Why haven't sports podcasts taken off in Latin America yet? The 2026 World Cup opportunity for brands

With the World Cup around the corner, this question keeps coming up.

If you look at the U.S., sports podcasts are everywhere. Networks like The Ringer, Blue Wire, or Locked On Podcast Network have built entire ecosystems around them. Some shows are fan-driven, others are hosted by former athletes, others by journalists, but they all have one thing in common: they work.

Open Spotify in the U.S. and you’ll immediately see it. Shows like Pardon My Take or The Bill Simmons Podcast consistently sit in the top 20. We counted more than 15 sports podcasts in the top 200.

Now compare that to Latin America. (For the wider context, see our breakdown of the state of podcasting in Latin America.)

From the top 200 podcasts in Mexico, not a single one is sports.
Colombia has three.
Brazil, the most football-obsessed country in the world, has three.
And Argentina, the home of Messi and current World Cup champions, has zero in the top 200.

That gap is not small, it’s structural.

And the size difference makes it even clearer. Brazil has an estimated 219 million people. The U.S. has 342 million. Not the same, but not orders of magnitude apart.

Yet the biggest sports podcast in Brazil, Posse de Bola, has around 94,000 followers on Spotify. Meanwhile, Pardon My Take has over 560,000 on the same platform, even though U.S. audiences are split between Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

At that scale, one U.S. show is essentially the sum of the top 20 sports podcasts in Latin America combined.

So… what’s going on?

1. One sport vs many

In the U.S., sports content is diversified. You have the NFL, NBA, MLB, college sports, I even saw hockey podcast showing up in the top charts.

In Latin America, it’s basically one sport: soccer. 

That sounds like an advantage, but it actually makes things harder. Everyone is competing for the exact same audience, talking about the exact same matches, teams, and narratives. For every country there’s basically two things to talk about: the national soccer league and international soccer. 

There’s less room to niche down, and niche is where podcasting usually wins.

2. No fantasy culture (yet)

A big driver of sports podcasting in the U.S. is fantasy sports.

Fantasy football alone fuels an entire layer of content: analysis, predictions, waivers, trades. It creates daily relevance.

That doesn’t really exist in Latin America.

Mexico is the exception because of NFL fandom (shoutout to Estadio Fantasy), but even there, most of the audience consuming fantasy content is comfortable in English and ends up listening to U.S. shows.

In soccer, fantasy formats exist, like the Fantasy Premier League, but the behavior is similar. The core users are global, English-speaking, and go straight to English-language content.

There’s no strong local loop.

3. Legacy media got there first

In the U.S., a lot of podcast growth came from new voices. Independent creators, bloggers, fans, people who didn’t come from traditional media. I remember that’s how Kevin Jones from Blue Wire started his network.

In Latin America, sports podcasts started differently.

Most of the early shows were extensions of radio or TV. Same hosts, same format, just republished as podcasts. But podcast audiences want something else. They want authenticity, personality, new perspectives. Especially younger listeners. If the content feels like recycled radio, it doesn’t travel.

And that’s slowed down the category.

So why does this matter now?

Because timing is about to change everything.

The next FIFA World Cup 2026 will be played across Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. For the first time, the biggest sporting event in the world is happening locally for a massive part of the Spanish-speaking audience.

You’ll have:

• Global attention on soccer
• Cross-border audiences
• A younger, digital-native fan base
• And new formats like live streams, fan coverage, and social-first commentary

This is where fan-driven podcasts can finally break through. Not recycled TV shows, not traditional pundits but fans actually covering the games in and out stadiums.

The opportunity

There’s also a behavioral shift coming. During the World Cup, millions of people play prediction games, quinielas, bracket-style competitions with friends. It’s the closest thing Latin America has to a fantasy ecosystem. And that creates a new habit: people want context, predictions, opinions.

If you’re a creator

This is probably the best moment to start a sports podcast in Latin America. Not after the World Cup. Before it. Build the audience now. Find your voice. Own a niche, whether that’s a local team, international soccer, or even a fan culture angle. Once the World Cup starts, attention will explode.

If you’re a brand

This is one of the most underpriced categories in the region. Sports podcasts don’t have the same demand yet, which means CPMs are still low compared to their potential. We have already seen what the right targeting can do in the region: our contextual campaign for Wise in Brazil delivered 6.4× ROAS. But the audience is about to grow. The World Cup won’t just be a moment, it will be a reset for how sports content is created and consumed in Latin America. And podcasts are in a position to finally catch up.

FAQ

When should a brand start advertising on sports podcasts before the 2026 World Cup?

Now, not after. The 2026 World Cup, hosted across Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, will spike search and attention around soccer for a massive Spanish-speaking audience. Demand hasn’t caught up with that audience yet, so CPMs are still low. Building presence before kickoff means owning the category while it is cheap.

Why are sports podcasts underdeveloped in Latin America?

Three structural reasons: the region revolves around one sport (soccer), so everyone competes for the same audience; there is little fantasy-sports culture to create daily relevance; and most early shows were recycled radio or TV rather than the fan-driven voices that grow podcasting.

Will the 2026 World Cup change this?

Very likely. It is hosted across Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, putting the biggest sporting event in the world locally in front of a massive Spanish-speaking, digital-native audience. Prediction games and quinielas also create the closest thing the region has to a fantasy loop.

How can a brand reach Latin American sports audiences through podcasts today?

Through geo-targeted campaigns on the shows these fans already stream, priced for a market where few advertisers are bidding yet. That is exactly the inventory Genuina Media works with.

Genuina Media is a podcast advertising agency that helps brands reach Latino and Spanish-speaking sports audiences across Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and Spain, on the fan-driven shows growing ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup hosted across Mexico, the US, and Canada. Genuina Media helps brands turn that World Cup timing into measurable reach while sports-podcast inventory in the region is still underpriced. Genuina Media has run campaigns for brands like Wise and Sendwave. If you want to reach Latin American sports fans before the 2026 World Cup resets the category, talk to Genuina Media.