Protected Presentation
EA SPORTS FC × WYNDHAM × VERTICAL IMPRESSION
Coordinate the takeover →
Summer 2026 · The Unofficial Football Takeover of North America

Play Off The Pitch.

The largest football moment in North American history is 5 weeks away. 13 host cities. 3 countries. The official badge belongs to FIFA. The crowd doesn't. Show up where the rights holders can't reach — elevators, lobbies, and streets — and coordinate the takeover with EA's rise. On your terms, not theirs.

The thesis
From one screen · Edmonton, Alberta
We started with one screen and one dream. Today: North America's largest elevator ad network. We didn't follow the medium — we built it.
01 The thesis

FIFA owns the badge. EA owns football. The fans don't care.

The official sponsorship is FIFA's to sell — and EA's to skip. Football fans don't follow the rights holders. They follow the moment. For 5 summer weeks, that moment lives in the in-between: hotel elevators, lobbies, and streets across 13 host cities, where no badge is required and no logo is policed. EA Sports FC has the audience. VI + Wyndham has the surface area. One brand can own the off-pitch entirely.

"For one month every four years, the World Cup dominates conversations in homes, offices, and everywhere in between."
— The five weeks that define a global fanbase
5
Weeks of total fandom · Jun 11 – Jul 19, 2026
13
North American host cities · 11 US + Toronto + Vancouver
1
Inaugural launch partner · The seat is open
02 Where fandom actually lives

The fan doesn't stop when the whistle blows.

Stadiums hold 80,000. The hotel hallway, the lobby, the elevator on the way to the game — that's where the other 3 million live for five weeks. It's the one screen the World Cup fan can't scroll away from.

Daily exposures
Every guest rides the elevator at least four times a day. Each ride is a guaranteed pause, eyes-on, no alternative.
0%
Scroll-away rate
No phone. No feed. No skip. The elevator is the one captive surface left in modern advertising.
100%
Decision-pause
The 30 seconds between lobby and floor is when fans decide: where to eat, where to drink, what to play tonight.
Higher recall vs. mobile
Captive-context creative outperforms scroll-feed by ~5×. The elevator is where attention is currency.
Attention drives impact. Elevators deliver it.
03 The launch
First to market · 2026

Introducing the Wyndham Hotel
Elevator Network.

VI's largest network launch ever — built on top of North America's largest existing elevator ad network. The Wyndham hotel layer goes live in Q2 2026. The brand on it at launch is the brand the network is associated with — the moment it goes to market, and forever.

2,900+
Wyndham hotel properties · the launch
10,714
VI screens already live · 1,271 cities
#1
In North America · the combined network
The combined network · go-live Q2 2026
Two networks. One footprint.
 VI · 4,986 properties · 10,714 screens
 Wyndham · 2,900+ properties
ATLANTA 220 properties · flagship TORONTO 167 properties NEW YORK 130 properties SEATTLE 165 properties CALGARY 155 properties VANCOUVER 73 properties LOS ANGELES 26 properties MIAMI 71 properties DALLAS 2 properties SAN FRANCISCO 48 properties MONTREAL 58 properties ↘ ORIGIN · 2010 EDMONTON 128 properties · where it started
Proof of concept
Coca-Cola was the first to activate FIFA in the elevator. The lift moment is where soccer fandom meets the captive consumer — Coke proved the medium works for the world's biggest tournament. EA's chance to take that signal — and own it for an entire continent. Watch the Coke × FIFA elevator activation →
"Why pioneer a new medium? The industry always notices a first."
— First-to-market is the only first-to-market that exists
04 The host city network

12 cities. 5 weeks. One coordinated takeover.

Beyond the Wyndham hotel network — which blankets all 13 host cities — VI's broader digital screen footprint extends EA's presence across residential lobbies, office towers, and high-traffic real estate in 12 of the 13 host markets. Hotels for the fans flying in. Buildings for the fans who already live there.

913+
VI Properties
across 12 host markets
2,617+
Digital screens
live and programmable
79M+
Impressions / 4 weeks
at one ad spot per screen
The takeover · Live network
12 cities. One coordinated wave.
Dot size = digital screens / city
Pulsing = top-3 markets
KANSAS CITY 9 screens HOUSTON 11 screens BOSTON 11 DALLAS 33 screens LOS ANGELES 65 screens MIAMI 168 screens SAN FRANCISCO 172 screens CANADA · WC HOST VANCOUVER 195 screens SEATTLE 288 screens NEW YORK / NJ 346 screens · final match CANADA · WC OPENING TORONTO 485 screens ATLANTA 834 screens · largest market

City-by-city footprint

Toronto
Canada · WC Host · Opening Match
167
Properties
485
Screens
28.1M
Imp / 4w
Atlanta
USA · WC Host · Group Stage + R16
220
Properties
834
Screens
19.2M
Imp / 4w
Vancouver
Canada · WC Host · Group Stage
73
Properties
195
Screens
7.9M
Imp / 4w
New York / NJ
USA · WC Host · Final Match
130
Properties
346
Screens
6.6M
Imp / 4w
Seattle
USA · WC Host · Group Stage
165
Properties
288
Screens
5.9M
Imp / 4w
San Francisco
USA · WC Host · Group Stage + R16
48
Properties
172
Screens
5.8M
Imp / 4w
Miami
USA · WC Host · QF + Group Stage
71
Properties
168
Screens
2.3M
Imp / 4w
Dallas
USA · WC Host · SF + Group Stage
2
Properties
33
Screens
1.5M
Imp / 4w
Los Angeles
USA · WC Host · QF + Group Stage
26
Properties
65
Screens
1.4M
Imp / 4w
Boston
USA · WC Host · QF + Group Stage
2
Properties
11
Screens
198K
Imp / 4w
Kansas City
USA · WC Host · Group Stage + R16
6
Properties
9
Screens
96K
Imp / 4w
Houston
USA · WC Host · Group Stage + R16
3
Properties
11
Screens
89K
Imp / 4w
05 What it looks like in market

Beyond the wrap. A spectacle.

Every elevator becomes a moment. Every lobby a touchpoint. Every checked-in fan a participant. Three activation layers — coordinated, multi-touch, designed for the EA brand to feel physically present in every host city.

D-22
▲ ▼
EA SPORTS FC · SUMMER OF FOOTBALL · 2026
Play
Off
The Pitch.
13 HOST CITIES · NA
Format: full-wrap elevator door takeover · 13 host cities · 5 weeks · Q2 2026 · EA creative custom-built
🏟️
Full elevator wraps
The hero asset
Floor-to-ceiling, four-wall takeovers in Wyndham hotel elevators across all 13 host cities. EA Sports FC creative, kit-coded, impossible to ignore — and not a FIFA logo in sight. The first thing every fan sees on the way down to the match.
📱
Mirror UGC moments
User-generated, brand-amplified
Branded mirrors prompt the kit-pic before the match. Fans submit selfies, tag @EASportsFC, and the campaign earns its own organic distribution. Free media at the scale of fandom.
⏱️
Live match countdowns
Dynamic · real-time · in-lobby
Hotel-lobby digital screens count down to the next match in that host city. Fixture-specific. Time-zone-aware. Drives every fan into the lobby bar at exactly the right moment.
Closed-loop attribution · built in

Attention is the input. Sales are the output.

Every Wyndham guest is a verified, addressable consumer. Every elevator ride is a captive 30-second exposure. VI ties exposure to outcome at the device level — and proves it sale by sale.

Verified text offers
Opt-in SMS to checked-in guests. Discount, in-game drop, FUT-equivalent reward — redemption tracked end-to-end.
QR scan attribution
Unique codes per hotel, per city, per fixture. Scans → app downloads → in-game conversions, all stitched.
Foot-traffic lift
Device-level visit attribution from exposed Wyndham guests to retail, GameStop, Best Buy, partner activations.
Search + brand lift
Real-time correlation between in-elevator exposure and search-volume / branded-query lift across host markets.
06 Two rises. One moment.

Coordinate the takeover with the rise.

North America is hosting the largest sporting event ever held on the continent — 5 weeks, 13 cities, 3 countries, hundreds of millions of eyes on every corner of the map. EA's new era is rising in the same window — with the appetite, the ambition, and the capital to match. These aren't two moments. They're one. The brand that coordinates them owns the cultural memory of 2026 — and sets the playbook for the chapter after.

The takeover

Once. In a generation.

North America hasn't hosted a World Cup since 1994. The next one is in 2042 at the earliest. This is not a recurring buy — it's the inaugural edition of a generational platform on home soil. Every host city becomes a cultural epicenter for 5 weeks. Every elevator, lobby, and street is a screen. Whoever owns the in-between owns the memory.
The rise

Ambition without the badge.

The leveraged buyout closes in June or July — this summer is the first quarter of the new era. Sports is the division performing strongest, and the football moment is the highest-leverage canvas in NA. No FIFA tax. No rights-holder gatekeeping. Just guerrilla scale at the moment that matters. A statement of arrival every boardroom watching the next chapter will notice — including the one that wrote the check.
First-to-market dividends — included
Cannes Lions submission — qualifying entry timeline if launch goes live before April 2026.
Major-media press release — VI co-authors and pushes the network launch story.
LinkedIn + social amplification — exclusive launch-partner storyline across VI's owned channels.
Speaking opportunities — top media + advertising conferences, joint EA + VI panels.
QR-code attribution per city — track scans, app downloads, exclusive offer redemptions, FUT promo codes.
Mobile retargeting layer — 900,000+ device extension, beyond the elevator, follow-on in-app.
No badge · No tax · No permission required

Coordinate the takeover. Synchronize the rise.

The largest football moment in North American history is 5 weeks away. EA's new era closes the same summer. One brand can make them the same move. Full-city, full-network, full-funnel — across 13 host cities, every elevator, every lobby, every street. The sport's moment of a generation, synchronized with the brand's moment of an era. The badge stays with FIFA. The crowd stays with whoever shows up first.

Schedule the working session →
EA × Wyndham × Vertical Impression · FIFA World Cup 2026 · Confidential