas available in stores and online. According to the FIFA website, the 57 licensed stores across the 12 venues sell replica kits, t-shirts, scarves, and related collectibles and memorabilia of the event. The venues have sold nearly 119,000 units, with T-shirts and club scarves among the best sellers.
• Sponsors have also benefited from the event. Coca-Cola (KO) has delivered almost 1 mln products and over 320 fridges to 70 key locations across the tournament. Additionally, Lenovo (LNVGY) has over 9,000 devices and accessories in use across all stadiums and tournament sites.
• Other industries to benefit include the hospitality industry. With the Club World Cup taking place across 12 states and 11 cities, and clubs from around the world participating, people from all places have an interest in these games. Companies like Marriot (MAR), Hilton (HLT), Hyatt (H), as well as other travel stocks like AirBnB (ABNB) are worth watching. Also travel websites like Expedia (EXPE) and Booking.com (BKNG). Hopefully, the Club World Cup will be able to offset some of the reduction we have seen from fewer foreigners visiting the US in 2025. So far, there have been more than 46,300 hospitality guests, with 44.2% of the sales to international clients, notably from the UK, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil.
• On a final note, the event has generated a lot of buzz digitally. The FIFA website has seen 16 million unique visitors in June, more than in the previous 5 months. Additionally, the content posted across social media platforms has made 2.7 bln impressions, boosting visibility for sponsors and affiliated brands. This could be good for online ad companies like TTD and MGNI.

With the 2025 Club World Cup in its final stretch and the 2026 World Cup on the horizon, global enthusiasm for soccer is heating up. The companies helping to bring these events to life are likely to benefit from the excitement generated by these soccer events. Investors may want to keep an eye on these companies as there is likely to be positive commentary on the Q2 calls coming up in a few weeks.