China did not qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and for the first time the tournament is hosted across the United States, Canada and Mexico. For Chinese viewers that means kickoffs land roughly between 3 and 10 a.m. Beijing time, a drastic reverse of the convenient evening slots of Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022. Nonetheless, the expanded 48-team, 104-match event still represent a large commercial opportunity in China, but a differently shaped one. With the new time zone challenge, consumer spending related to World Cup in China is redistributed across the day, between online and offline, and between local brands going out and foreign brands coming in.
A dawn tournament watched on a social app
The most important structural change this cycle is where Chinese viewers watch the games. China Media Group holds exclusive rights, but for the first time the lifestyle-commerce platform RedNote is streaming all 104 matches free, with live games, replays, and short-video highlights. RedNote reportedly invested around RMB 1.7 billion to become a broadcaster of the tournament, betting on the 100 million-plus football-interested users it has built up as football engagement on the app doubled over the past year. The timing makes that bet logical. When matches air at dawn, replays, highlights, and next-day discussion matter as much as the live whistle; and on RedNote, watching, talking, and shopping now sit in one place.
The catering boom relocates rather than disappears
In 2018 and 2022, with matches in the evening, the World Cup in China drove an instant surge in food consumption. On the opening night of 2018, orders on Meituan alone jumped 40%-plus just before the opener. Similarly, in 2022, sales of dine-in set meals at World Cup-themed restaurants jumped 80% MoM. However, dawn kickoffs break that model. The opportunity now splits into morning coffee for early matches and late-night snacks for those who stay up, and the old public-screening playbook no longer transfers automatically. For instance, a Hangzhou café owner who invited 4,000 contacts to join his World Cup opener watch party reportedly drew no customers, a sign of how this year’s awkward match times complicate the usual approach for business operators.
This is not evidence that the F&B industry is losing out on the World Cup economy in China, but a signal that consumer demand has relocated. Inconvenient hours push viewing home, lifting food delivery and instant retail, while offline gatherings shift toward private, bookable spaces. Over the opening weekend, hotel audiovisual rooms hit their highest occupancy of the period, with demand on Tongcheng Travel up more than 90% from the prior weekend. The winners are operators who adapt format and hours rather than simply opening their doors, and the morning-match occasion has already drawn brand investment. Notably, the Spanish federation named Luckin Coffee the official partner of Spain’s national team in China, a leading coffee brand attaching itself to a tournament that, for many viewers, now starts at breakfast.
Chinese brands go out, foreign brands come in
China is consistently the biggest sponsor bloc despite its absent national team. At Qatar 2022, Chinese brands spent around USD 1.4 billion, outspending US companies. For 2026, the FIFA-level Chinese names include Wanda, Hisense, Mengniu and Lenovo. Increasingly, these brands are taking on more operational roles, not just logo placements: Lenovo, the official technology partner of the World Cup, is deploying more than 10,000 devices and 200 engineers across all 16 venues, while Hisense supplies the displays for FIFA’s video assistant referee centers. For these brands, the tournament is a stage to prove their technology to a global audience and build recognition abroad.
Foreign brands move in the opposite direction, using the tournament to reach China’s massive viewer base. For Coca-Cola, the World Cup is, in its own words, one of its best tools for recruiting young Chinese consumers. Coca-Cola released “JUMP,” its first Chinese-language World Cup anthem in 12 years, performed by Liu Yuning and J. Balvin. Meanwhile, Budweiser ran its global “Let It Pour” platform with Erling Haaland and Jürgen Klopp across more than 40 countries, while its China arm hosts public World Cup viewing events and immersive fan experiences.
The more inventive marketing plays around World Cup in China
Some campaigns rely on more creativity over spending and star power. Endorsements usually go to famous players, but this time, three Chinese brands, Lenovo, Hisense and Mengniu, put their money on a referee. Ma Ning, the only Chinese referee at the World Cup, has become a genuine star at home, with his tracking accounts drawing roughly 3 billion views on Douyin and close to 100 million on RedNote.
Heinz also went further and skipped official status altogether. Although not a FIFA sponsor, it ran out-of-home campaigns around the World Cup in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. On many large-format metro placements, Heinz turned fries dipped in ketchup into football moves, then invited fans to invent their own and post them on RedNote, borrowing the tournament’s attention without paying for it. None of these strategies leaned on the biggest budget, showing that World Cup attention in China is won as much by a sharp idea as by an official badge.
China supplies the tournament it isn’t playing in
China’s largest concrete role in this World Cup is on the supply side. Best-selling team jerseys are mostly made in China, and the chipped Adidas Trionda match ball is manufactured in Guangdong. Yiwu, a small Chinese city known as the “world’s supermarket”, supplies roughly 70% of the world’s World Cup-related merchandise. Its sporting-goods exports reached RMB 2.83 billion in the first quarter of this year, a 12% increase YoY, with shipments to the three host nations up 21.3%. Domestic demand is real too, as World Cup-related searches drove a 150%-plus rise in toys and collectibles sales on major Chinese e-commerce platforms. The country absent from the pitch manufactures much of what the tournament runs on.
What matters during a unique World Cup in China
- The time difference makes a World Cup boom far from guaranteed. Demand splits between morning and late-night and shifts toward home, and offline turnout is no longer automatic.
- RedNote becoming a broadcaster is the structural shift this cycle, and with replays mattering as much as live games, that is where attention concentrates.
- China’s presence is commercial and industrial. While not in the tournament, Chinese brands dominate the sponsor ranks and Chinese factories supply most of the merchandise.
- Advertising runs in two directions, with Chinese brands building recognition abroad, and foreign brands reaching young Chinese consumers at home.
- Official sponsorship isn’t required to take part, and with no home team to rally around, attention follows star players, foreign teams, and well-timed creatives.
Author: Ming Yii Lai, with additional research by Hansel Guo
