Despite World Cup alcohol restrictions, Budweiser is still the king of sponsors on Twitter

As soccer fans around the world come down from the four-games-a-day high that was the group stage of the 2022 World Cup, the jarring pause until Friday’s quarterfinal matches gives us an opportunity to check in on brand-sponsor metrics.

Despite 12 years of discussion, coverage, protests, and more, major brands have still flocked to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Perhaps of all the official World Cup sponsors heading into the tournament, Budweiser had the most to be worried about.

First, there’s the small matter of the competition being hosted in a country where alcohol sales and advertising are severely restricted. Then, a mere 48 hours before the first kickoff, Qatari officials backtracked on the beer sales plan at stadiums and ordered all Budweiser tents and merchants to move to less visible locations.

Yet, according to social analytics and management firm Sprout Social, in the first 10 days of the tournament, Budweiser collected the most Twitter impressions out of all World Cup sponsors.

Overall, on Twitter between November 20 and 30, there were 3.69 million Twitter mentions of the World Cup, with a potential of more than 47 billion impressions. Sentiment toward the tournament within those conversations was 24% positive, 50% neutral, and 26% negative.

According to Sprout, Budweiser led all World Cup sponsors in Twitter impressions with 52.82 million across 4,984 tweets. Rounding out the Top 5 was Qatar Airways with 30.57 million impressions on 900 tweets, Hisense with 30.23 million impressions on 2,047 tweets, and Visa with 27.87 million impressions on 3,493 tweets.

Surprisingly, Sprout’s data put McDonald’s and Coca-Cola near the bottom for Twitter impressions, with 5.49 million and 5.37 million, respectively.

This is only one metric on a single major platform, but it will be worth watching how brands adjust and continue their marketing strategy as the World Cup progresses toward its final on December 18.