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McDonald's is exiting the playing field.

The fast-food giant's surprise decision to end its 32-year run as a FIFA World Cup sponsor shows how major global brands are reassessing the cost, clutter, and commercial return of sports' biggest properties.

McDonald's ran its largest-ever World Cup marketing push during this summer's tournament, and McDonald's CFO Ian Borden said on an August earnings call that the effort "underperformed versus our expectations."

The company said last week that it had decided not to renew its current deal, which is due to end this year. It also indicated to FIFA that it isn't looking to invest in next year's Women's World Cup, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Sports sponsorship is seen as a way for brands to tap into huge, live global audiences and associate themselves with the feel-good factor of athletes' achievements. Management consultancy Kearney estimated the global market for sports sponsorship and in-venue advertising at $52 billion in 2025 and expects it to grow by 8% to 9% annually through 2030, reaching about $80 billion.

While many marketers continue to spend heavily on sports, they often find it hard to measure the commercial uplift from their sponsorship outlays. Research from Forrester, published in 2025, found that 76% of US business-to-consumer marketing executives who invested in sponsorships the prior year reported struggling to calculate the return on investment, or ROI, of their sports sponsorships.

"They are gaining a lot of traction around brand awareness, but can't necessarily calculate the hard and fast ROI numbers to prove to their CFOs that the money and long-term commitment for these kinds of sponsorships are necessary," Mike Proulx, a Forrester VP, told me.

For McDonald's, the figures evidently didn't justify a renewal. The deal was valued at $40 million annually, per the research firm GlobalData Sport.

For a globally recognized brand such as McDonald's, the scope for the World Cup to deliver another spike in brand awareness and associated sales may have reached its ceiling. Heineken appeared to make a similar recalculation last year when it said it would end its 30-year UEFA Champions League partnership in 2027. The brewer said it was shifting its sponsorship focus to platforms "where spend is proportionate to value creation," while retaining Formula 1 and adding Premier Padel.

McDonald's CMO Morgan Flatley said in a statement last week that sports remains important to its marketing strategy. At the company's September investor day, Flatley said she was focusing her campaigns "on McDonald's collection of iconic IP, not someone else's." The company continues to sponsor dozens of sports properties, including France's Ligue 1 top-flight soccer league and the All-American Games.

The 2026 World Cup reached nearly 6 billion people worldwide across different platforms, according to FIFA, which helps explain why brands continue to spend heavily to be associated with it. While FIFA has not disclosed a final sponsorship total for the 2026 World Cup, its latest budget forecasts $2.8 billion in marketing-rights revenue across all commercial partnerships in the 2023 to 2026 cycle. That would be about 59% more than it generated across the 2019 to 2022 Qatar cycle. For the 2026 tournament, FIFA also introduced a program that allowed host cities to sell local supporter packages, making the sponsorship market increasingly crowded compared to previous years.

Rory Natkiel, founder of sponsorship effectiveness consultancy Box Count, said the additional host-city partners risked shrinking McDonald's "share of property" — the portion of the event's commercial attention it could realistically command.

That dynamic could make smaller or newer sports properties more attractive to mature global brands. While they might not offer the global scale of long-standing events like the World Cup, they can provide greater flexibility to tailor marketing to specific audiences and channels than the tightly controlled multiyear packages from major rights holders allow. For a company like McDonald's, that could open up an opportunity to offer consumers an experience they remember rather than a sponsorship they simply expect.

"If they start going into new sports and trying to attract a different audience to the global football audience — padel for a slightly more premium audience, or whatever it might be — it does create a new compelling angle and a new avenue for creativity," said Rory Stewart-Richardson, a longtime sports sponsorship executive.

Stewart-Richardson said he wouldn't be surprised if other legacy brands start recalibrating their sponsorship deals, focusing more on local markets and digital activations, with an emphasis on "building from the consumer out rather than trying to buy into temporary cultural relevance."

• McDonald's brought back the McRib for a national farewell tour in the fall of 2022. 
• The McRib has had at least three other farewell tours and has been on and off menus since 1981.
• It's returned to menus every year since 2023 and is back in select cities on October 27.

