BTS, Haaland, Messi: China’s World Cup 2026

What happened Spain’s extra-time victory over Argentina in Sunday’s final closed a World Cup that China experienced entirely through its screens. The national team never reached the pitch, but the market was among the tournament’s most engaged digital audiences, and Chinese social platforms turned the month-long competition into a cultural event that extended well beyond soccer. Xiaohongshu turns the World Cup into a social event Much of the conversation unfolded on Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote), which streamed all 104 matches free as the tournament’s only licensed broadcaster on China’s open internet outside CCTV’s own platforms and China Mobile’s Migu. The platform's official tournament hashtag “Let’s Talk World Cup Football” (世界杯聊个球) had surpassed 17.5 billion views at the time of writing, a measure of the tournament’s crossover appeal among sports fans, lifestyle creators and luxury consumers. Posts covered tactical analysis, fashion roundups, stadium diaries and celebrity sightings, evidence of a World Cup consumed as entertainment as much as sport. IShowSpeed drives creator-led World Cup engagement in China Streamer IShowSpeed was among the tournament’s biggest traffic drivers. His Xiaohongshu hashtag amassed 151.6 million views, and his presence ran deeper than the stands: he attended matches including Argentina’s round-of-16 win over Switzerland, and performed his own World Cup song, “World Cup (Champions),” at the closing ceremony held before the final. Chinese media reported that Fifa added the track to its official tournament album after it outperformed the official theme song on streaming platforms. Soccer’s biggest names still dominated feeds. A 2007 photograph of Lionel Messi holding Lamine Yamal as a baby — taken for a UNICEF charity calendar shoot and first circulated widely in 2024 — spread rapidly across Chinese platforms in the days around the final, in which Yamal’s Spain beat Messi’s Argentina. Users read the image as a passing of the torch between generations, and it generated waves of reposts, memes and nostalgic commentary. At the final itself, the tournament staged the first halftime show in World Cup history, a Super Bowl-style production curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin that featured BTS alongside Shakira, Madonna, Justin Bieber and Burna Boy. BTS’ set drove another surge of discussion on Chinese platforms, where entertainment framings of the tournament — K-pop readings of matches among them — had circulated since the group stage. For Chinese audiences, the 2026 World Cup played out as a social event as much as a sporting one, with soccer, pop culture and creator content converging in real time. The Jing Take For brands, the tournament confirmed that soccer in China now functions as a gateway into year-round digital culture. Conversation moved across livestreams, memes, celebrity fandoms and creator content, and the brands that broke through did so by creating shareable moments rather than buying visibility. The standout example was Norwegian striker Erling Haaland, whose deal with Walovi, the international brand of Chinese herbal tea maker Wanglaoji, demonstrated how Chinese companies are rethinking global sports marketing. Announced on Haaland’s Instagram three days before kickoff, the campaign paired one of football's most recognizable players with deliberately absurd, locally resonant creative — Mandarin-language slogans and a jingle built around his name — designed to travel across Chinese and international social media alike. The collaboration made an unfamiliar consumer brand more culturally accessible while capitalizing on Haaland’s run to the quarterfinals with Norway, the country’s first World Cup appearance in 28 years. Nor is the opportunity confined to beverages and sportswear. As fans consume tournaments through Xiaohongshu, Douyin and creator channels, brands across retail, technology and FMCG can treat soccer as a cultural entry point rather than a media buy. A fragmented digital audience rewards global IP paired with locally relevant storytelling — an approach Chinese companies are using to support overseas expansion while deepening engagement at home. The Jing Take reports on a piece of the leading news and presents our editorial team’s analysis of the key implications for the luxury industry. In the recurring column, we analyze everything from product drops and mergers to heated debate sprouting on Chinese social media.

BTS, Haaland, Messi: China’s World Cup 2026

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag

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BTS, Haaland, Messi: China’s World Cup 2026

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag