Which brand won the football tournament footwear battle

Summary

An analysis of footwear conversations around the 2026 World Cup compares how sponsorship, search demand, social attention, and sentiment shaped the competition between Adidas, Nike, Puma, New Balance, and other brands. Consumer Research tracked tournament-related mentions from June 11 to July 19 and paired them with search queries across the US, UK, and Canada. Adidas led tournament-specific footwear conversation with 63% of mentions, while Nike led broader brand discussion with 995k mentions, brand search momentum, and 78% positive sentiment. Nike’s cultural activations, including LISA’s “Rip The Script” campaign and Ronaldo’s Mercurial moments, generated shareable attention, whereas Adidas benefited from official sponsorship, the Trionda match ball, and player storytelling. Pink cleats became a cross-brand liability, attracting more than 5.5k mentions with nearly 70% negative sentiment, showing that visibility did not automatically produce favorable attention.

Takeaways

1. 1

   Adidas captured 63% of tournament-specific footwear mentions as the official sponsor, while Adidas and Nike together accounted for 92% of mentions among the seven tracked athletic footwear brands.

2. 2

   Nike’s “Nike football cleats” searches rose 155.3% over the two weeks after the tournament; Adidas rose 87.5% over the full period but fell 17% in the second week.

3. 3

   Generic searches led brand queries: “Soccer cleats” reached 200.3k searches, while “Football cleats” reached 171.5k and grew 163.3% over two weeks.