When bidding fans a final goodbye, the McRib appears to be taking cues from rock bands like The Who and KISS. The bands are known for farewell tours that didn't stick. The iconic McDonald's sandwich is also pulling a fast one with fans. 

In 2022, McDonald's said the barbecue-slathered boneless pork hoagie would say goodbye to fans in an event billed as the McRib's farewell tour. But the McRib returned to select McDonald's locations in November 2023, and has made similar returns every year since. In fact, the chain announced it will release the McRib again in October in select cities.

For 45 years, the McRib sandwich has been popping up randomly on the McDonald's menu. 

Here's a look at the history of the sandwich. 

Mary Meisenzahl and Nancy Luna contributed to an earlier version of this story.

The origin story of the McRib is tied to the success of another iconic McDonald's menu item: McNuggets.

After McNuggets were introduced in 1979, franchisees couldn't get enough of them and demanded another hot product to sell.

A nationwide chicken shortage left some franchises without McNuggets, so McDonald's chef René Arend created a fast, affordable alternative.

Arend was inspired to create the McRib after a trip to South Carolina, where he ate local barbecue.

The design for the McRib used new technology to create a "restructured meat product" developed by Richard Mandigo at the University of Nebraska, NPR reported.

Arend designed the McRib's shape to "look like a slab of ribs," and while the product is made with pork, it doesn't include any actual rib bones.

The McRib officially debuted in test markets in 1981.

Made with boneless pork, barbecue sauce, onions, and pickles, the menu item sparked early interest from customers nationwide.

However, while customers showed up to try the McRib for the first time, not many returned for repeat visits, and it disappeared from menus in 1985.

"The Simpsons" gave the McRib a permanent place in pop culture with a 2003 episode parodying the sandwich, titled "Ribwich."

That same year, McDonald's introduced a mini version of the sandwich, the McRib Jr.

McDonald's took the McRib on three farewell tours in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

The McRib found success as a limited-time offer. In 2007, McDonald's sold 30 million sandwiches, Maxim reported.

In 2008, devoted McRib fan Aaron Klein started the McRib Location website that used crowdsourced tips to help people find the sandwich at select locations nationwide.

In 2020, the McRib returned to menus nationwide for the first time in eight years.

"The McRib has been a beloved menu item at McDonald's since its inception nearly 40 years ago," Linda VanGosen, McDonald's vice president of menu innovation, said in a statement at the time.

"There's nothing quite like the taste of the McRib. To our customers, it's become more than a delicious, saucy moment … it's a season, and it's taking the internet by storm. That's why this year we're proud to serve the McRib nationwide for everyone to enjoy."

The launch proved successful and boosted sales that were declining amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Restaurant Business reported.

We tried the McRib for ourselves and didn't quite get the hype.

During the pandemic, chains including Burger King and KFC turned to nostalgia, offering customers familiar comforts during an uncertain time.

However, despite the hype, we were a bit underwhelmed.

The rectangular pork patty reminded us of the sausage McDonald's uses on its breakfast sandwiches, while the pickles and onions tasted crisp and fresh.

We enjoyed the toppings, but the sandwich was missing the barbecue flavor we expected — likely because it arrived with barely any sauce, unlike the much saucier McRibs seen online. This could've been a restaurant-specific error at the time, but we haven't been back to reorder it since.

In 2022, McDonald's announced that the McRib was heading out on yet another "Farewell Tour," suggesting the cult-favorite sandwich might be gone for good.

But yet again, the sendoff didn't stick.

The McRib returned to menus in 2023, 2024, and 2025, continuing the long-running cycle of limited-time disappearances and comebacks.

However, unlike previous years, the McRib was only available in select cities in 2025.

Despite its many supposed farewell tours, McDonald's is relaunching the McRib once more in 2026.

After years of dramatic goodbyes and limited-time returns, McDonald's brought the polarizing pork sandwich back once again in 2026.

Starting on October 27 at select locations in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Dallas, fans can purchase a McRib for a limited time, the company told USA Today. Customers in other cities are encouraged to check their McDonald's app for availability.

Its latest comeback proves the McRib's strange staying power.

Every time it disappears, fans wonder whether this will finally be the last time — and head to their nearest location to try it for (possibly) the final time.