Globally, as far as sports go, football is the king. As far as football competitions go, the World Cup is the pinnacle of it. The 2026 edition is a co hosted event between the USA, Mexico, and Canada. While there were doubts that this World Cup will stand tall as some of the previous editions, we were all proven wrong. At the end of the day, Americans simply know more than any other nation in regard to pure entertainment, and Mexico and Canada haven’t disappointed either. Considering that the economical power of the world resides in North America it comes as no surprise that this World Cup is being used by many companies to either launch or to elevate their brand.
The company that caught our attention, thanks to the way they’re making their name seen is online casino and sportsbook, Stake. Their marketing campaign, which was created specifically for football and the World Cup, is showing the world how modern marketing needs to be done if you plan on making your brand stand out. Online gambling has finally made its way to the USA, and different sportsbooks have been trying to carve into the American user base, seeing the World Cup as a perfect opportunity to do so. Stake has been steadily building their reputation over the past decade, since 2017 and their founding. The brand’s approach to marketing during the 2026 WC has been nothing short of amazing. While they were a well known name even before the WC, today, they have certainly made their name a household one.
As we said, the World Cup was seen as an ideal opportunity for sports betting brands to show their ambition in regard to the American market. There’s no wonder that things stand like that considering the magnitude of the competition. This is the first time that the tournament has featured 48 teams. Its global presence is larger than ever, and thus online sports betting companies are giving it their best to expand the user base, and get their brand name out there in the regions not covered as of now. While it is hard to single out a single brand for praise, it is more than clear that Stake decided to take a different approach to standard marketing. While the World Cup is still not decided, as far as brand promotion goes, we can say that Stake can be declared the winner. Their ongoing campaign is called ‘It’s All at Stake’ and it is being pushed into the ether by Stake ambassadors via a number of viral promotional videos.
Stake has been long building their brand with a special accent being put on the faces that are representing the company. As far as football goes, they have some of the best representatives in the game with Eden Hazard, Iker Casillas, Sergio Kun Aguero, and Patrice Evra serving as the company’s global brand ambassadors. It’s thanks to them that Stake has managed to make their presence more visible all over the world. Today, when you’re making a Stake bet on WC you’re doing it backed by Aguero’s, Casillas’, Evra’s, and Hazard’s backing.
These four men are all former global football superstars, and making them the faces of your campaign for the World Cup has been a jackpot by Stake. Yet, the company has decided that having ‘only’ them doing the heavy lifting will not be enough as far as the World Cup goes. The event is the biggest one on a global level as far as sports go, and Stake has decided to add to it. We’ve certainly enjoyed Evra, Aguero, Hazard, and Casillas featuring in a video led by Cabrzy that Stake released leading up to the WC, but what they’ve done now has pushed the boundaries of what we thought being possible as far as promoting your brand goes.
Their latest promo video is called ‘Floating Football Pitch World Cup Brand Video.’ It is a project that was scripted, filmed, produced and eventually created by the company to show just how high a single online casino and sports betting brand can go. The bar set by Stake is now quite high as the company is a proud owner of the first ever football game on a flying pitch. While most of us would love to have had an opportunity to see Hazard dribbling past Evra at 10,000 feet, this time around the leading Stake ambassadors haven’t been up to the task. Instead, we got six influencers, and extreme sports content creators, doing Stake’s bidding. They are Nathan Roque, Alessio Corti AKA Papi Safari, Nicolo Contrada, Yasmin Xavier, Sara Vidal, and Carol Chafauzer.
As we said, the six people featuring in the latest Stake video are influencers, but not your ordinary ones. They are all very skilled young individuals who create content based on their extreme sports endeavours. Once Stake got the idea that a flying football field would be a great place for a game of ball, they also understood that they require people who are willing to do that at 10,000 feet. Creating this project and executing it to perfection has really shown the world that Stake is serious about their business. Playing the game of football above the clouds, at 10,000 feet is not a feat ever achieved before. Having the same players who played it, jumping down with parachutes only adds to the spectacle.
