The World Cup offered countless opportunities for human connection, which is exactly what the tournament should be about. Long after the final whistle, and long after Spain lifted the trophy, it’ll be the experiences around the event that leave a lasting impression.

The host countries have fallen for soccer in a big way: U.S. World Cup-related experiences have more than quadrupled versus the 2022 tournament in Qatar, according to Eventbrite data. Full disclosure: My team at Sparks had a front-row seat to this shift. We were the connective tissue pulling together fan experience programming across seven of the 11 U.S. venues this summer. So what did we notice resonating with audiences throughout this year’s tournament?

First up — and perhaps a little unexpectedly — is Lego. It provided fan zones within stadiums in all three host countries, the U.S., Mexico and Canada, where kids and adults got their photos taken, played with figurines of star players and saw models of the trophy. This ties in with the film via W K Amsterdam in which famous footballers build a Lego World Cup trophy that’s finished off by a kid. The cherry on the cake for all these activations is a giant World Cup trophy made out of 1.3 million Lego bricks that is currently standing proud in the Rockefeller Center.

Adidas and Nike have also........

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