2026 WORLD CUP RECAP

The Road To The
2026 World Cup

16 host cities across the US, Canada, and Mexico. 104 matches.
One platform running the fan experience from the first whistle to the final.

Watch the recap View the full video playlist

HOST CITIES

104

MATCHES

COUNTRIES

PRODUCTS

It started with a conversation.

What began as an introduction to CUE's fan engagement technology evolved into years of relationship-building, demonstrations, and creative discussions. A successful deployment at the 2025 Club World Cup helped lay the groundwork for something much bigger.

THE START

Turning a Vision into A Plan.

With the World Cup on the horizon, conversations shifted from possibilities to execution. CUE worked with stakeholders to define the experiences, understand the operational needs, and map out how the technology would support fan engagement across multiple host cities and venues.

LATE 2025

As we were putting this whole thing together, you're speaking to FIFA about their goals [...] then we're showing them the CUE product suite [...] And one of the most gratifying moments was hearing it from them [...] we've done our research. You are the only person that can do this. CUE is the only vendor on the planet that could have done this event.”

CHRIS SACCOCCIA

VP, Global Partnerships

Building, Testing, Refining. Repeat.

Behind the scenes, CUE's product and development teams were hard at work refining the CUE Platform. Months of development, testing and troubleshooting went into preparing the technology for the demands of a global tournament.

JAN-APRIL ’26

Most people only see the final fan experience, and what they're not seeing is the months of planning, testing, training, coordination between not only our internal teams but teams across the world, with the venues and with FIFA. Every activation involved countless hours of preparation across those teams, and everything has to work seamlessly in order for the fans to experience that final product when they arrive at the venue.”

Jensen Blassage

Director of Client Success

From Development to Deployment.

As the tournament approached, the focus shifted to finalizing the product to preparing content, and getting operators ready. CUE worked through training, platform configurations, and final preparations to help teams across the host venues confidently bring the experiences to life.

APRIL–MAY ’26

The World Showed Up. We Were Ready.

As the tournament unfolded, CUE's team continued working behind the scenes, supporting operators, updating content, and adapting experiences to reflect the latest matchups and tournament progression. The work didn't stop at kickoff, it continued through the final whistle.

JUNE-JULY ’26

We proved that we can do the biggest and the best and the most events in such a short amount of time without slowing down everything else, without losing the momentum elsewhere."

Ira Akers

Co-founder and CRO,

One Tournament. Millions of Moments.

Across 16 host cities, 104 matches, and three countries, CUE helped turn spectators into active participants in the world's biggest soccer tournament. The result was a connected fan engagement experience built through years of preparation and brought to life on a global stage.

FINAL RESULT

World Cup fan experiences on mobile phones

The tradition and the passion that exists in European football and the things that make football quite unique as a sport, they should always be celebrated and we shouldn't move away from those. But it's too black and white to say that football is a certain way, so fan experiences, live event fan engagement is then not relevant for this environment. Actually, the total opposite is true. You know, this is exceptionally relevant. It's adding lots of value across the board, both with commercial partners, with their fans."

Jack Colton

International Business Lead