Here’s which stocks could benefit from 5 billion people watching World Cup 2022

By Senad Karaahmetovic

FIFA World Cup 2022 kicked off yesterday in Qatar and it is expected to dominate the world’s attention in the coming weeks.

The U.S. bank Wells Fargo already came out with their prediction, projecting Brazil to win the tournament. Today, their colleagues at Baird picked another team to win the competition – Argentina.

More importantly, Baird analysts weighed in on the impact of billions of people tuning in to watch the World Cup 2022. They reminded U.S. investors that the previous World Cup final attracted over 1.1 billion viewers, more than 5x the 2022 Super Bowl.

“Despite some controversies surrounding the games, we believe the event could increase time spent and usage of mobile apps with game highlights, online betting, and soccer video games. While key matches could temporarily distract consumers from shopping (e.g., USA vs. England on Black Friday), we don’t expect a meaningful impact on overall holiday spending with one exception: sporting goods/sports apparel categories should get a lift in countries winning key matches,” the analysts said in a note.

The analysts expect a “modest boost” to companies operating in the digital advertising and commerce sectors. In addition to e-commerce stocks that could get a sales boost – mainly Amazon (NASDAQ:), Alibaba (NYSE:) (HK:), and eBay (NASDAQ:) – Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:) is also likely to benefit through its FIFA 2022 video game that could see increased usage during the tournament.

High traffic should also provide a boost for Google (NASDAQ:) Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:), the analysts added.