TikTok, FIFA strike creator-driven content partnership for Women’s World Cup

Dive Brief:

• TikTok and FIFA have partnered to share tailored content timed to the Women’s World Cup, which begins today, according to a TikTok announcement.
• To help generate content, TikTok and FIFA plan to collaborate with a slew of creators around the globe. Content to be expected includes behind-the-scenes moments, team arrivals, pre-match videos, match highlights and player and coach reactions. 
• TikTok will also host a FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 Hub, which will aggregate content from the league, official broadcasters, teams and players. The partnership is the first time FIFA has worked with an entertainment platform to produce content for the Women’s World Cup, and the first official collaboration between FIFA and TikTok.

Dive Insight:

The evidence continues to pour in that women’s soccer – and women’s sports in general – is hitting the big time. The Women’s World Cup, and the sport more broadly, has drawn sponsorships from blue-chip brands such as Budweiser, Frito-Lay, McDonald’s, Hyundai-Kia, Unilever and Visa. Now, with TikTok on board, FIFA will have an opportunity to connect with the platform’s Gen Z user-base and potentially build long-lasting affinity.

Central to the tie-up between the two giants is the plan to bring creators from 16 countries — including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.S. — to host nations Australia and New Zealand to attend various matches and cheer on their teams while sharing public and behind-the-scenes content on TikTok. Those wishing to follow along can utilize the hashtag #FIFAWWC. Additionally, the designated content hub on TikTok will allow users to access the match schedule and scores on FIFA’s website, in addition to aggregated content.

While this is the first such partnership for FIFA, this is not the first for TikTok. The platform has already worked with leagues and clubs such as the UEFA Women’s EUROs, Burnley FC Women’s and the Women’s Super League in Bangladesh. 

TikTok in recent years has seen a significant increase in women’s sports content per announcement details, with hashtags like #womeninsports and #sportgirl receiving 2.1 billion views and 966 million views, respectively. Additionally, posts with the hashtag #WomensFootball have garnered more than 3.7 billion video views to-date. The hashtags #FIFAWorldCup, #FIFAWomensWorldCup and #FIFAWWC has received more than 38 billion combined views on the platform.

This growing interest in women’s sports presents a significant opportunity for brands as the Women’s World Cup kicks off. More than 1.1 billion people watched the last tournament in 2019, and the sport’s popularity has only grown as participation at every level continues to strengthen.

The 2023 Women’s World Cup also offers brands an opportunity to reset their relationship with FIFA and soccer after the controversies of the men’s World Cup tournament last year. Taking place in Qatar, the tournament was dogged by human-rights concerns, ranging from the migrant populations who built the stadium for the tournament to the safety of LGBTQ+ fans and players who attended the games. The event proved tumultuous on many levels for advertisers, with Anheuser-Busch InBev, a major sponsor of the event, being forced to quickly pivot after Qatar banned beer sales at World Cup stadiums in a last-minute decision.