Nike is going Hollywood for its 2026 World Cup brand campaign, releasing a star-studded short film featuring some of the biggest names from music and entertainment, teaming up with many of the greatest soccer players in the world, wreaking havoc on a studio backlot.
It’s a film that Helena Thornton, VP, of Nike brand management, calls a “blockbuster,” and not just because of the effort that went into it, but because of the talent, which includes LeBron James, Travis Scott, Kim Kardashian, Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso, Kate Scott, Channing Tatum, Young Miko and LISA, as well as soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland and Vini Jr., and legends Eric Cantona, Ronaldinho, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Didier Drogba and Jorge Campos.
“We wanted to kind of play into the idea of Hollywood and blockbuster movies and all of the pieces, whilst also acknowledging that people today have far greater access to athletes and to singers and entertainers than maybe they’ve ever had before, and they also now expect to see a much more real and rawness to them, because they become accustomed to it,” says Thornton.
You can watch the spot, “Rip The Script,” below.
But the film is only the beginning of the story, with Nike recognizing that the conversations continue in places like TikTok, Instagram, X, Reddit and other platforms. That’s why Thornton says that there are another 185 or so shorts that will tell adjacent stories featuring the roster of talent, and the film itself is filled with easter eggs meant to spark new conversations.
“There’s actually an unreleased track in there from a huge artist, and that’s a way to get people to enter content and have a different conversation,” she says. “You don’t have to sit there and watch a 30 second advert from that particular artist saying a thing. We’ve actually given you something that you can truly go and discover and go and explore for yourself, and I think that really is going to be the future of storytelling.”
Or other vignettes featuring, for example, Erling Haaland and Channing Tatum (in full Haaland kit and ponytail) engaging in playful banter, part of the “rawness” that Nike is looking for.
“I think we’re probably one of the only brands that allows you to see both sides of a person, to see Erling Harland kind of just like having fun and bantering with Channing Tatum is really something that most people wouldn’t get to see, but then you pair that with him in the most epic commercial set in the world, being the glory goalscorer that he’s just known for bring in the Premier League,” Thornton says.
Nike’s World Cup presence stretches back decades, of course, but having the tournament in North America, on its home turf, is what helped the company decide to go all-in on its concept, which was directed by Dan Streit and produced by Wieden+Kennedy.
“It’s hard to get bigger and bigger when you have a legacy so strong in advertising the way that Nike football does, and I think in this moment we realize that you have to actually just have a different approach,” Thornton says. “The world, the context, even from just four years ago, is so different to today in terms of what the game means across the globe.”
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