How Nike Built the Biggest World Cup Campaign Ever

**Sheena Butler-Young** (0:10)
Hello, and welcome to The Debrief from The Business of Fashion, where each week we delve into our most popular BoF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young.
Now, unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that we're in the midst of the biggest World Cup ever. Fans are going all in, brands are placing big bets, and perhaps no company has gone bigger than Nike. Today, in a very special episode of The Debrief, I'm joined by Helena Thornton, Nike's VP of Global Brand Management, and my colleague Mike Sykes, BoF Sports and Fashion Correspondent. Enjoy the episode. Helena, welcome to The Debrief.

**Helena Thornton** (0:53)
Thank you.

**Sheena Butler-Young** (0:54)
Welcome back.

**Mike Sykes** (0:55)
Thank you.

**Sheena Butler-Young** (0:56)
We're talking about the biggest World Cup ever.

**Helena Thornton** (1:00)
It's been crazy, isn't it?

**Sheena Butler-Young** (1:01)
It is crazy. I want to set the scene a little bit. We're talking about a tournament being co-hosted across three countries, the US., Canada, Mexico. We're talking about 48 teams up from 32, and they're playing more than 100 games across 39 days.
I want to start with the most important question, which is have you been watching? What is your favorite match so far?

**Helena Thornton** (1:23)
Oh my goodness. Of course, I've been watching.
I'm a very big England fan, but honestly, more importantly, I know, I know. Sorry, spoiler. But most importantly, I love the game. I will watch every single game, and what's so good in the office is we have our whole team together in a space, this little hub for the tournament. There's tens of us watching every single game, debating as a team. Everyone's got a point of view. We're a team of, but there's almost a supporter of every single one of the countries across the tournament. So we're deep in it.
I think my favorite game though, it's got to be the England-Croatia game. England just looked so good. I was sat with my colleagues on the sofa, we're all wearing our England shirts, and we just all looked at each other and we're like, it's legit actually coming home. Oh my gosh. We drew at Ghana this week, the following days. But in that moment, we were like, we think we're going to have a very special English football summer.

**Sheena Butler-Young** (2:14)
So Mike and I are having FOMO because this is not the case. We're not at BOF with a TV screen with the games on. But Mike, you've been watching. What's been your favorite match?

**Mike Sykes** (2:23)
It has to be the US versus Paraguay.
I just don't think that I've seen the US team be that dominant. And it actually gave me a little bit of hope. Because I'm one of those fans that are like, if they make it to the round of 16, then I will root for this team. I will believe I will go fully in. But they almost got me. They almost got me right there. So I don't know.

**Sheena Butler-Young** (2:45)
So for the uninitiated that's not tuning into sports as much as you and Mike might be, we say this is an epic World Cup for all the reasons I listed. But if someone's not watching or they haven't watched in the past, what immediately separates 2026 World Cup to you from 2018, 2022? How do you know this is a different one?

**Helena Thornton** (3:04)
Look, I think this moment you referenced even just like having so many countries in the tournament naturally just gives it a totally different feel. But I also I give FIFA, the US, Mexico and Canada like huge credit. You walk down every street and I've been in the US for the last couple weeks and I've been in Seattle for a game. In Boston, now I'm in New York and everybody just wants to stop and talk to you about the World Cup. There is like real World Cup fever. So I think the hosts have done an unbelievable job of kind of putting on the tournament. But I think also the world really needed this. If you just think about the world that we live in and it's just also divided and there's all of this stuff that we all know that's going on. And yet football has just shown the true, true power of the game, I think over the last few weeks. And I think the scenes, it doesn't matter what game you're looking at, but the fans all together. And I think, you know, I was just saying, I just came from Boston where I watched the England game. But like the city of Boston has just adopted Scotland all of a sudden. And all of a sudden everyone's just like wearing kilts. And it doesn't matter. They're like, are you Scottish? I'm like, oh, I'm English. They're, oh, sorry, we're Scotland fans here. Like, OK, OK.