Since the start of June and the first games of the World Cup, Stake has been at the top of their game. The majority of American users have not even been aware that the brand is being represented by Casillas, Aguero, Evra, and Hazard. Now that they do, and after witnessing the flying pitch video, many are joking that Evra screaming ‘I love this game’ from the clouds would be even better. Yet, project as this one required presence of professionals, and while @nathanroq, @papisafari, @nicolo.contrada, @yasminxavierrr, @sara_vvidal and @carolchafauzer do not play the game of football as well as Eden or Kun, they are far more equipped to make crazy jumps from a flying football platform that’s flying over the clouds carried by a Stake balloon. It was not easy by any means juggling the ball, exchanging the passes, and scoring goals at the altitude of 10,000 feet. For the majority of us, it would be hard to even walk on a flying platform. Jumping from it while it moves would be even harder, and yet the latest set of Stake ambassadors has done it with ease as they have so many times before.
The ensemble team behind this promotional video has done wonders in terms of creativity and a couple of boundaries of what was deemed impossible have been pushed higher than ever. Stake is now the record holder for the highest football pitch ever as they have successfully played the game at 10,000 feet. The online casino and sports betting brand has once again proved that they are a leader in the iGaming industry, and they’ve used the World Cup as another stepping stone in asserting their dominance in the domain. The best part for them, and all of their fans is the fact that the WC has just begun.
While the best football nations in the world are just only wrapping up the group stages of the competition, Stake has already taken home some of the biggest wins of the tourney. One after another, their videos are getting viral. The number of views is exceeding 200 million all over the social media platforms. While Stake has been around for almost a full decade, this WC has been doing wonders for their visibility as now they are becoming well known even in the parts of the world where they haven’t established themselves as a sports betting leader. Remember, as we said, the World Cup, co hosted between USA, Mexico, and Canada has only just started and the biggest games and peak audience focus is lying ahead.
Considering that Stake has decided to elevate itself above the rest of the competitors we don’t even know what to expect from them with the elimination stages of the WC lying ahead. As if a massive flying black Stake balloon carrying a football pitch wasn’t impressive enough. Their latest promo was not only an attention grabber, but it was a marble of technology and innovation carried as high as possible. To make it all possible, Stake has launched two balloons with a capacity of 3.000kg. They had enough gas to fly 60 minutes each carrying their precious cargo. When you pay attention to the smallest of details, and the time limit the filming crew and Stake ambassadors had, this video gets even more impressive with every watch.
These two balloons carried an artificial football field whose structure was made out of aluminium. It was a lightweight structure 20 meters long and 12 meters wide. The grass was synthetic and had goals and all the markings of a real football field. The centre of the field was reserved for a massive Stake logo. The same logo has been also visible on the large black balloons. Once the match was played out, the participants, and we’re talking about the six Stake ambassadors all jumped from the platform. They were able to do this as it was also equipped with anchoring systems intended for parachutist use. Well, that’s one of the ways to leave the football field, and we’re sure that some of our favorite players would love to have a chance to do that after they’re taken off the game during the World Cup.
Stake’s one of a kind campaign hasn’t gone unnoticed across the internet. When you pull a stunt like this one, people are going to notice. Because of that it comes as no surprise that an Instagram page called 433 has already shared this video and we’re talking about a page with 80 million followers. The idea and the courage to pull it off have been praised left and right by those who have seen the video. Of course, when you pull up in a balloon carrying an artificial football field and you have some of the world’s most famous extreme athletes playing the game at 10,000 feet it is hard not to be left impressed. The best part is that they gave their best to leave an impression of a real football match. We’ve had passes exchanged, juggling of the ball with legs and heads, shots, goals, and saves. Fans were quick to chime in, with some commenting that the ball used to play the game was the same one that Gabriel missed his penalty kick in the Champions League final.
While football remains in focus during the world cup, you cannot not notice the Stake’s geniality when it comes to the way they promote their sports betting markets. It is rare that you’re going to see non footballers promote the game of football. Stake has done that with Nathan Roque, Papi Safari, Nicolo Contrada, Yasmin Xavier, Sara Vidal, and Carol Chafauzer. Not only that they have the attention of football fans with a game played at 10,000 feet, but they are also carving a niche among the fans of extreme sports, as they are bringing the game to them via the influencers they’ve used to film this unique promotional video.
A clear sign that there is a shared interest between the two is the stunt that Nathan Roque has pulled off. This Brazilian extreme sports athlete and content creator has decided to pay a homage to his compatriot, Ronaldinho, and has done a crossbar challenge at 10,000 feet. After missing an attempt, he hit the crossbar from the second one, and jumped right from the clouds from the Stake platform in the sky. If you remember, Ronaldinho’s crossbar challenge done for a Nike promotional video was one of the first ever viral videos. It would appear that Stake knows their audience and knows exactly what they’re doing. We can only sit back and wait for what next they have in store for us.