Thanks to the impending return of the FIFA World Cup, soccer content is set to become one of the biggest marketing trends of 2026. Nielsen reported in October that 37% of U.S. consumers believe that their interest in the beautiful game will rise over an 18-month period that coincides with the biggest-ever edition of soccer’s quadrennial tournament.
These days, if a marketing trend is in the air, Roblox is rarely far away, and the sandbox platform is working with the World Cup’s organizer to take advantage of the considerable pre-tournament hype. Gamefam, a company that works with independent creators to turn their Roblox games into licensed experiences, has launched a full-featured football simulator titled FIFA Super Soccer.
Gamefam adapted FIFA Super Soccer from Super League Soccer, a Roblox game developed by creator Mats Watte. Gamefam acquired the rights to that property and transformed it through the addition of licensed FIFA assets. That strategy is becoming more common as Roblox embraces notable IP and firms like Gamefam incorporate franchises like Sonic and Barbie into experiences.
Subscribe for daily Tubefilter Top Stories
The Super Soccer update lets players choose official national team apparel and players within the game, and soccer fans around the world are already enjoyed the refreshed experience. Sportico reported that FIFA Super Soccer attracted 21,000 concurrent users after its name change, becoming one of the 70 most popular Roblox games. Before the switch, Super Soccer had averaged about 1.5 million gameplay sessions per day.
FIFA Super Soccer sits at the confluence of three broader trends. There has been a boom of branded experiences on platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, and the pro soccer world is paying attention. In one notable bid to connect with the global, youthful community that explores those virtual sandboxes, the English club Manchester City developed its own world within Fortnite.
Like with many sports, soccer culture has become increasingly tied to creator content. Influencers have become players, players have become influencers, and brands like Home Depot are centering soccer as they recruit big names for nascent creator programs.
Even if the 2026 World Cup was not the first edition to feature 48 teams, and even if it was not the first Cup held in North America since 1994, it would still be attracting increased attention from digital marketers. The viewership on soccer-related YouTube channels is simply too big to ignore. If the 2026 World Cup can become the “influencer tournament” — thus doing to soccer what the 2024 U.S. presidential election did to politics — it will be a win for advertisers and creators alike.
The third piece of context concerns FIFA itself. Due to ongoing scandals, unpopular World Cup host choices, and naked deference to a certain American president, the Zurich-based organization is short on public goodwill these days.
The FIFA video game series was one of the last pieces of positive PR the namesake org had left, but that ship sailed in 2022 when FIFA ended its long-term relationship with publisher EA. FIFA President Gianni Infantino is eager to launch video games that can compete with EA’s ongoing franchise, because, in his own words, the go-to soccer simulator “cannot be named something else” other than FIFA.
Roblox provides an opening to bring that competitor to market, and FIFA Super Soccer is the result. It may not have the top-of-the-line graphics boasted by EA’s games, but what it lacks in style, it makes up for in the realm of public enthusiasm.
