The Silent Tollbooth and the Liquid Asset
Take Visa, for instance. The company is not just paying for pitch-side advertising. Visa effectively operates the tollbooth for the entire tournament. Every time an international fan buys a polyester shirt or a shockingly expensive hot dog, a tiny fraction of that transaction flows back to them. During previous tournaments, cross-border payment volumes have occasionally surprised analysts. Then again, Visa is a behemoth. You should not expect its share price to jump just because a famous striker scored a hat-trick. Volume spikes might happen, but large moves in a single session are remarkably rare.
Then you have Anheuser-Busch InBev. Beer and football are inextricably linked in the British psyche, and Budweiser has been clinging to FIFA for decades. The opening day for BUD is pure, unfiltered drama. As the first whistle blows, volume in pubs and off-licences historically surges.
Investing, however, is never a free lunch. Brewing can be a brittle business. AB InBev carries a monstrous debt load and battles vicious local rivals in emerging markets. A sudden surge in tournament pints might lift their quarterly numbers slightly, but it could entirely fail to fix their long-term balance sheet. Buying into cyclical hype always carries the risk of a brutal hangover.