The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the biggest version of the tournament yet, with 48 teams, 104 matches and a final in New York/New Jersey on July 19. For brands, that means a longer runway, a bigger global audience and a wider cultural canvas than ever before. For Paddy Power, it also presents an opportunity to do what it has long done best: place itself at the centre of the football conversation without needing to be an official sponsor.
The bookmaker has launched its major World Cup campaign, ‘Nobody Does Football Better Than Us’, created by BBH London, with a 60-second hero ad that builds on the cultural tension between English football fandom and America’s bigger, glossier version of sport. The campaign stars Danny Dyer as the voice of English football culture, Hollywood actor Rob Lowe as the embodiment of the American sports spectacle, and also features Peter Crouch and Mick McCarthy.
At the heart of the creative idea is the fact that the World Cup is being hosted across North America, with the United States staging the majority of the matches. Paddy Power embraces the idea of football’s soul being contested not just on the pitch, but in the stands, on the screens and in the wider rituals that surround the game. The campaign contrasts fireworks, cheerleaders and kiss cams with flying pints, chants, bare-chested fans and the rougher edges of traditional football culture.
For an Irish audience, the campaign lands with an extra wink. Ireland may not be at the centre of this particular creative execution, but Mick McCarthy provides a familiar point of connection. Few figures are more associated with World Cup emotion in Ireland, from Italia ’90 and USA ’94 to the managerial dramas of Saipan in 2002.
Paddy Power’s own heritage is also central to the story. Born in Ireland and built into one of the most recognisable challenger voices in global betting, the brand has long used humour, provocation and speed of response to punch above its weight in crowded sports marketing moments. The World Cup is precisely the sort of stage on which that tone works best, because the tournament is not only a sporting event but also a rolling festival of opinion, identity, rivalry and collective absurdity.
The campaign launched across the UK and Ireland during the Champions League Final on May 30 and is set to run across TV, digital, social and out-of-home through to the World Cup final. A special out-of-home build is also scheduled for Hackney, London, from June 11, underscoring the activation’s integrated nature.
Leah Spears, Marketing Director at Paddy Power, said the World Cup was “a huge cultural moment” and that the brand wanted to create something “provocative, entertaining and rooted in football culture.”
This is not simply a funny ad. It is a brand-building play wrapped in a football joke. The creative platform gives Paddy Power a position in the World Cup conversation before the first whistle, while its betting offers and tournament markets provide the conversion layer once the action begins. Among the promotions already being pushed throughout the tournament is a Golden Boot offer that gives customers a free Bet Builder for every shot on target by their selected player, showing how the campaign can move from fame to participation.
There are, of course, familiar tensions in any betting activation around a major sporting event. The scale of the World Cup makes it one of the biggest acquisition and engagement opportunities in the gambling calendar, but it also brings scrutiny. Paddy Power’s challenge is to keep the humour sharp without losing sight of the responsibility that comes with such a powerful platform.
From a Sport for Business perspective, the activation is a strong example of a brand using the World Cup not simply as media inventory but as cultural territory. It does not officially try to own the tournament. Instead, it aims to own a conversation within it: who understands football, who performs it, who packages it, and who gets to define its soul.
For Irish sport and sponsorship professionals, there is a broader lesson to be drawn from that. The most effective World Cup campaigns are not always those with the deepest rights packages. They are the ones that find a clear tension, a recognisable truth and a tone of voice that people want to share.
Paddy Power has built much of its modern brand equity around that formula. With ‘Nobody Does Football Better Than Us’, it has again found a way to turn the world’s biggest sporting event into a stage for mischief, memory, and marketing impact.
Paddy Power is a full member of Sport for Business.
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