Zee Entertainment has onboarded over 12 major brands as advertisers for the FIFA World Cup 2025 including Apple, Mahindra and Diageo.

After bagging an eight-year contract with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association or FIFA at a reported valuation of under $60 million, Zee announced onboarding of brands across key categories including Auto, FMCG, BFSI, Beverages, Technology, Lifestyle and many others.

Leading the sponsorship roster are: Mahindra as the Co-Presenting Sponsor, Diageo as the Co-Powered By Sponsor. Other marquee brands like Apple, Pernod Ricard and Mondelez that have associated with the event across platforms. More names will be announced going forward, said the company.

“We are delighted to garner an extremely encouraging response from brands across categories, which further reflects the immense potential of football and the FIFA World Cup 2026, as a key sport in India. Our integrated model is aimed at delivering stronger brand recall and measurable outcomes that combine scale with storytelling. We remain confident that FIFA World Cup 2026 on ‘Z’ will set a new benchmark for sports monetisation across the country,” said Sandeep Mehrotra, Chief Operating Officer – Advertisement Revenue, Zee.

Main Sponsors

Two of the brands announced are alcohol brands who have been heavily associated with football fans, especially while watching matches, said Ajimon Francis, Managing Director of Brand Finance India. As many lounges and pubs in India will air the matches live late into the night, Francis described the onboarding as a “perfect fit” with Inbev (Budweiser) as a main sponsor with FIFA.

“Mahindra, Diageo, Apple, Pernod Ricard, Mondelez etc are global brands and they will benefit not only in India but also through spillover to other countries (through digital mediums/vlogs/influencers etc). So, these brands get to advertise their own brands locally through Zee,” said Francis.

Youth Brands

Zee had reportedly received interest from “youth brands” like tech, smartphones, auto, fintech, e-commerce and gaming categories. With cricket driving 2025 sports ad revenue for TV to nearly 19 per cent as on CY25, analysts like those from Elara Securities said the overall advertising monetisation from FIFA is likely to remain relatively challenging.

“We do not expect advertising revenues alone to justify the economics of the acquisition, thereby increasing the importance of subscription-led monetisation,” said the research note.

However, for brands, the real opportunity will be in the wider digital conversations and engagement that FIFA creates,” said Umair Mohammad, Founder & CEO at Nitro Commerce.

Published on June 10, 2026