Fans Not Impressed With Toronto’s 2026 FIFA World Cup Marketing Campaign

Summary

• Toronto released its 2026 FIFA World Cup marketing campaign 
• Fans were not impressed as they found it bland and mediocre 
• Canada automatically qualifies for the World Cup since they are co-hosts

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico and will take place from 11 June to 19 July in what is expected to be the biggest FIFA World Cup in history. 

Toronto and Vancouver will host multiple games with Canada set to play at the BMO Field. The City of Toronto released its marketing campaign for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and a lot of Canadian fans were not very impressed.

#WeAre26 Campaign Draws Mixed Reactions 

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is going to be one of the biggest sporting events in Toronto during this decade and fans across Canada are expecting a massive show. The City of Toronto who have seen their budget for the event increase has released their initial marketing video which uses the ‘We are Toronto’ slogan and focuses on how sport will help bring the city closer together.

The video ends with the official logo of Toronto showing on the screen along with the number 26 in bold with the colours of blue, green and lime as well as the official hashtag #WeAre26. When the Raptors won the NBA Championship in 2019, a similar ‘We are Toronto’ slogan was used. 

Fans took to social media to say that were not very impressed with the marketing campaign so far as the logo did not look impressive, the colours had nothing to do with the city of Toronto and the overall creativity of the marketing campaign was mediocre at best.

First it was the awful logo for the World Cup, and now these colours together for Toronto? Just doesn’t make sense how with all these creative people pooling their brains together, this is what they came up with and agreed to 🤦🏻‍♂️

— ✧ 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗬 𝗥𝗘𝗜𝗗 🧣✧ (@gray9s) May 18, 2023

World Cup Will Bring Toronto Closer

Canada has only qualified for two World Cup’s so far, with their last appearance at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Canada will automatically qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup as they are a host country.

The City of Toronto also released a statement which read

With more countries, cities, teams and matches, the FIFA World Cup 2026 is expected to be the most inclusive and diverse sporting event ever, uniting the entire world on a vast stage and engaging millions of fans across 16 stadiums and billions worldwide

The press release went on to say

The games and their legacy are expected to generate significant economic, cultural and community benefits for Toronto by creating thousands of jobs, welcoming visitors from across the globe and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in local gross domestic product.