Podcast engagement drives brand audio spending ahead of World Cup

“Digital audio has been growing for us in terms of client interest over the past few years and we expect investment in the channel to reach unprecedented levels over the World Cup period,” said Jamie Ross-Skinner, strategy and insights director at performance media agency Roast. He didn’t share an exact investment estimate.

Per WARC, advertisers are expected to spend north of $10.5 billion during the World Cup’s four weeks, reversing a 4.6% decline in media spending at the previous tournament hosted by Qatar in 2022. While the tournament won’t reverse long-term spending patterns around audio — total spending is rising, but the channel’s share of global advertising cash is thinning to around 3.95%, per WPP Media — it’ll likely provide a lift.

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“We know that the World Cup is going to be a huge driver of content consumption across our ecosystem,” said Per Sandell, co-lead, global head of advertising at Spotify.

British sports radio station TalkSPORT has sold out of ad slots set to run against its coverage of the World Cup, according to David Wilcox, commercial director of news broadcasting at parent company News UK. “Sport brings out emotion in people, and advertisers like to be alongside that,” he said.

TalkSPORT increased its audience to 3.5 million listeners in the first quarter of the year, according to radio industry measurement body RAJAR. Wilcox declined to share World Cup-specific revenue estimates, but said major tournaments typically provided a commercial “upturn” for the network. 

European adtech firm Sportradar, meanwhile, is set to work with 300 advertisers running campaigns on radio, streaming audio and podcasts across the World Cup, said Ralf Ollig, vp of marketing services. Clients include FMCG brands such as Coca-Cola, as well as fintech firms and several small or mid-sized advertisers. “You don’t need to have a $50 million budget or to be a World Cup sponsor,” said Ollig.

Sportradar, which primarily works with the gambling sector, works with SSPs Triton, Adswizz and Magnite, allowing advertisers to use it to target programmatic spending on Spotify, SiriusXM and iHeart radio.

The company struck a deal in February with specialist SSP Aeriel that allows brands in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to target radio, streaming audio and podcast inventory using Sportradar’s contextual data via the company’s DSP. In theory, it means brands can run ads against coverage of high-drama points in a match broadcast (or post-game podcast) such as goals or penalty kicks.

“We see a shift from pure media buying to what we’re positioning as ‘moment’ buying,” said Ollig.

Audio is a key element for brands looking to capitalize on pivotal matches during the tournament, alongside contextual display targeting and high-impact CTV buys such as home-screen takeovers. 

“This is mostly from brands who have an evergreen audio presence and are leveraging this as a higher-profile reach opportunity” said one exec at a large media agency, who exchanged anonymity for candor.

While streaming prices might be enough to make some advertisers reconsider their World Cup ambitions, the buyer said few had embraced audio as an outright substitute. “The two channels work very effectively together,” they added.

In particular, some advertisers are set to focus on podcast inventory immediately before and after key games as part of a surround-sound approach.

Unsurprisingly, engagement with sports podcasts tends to jump before and after big sporting events; Spotify figures published earlier this year showed Super Bowl-related podcasts experience a 172% hike over their average listenership before 2025’s Big Game, and 358% after the game.

Audio ads drive unaided ad recall, favorability and search intent across formats, according to a survey of 3,500 U.S. adults published by Omnicom Media Intelligence and iHeartMedia this week. But high engagement rates and the ability to target based on interest (in this case, soccer fandom) make podcasting an attractive channel for World Cup media plans. 

“Podcasts have huge levels of engagement with their listeners,” said Harry Packshaw, head of AV at Havas Media Network. Brands spending with The Rest Is Football or The Athletic, he noted, are “leveraging the trust that a listener has with a podcast” for their own ends.

In certain markets the preference for podcasts is also a consequence of late broadcasting hours. In the U.K., or example, evening kick-off times on the U.S. east coast for England and Scotland mean that games won’t begin until 2 a.m., a factor that might dampen radio listening figures for the group stages.

According to Ross-Skinner, that could divert more ad spend towards podcasting. “The extended format [of the 2026 tournament] combined with later kick-offs will combine to mean more consumers listen to podcast wrap-ups rather than staying up to watch the games,” he said.

As the field of teams narrows and games are brought forward in the day, that issue should be less pronounced, noted Talksport’s Wilcox. “The earlier ones will be perfect… especially at the height of summer barbecue [season],” he said.

As with the TV scatter market, how far certain teams progress is a major variable for audio spending. Should the U.S.A., or in Wilcox’s case England, make a deep Cup run, listenership — and opportunistic brand demand — is expected to rise.

“If England, or any home nation, go further we will see an uptick,” said Wilcox.