SBS has kicked off a cheeky new campaign urging Aussies to fight for their right to watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup at work.
As the 2026 FIFA World Cup prepares to kick off in North America, Australians are facing a serious and strangely unusual problem – the vast majority of live matches will land in the middle of the working day.
Unlike previous tournaments that forced Australians into late-night viewing habits, this year “65 per cent of matches” will air during the Australian and workday, with several games falling into lunchtime viewing windows.
The Socceroos play their matches at 2pm (against Türkiye on 14 June), 5am (US, 20 June) and midday (Paraguay, 16 June).
To bring this issue to light, SBS teamed with Droga5, Poem, Hearts & Science to launch the ‘World Cup Watchers Rights Association’ (WRA) and enlisted comedian and Ted Lasso actor Nick Mohammed to lead the initiative.
When talking to B&T, SBS acting director of marketing and audiences, Uma Oldham said the campaign strategy “links back to an overarching business challenge”.
“We want to maximise consumption to SBS on demand and SBS as a network around the World Cup. Strategically it is really, really important for us to do that. Therefore, if you’ve got a situation where over 65 per cent of the games are on during traditional work hours, for us to meet our targets, we actually need audiences to turn on SBS on demand at work,” she said.
Oldham said the network wants to double its viewing consumption in the 2026 World Cup to coincide with SBS broadcasting double the games that it did in 2022.
According to the Australian Government’s Transparency Portal, more than 9 million Australians watched the Qatar World Cop on Linear TV; while SBS On Demand saw a record breaking 4.5 million stream the tournament.
Australia’s win over Tunisia was the top match with an average combined audience of 1.72 million. Total linear reached topped 2.15 million.
Joining Mohammed on his crusade to stand up for workers’ rights as WRA ambassadors are Australian comedians, Matt Okine, Mel Buttle and John Cruckshank, and former Matildas’ goalkeeper and one of Australia’s most celebrated footballers, Lydia Williams.
When Mohammed was first proposed to front this campaign, Oldham knew she was onto a winner.
“He’s got that cultural link to football through his role as Nate the Great in Ted Lasso, but also he is very, very funny. When you put that combination together it really hits the right tone for the campaign, making sure that it’s cheeky, puts a smile on people’s faces, but viewers will still associate it with football without actually having any football in it,” she said.
As the national “OG of football” that has exclusively broadcast the World Cup in Australia since the 1980s, SBS believes that nothing should get in the way of fans cheering on their teams, not even work. The WRA is the embodiment of this belief: a national body dedicated to proudly advocating for fans’ rights to watch the world’s largest sporting event on work time.
Recent research commissioned by the WRA reveals just how vital this association is, with three in four Australians planning to watch the World Cup this June.
The data shows that fans will go to extreme lengths, too. A third have booked a meeting specifically to watch sport; almost two in five have watched sport while on a work call; a fifth have even muted a call so they could focus more on a game; and most surprisingly a tenth of Aussies admit to having hidden under their desk to watch sport secretly.
A whopping 71 per cent of Australians agree that employers should simply let staff watch the World Cup while at work, and they have support from 53 per cent of Aussie bosses, who say they will actively make arrangements to make this happen. The WRA is here to convert the rest.
“Over the coming weeks, millions of Australians will be asked to do the unthinkable: work during the 2026 World Cup. I cannot legally tell you to watch football during work hours,” said honorary executive chair of the WRA, Nick Mohammed.
“My job is simply to look you in the eye and say: We see you. We see the last-minute “meetings”, the long bathroom breaks, the light from a phone under a desk. You are not alone. The Watchers’ Rights Association is here to stand up for your right to sit down and watch the beautiful game wherever you work.”
SBS is treating the World Cup as a springboard to keep viewers in its ecosystem long after the final whistle. During what Oldham calls its “Super Bowl moments” – blockbuster fixtures featuring teams like Argentina, England and the Socceroos – SBS is carefully curating the ad breaks to showcase the breadth of its slate.
Viewers are nudged from live football into everything from Alone season four and food programming to English-language premium drama, news and First Nations content, with the explicit aim of turning World Cup fans into long-term SBS On Demand users.
