Hasbro is working on its first sports activation for FIFA for the Men’s World Cup under the Monopoly and Connect 4 banners as part of the toy company’s long history for special editions of games.
Normally, my focus is on video games. But board game companies are increasingly realizing the marketing benefits of working with sports teams and leagues. Catan publisher Asmodee recently worked with the Timberwolves for social media videos and a gaming night at Target Center. They’re recognizing not only the strength of live sports on TV but social media — and the global reach that can come with that — as well.
Hasbro’s SVP/Board Games Brian Baker certainly knows the power of sports for marketing. During his 17 years at Nike, he worked with FIFA “quite a bit,” including three World Cup cycles. With the 2026 World Cup nigh, Baker and his team worked with FIFA for Monopoly Panini Prizm FIFA World Cup 2026 (with booster boxes), Monopoly Deal FIFA World Cup 26 and Connect 4 Shots FIFA World Cup 2026.
“The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world, and it only happens every four years. And given my experience with that, I knew it was a great opportunity to capitalize on the moment and get people talking about some of our products,” Baker said. “The other thing that’s appealing about it is it’s obviously truly global in nature. We have other relationships — the NBA and the NFL — but those are largely centered on North America, although they do have reach outside of the United States, for sure. But really nothing compares to the significance and the global reach of the World Cup.”
A deal for Monopoly makes sense — it’s one of the oldest board games around, a foundation of the old Parker Bros. brand (which Hasbro acquired in 1991) with global cachet and activations with other big brands such as McDonald’s, even if its card game products may not be as recognizable. But why Connect 4?
“Connect 4 is probably bigger than you think. It’s one of our top five brands when it comes to size and revenue,” Baker said. He said Connect 4 Shots made sense for FIFA, noting that the method for bouncing Ping-Pong-like balls into the frame to make a line of four made it a good fit for a soccer adaptation. “We actually included a launcher, which is almost like a soccer cleat striking the ball and putting it on goal.”
The next step
Hasbro has long marketed its games on TV and movies. Heck, some of its brands have media empires to market their brands (think the cartoons and movies associated with Transformers). Baker’s work at Nike brought in a perspective and expertise when it comes to working with sports brands.
“Sports are obviously an important entertainment kind of outlet for consumers. We’ve done television and movies, in some cases, music, so [sports are] really an obvious next step for us,” Baker said.
He also brought up an aspect that other marketers in gaming dig about working in sports: People in sports like winning and playing games.
“The other piece that’s really inspired us, too, is many of the athletes in the NFL or the NBA, for example, even WNBA, play our games when they’re on the road because they’re just competitive people in general, and playing games is something where there’s a winner and there’s a loser is something that they really enjoy,” Baker said. “It’s a little bit taking inspiration from the athletes themselves and how they’re spending their free time, and then also just naturally moving on from what people would expect from the world of entertainment and movies and television into sports.”
Does this mean more board game companies are going to tap into sports more often?
“We are for sure,” Baker said.