Airbnb, Marriott, DoorDash, McDonald's
FIFA splits hairs
Margin Points:
—> FIFA shows us how modern business competition plays out.
FIFA splits hairs
For the FIFA World Cup, Airbnb is now the “Official Alternative Accommodation and Experiences Booking Platform” which isn’t the most marketing-friendly splattering of words. Why? Well, Marriott is the “Official Hotel Supporter.”
FIFA has generally hewed to category exclusivity for sponsors: one beer company, one fast food joint, one car brand, etc. Today, it’s not practical to stick to these rules because of the speed and shapeshifting of big business.
FIFA has, at times in the past, relaxed exclusivity just to maximize revenue. In the 1980s, the demand for cameras and film was so great that FIFA had both Canon and Fujifilm as sponsors for multiple World Cups.
In 1998, the sponsorship categories truly split hairs by allowing two direct competitors in the heat of a battle for the shaving market. Norelco (Philips) and Braun were head-to-head competitors for electric shavers. Gillette (which owned Braun) also was a sponsor that year. Three different brands all pitching razors to the world—cluttered like a CVS aisle without the price tags and locked cases.
The sponsorship dynamics can get nasty. MasterCard battled FIFA in court to avoid being replaced by Visa:
In [judge’s] ruling, she said FIFA negotiators “lied repeatedly to MasterCard”, including when they assured the company that FIFA “would not sign a deal for the post-2006 sponsorship rights with anyone else unless it could not reach agreement with MasterCard.”
FIFA then paid MasterCard $90M to allow FIFA to take on Visa as a sponsor for the 2010 World Cup. Predictably:
FIFA “has, first of all, resolved a problem, and, secondly -- much more importantly -- has paved the way to a good, new partner that will support it and its manifold activities efficiently all around the world,” FIFA President Blatter said.
MasterCard said it decided to settle the case for business reasons, and that it no longer wanted to work with FIFA.
Today, exclusivity isn’t really in FIFA’s control. As we’ve seen before, Airbnb has hotels on its platform. Mostly independent hotels, but you can even book Marriott hotels on Airbnb—seemingly without authorization from Marriott.
Airbnb announced the FIFA sponsorship in June 2025. It’s entirely possible that Airbnb had no real idea they’d be selling hotel rooms 12 months later, never mind FIFA having any idea. On the flip side, if Airbnb had hotels on the short term roadmap, it was probably all the more incentive to get the FIFA deal done early and get in the door before Marriott could complain. I’m not sure Marriott was thrilled, but FIFA learned through the MasterCard case how to best handle these situations.
With the changing competitive dynamics, FIFA today probably wouldn’t have any qualms about dicing up sponsorships to accommodate the AI labs. ChatGPT could be the “Official Consumer AI chat” while Claude could be the “Official Enterprise AI chat.” AI is quite good at generating slightly differentiated text and I’m sure FIFA could leverage it with the assistance of the new sponsors.1
The exclusive category sponsorship isn’t a non-compete agreement in the market.2 It’s a marketing agreement and it has become as flexible as the markets are. The policy probably evolves to an informal “stay in your lane” detente. “Keep the competition on the field” means that the marketing is mainly around branding, not individual product lines.
Modern business is also reorganizing categories quickly and brands find themselves in similar conversations. DoorDash (current sponsor) isn’t running ads telling customers to order from Burger King in the DoorDash app at halftime, but it could even though McDonald’s is a FIFA sponsor. McDonald’s isn’t asking customers to come into the restaurant rather than ordering through a third-party app, but it could even though DoorDash is a sponsor and a business partner.
Things are more dynamic now with knock-on effects cutting across businesses that previously appeared unrelated. If FIFA took a GLP-1 sponsorship for 2030, it wouldn’t be in anyone’s category, but could hurt sales of McDonald’s, DoorDash, Budweiser and Diageo. Maybe Marriott and Airbnb cheer the new Wegovy or Ozempic sponsorship as it means more dollars flow to travel rather than food.
This is all unmanageable—unless you keep everything high level and insist that the beat goes on. With the speed of movement now, compared to the days of Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Budweiser in the 1970s and 1980s,3 everyone just stays pragmatic. Those three sponsors are still around, adding heritage and legacy to today’s Hisense and Lenovo.
The old rules are out—we’re into a much more fluid style of attack for the sponsors displayed at the edge of the field.
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Marginalia
[1] Home Depot is the “Official Home Improvement Retailer” which seems to be FIFA’s way of leaving the light on at night for other big retailers like WalMart and Amazon. Maybe Amazon would prefer the broadcast rights in the US at this point? FIFA wouldn’t mind them bidding on the rights in the next cycle, if only to push up the price that Fox or NBC pay. NFL playoff games on streaming services seemed unthinkable and now we shrug. Amazon could sure sell a lot of product during the halftimes and water breaks.
[2] Not a lawyer, but likely not something you should try.
[3] Nice graphic on historical sponsors of the World Cup