Credits:
SBS
Head of Creative: Joel Noble
Acting Director of Marketing and Audiences: Uma Oldham
Acting Head of Audience Marketing: Carolina Chiaradio
Marketing Manager & Project Lead: Melissa Dedrick
Campaign Manager: Martin MacKinnon
Lead Producer: Kirsty Turner
Creative Manager: Margarett Cortez
Integrated Producer: Sophia Titmus
Producer: Carley Best
Creatives: Ben Skinner, Ben Jones
Senior Designer: Megan Schierhout
Designers: Jeffrey Ho, Jesse Dalton, Ricardo Moreira
Head of Publicity & Social Content: Jo’an Papadopoulos
Publicity & Social Content Manager: Milly Palmer
Head of Social Strategy: Sean O’Byrne
Concept
Creative Agency: Droga5 Sydney, part of Accenture Song
ANZ Marketing Practice Lead, CEO of Droga5 ANZ: Matt Michael
Co-Chief Creative Officers: Barbara Humphries and Damon Stapleton
Principal Director: Kezia Quinn
Creative Directors: Thomas Gledhill and Lennie Galloway
Creatives: Herman Ulberg and James Greig
Head of Strategy: Ben De Castella
Group Business Director: Samar Karim
Creative Development, Earned Strategy, Publicity and Production: Poem
CEO: Rob Lowe
Executive Director, Strategy & Social: Alex Watts
Creative Director: Tom Manning
Senior Account Director: Alex Height
Account Director: Robbie Purcell
Senior Producer: Hattie Morgan
Campaign Specialist: Sam McDougall
Publicist: Iris Yuan
Publicist: Caitlin Nicolatsopoulos
Senior Account Executive: Lauren Duncan
Creatives: Lucy Everett and Ruby Clarke
Strategist: Dhivia Pillai
Media Planning and Buying: Hearts & Science
National Managing Director: Liz Wigmore
General Manager: Blake Power
Head Of Content Partnerships, OM Content: Hayley Pyper
Planning Director: Oliver Woodrow
Content Partnerships Director: Chloe O’Shea
Planning Manager: Jake Walker
Media Implementation Account Manager: Regina Lee
Crew and Post
Director: Joel Noble
Lead Producer: Hattie Morgan
Producers: Kirsty Turner (AU), Carley Best (AU), Leila Maktari (UK)
Production Manager: Arthur Chan (AU)
Production Assistant: Nico Bruni (UK)
Talent Coordinator: Sophia Titmus (AU)
Stills photographer: Mathew Quake (UK), Cara O’Dowd (AU)
1st AD: Micki Colker-Perlman (UK), Stuart Beedie (AU)
DOP: Richard Bell (UK), Tonu Luu (AU)
1st AC: Samuel Hyde (UK), Sam de Teliga (AU)
2nd AC: Jensen Pipe (UK), Pat Jaeger (AU)
Grip: Max Goodkind (UK), Nick Towle (AU)
Grip Assist: Darcy Towle (AU)
Gaffer: Jeff Ceils (UK), Cameron Wintour (AU)
Best Boy: Alejandro Restrepo Celis (UK), Peter Hagen (AU)
DIT: Gotlieb Berg (UK)
VTR: Kane Waldron (AU)
Gaffer: Jeff Ceils (UK), Cameron Wintour (AU)
Sound: Mike McGinn (UK), Predrag Malesev (AU)
Wardrobe/Stylist: Jennifer Michalski Bray (UK), Isabelle Landicho (UK), Lydia-Jane Saunders (AU)
Production Designer: Joe Munroe (UK), Mike Price (AU)
HMU: Liz Taw (UK), Louise De-brookley (UK), Kirsty Bremner (AU), Justyna Chapman (AU), Ken
Matsuda (AU), Milly Ofori (AU)
Runners: Ruby Moyes (UK), Jorge Cerda-Vargas (AU), Bradley Cram (AU)
Colourist: Wassim Bazzi
Motion Designer: Emy Dossett
Audio: Bruce Dale
Social Unit (AU only): Ben Skinner, Jordan Rajek & Daniel Thompson
