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Visa’s USWNT World Cup Marketing Forced to Pivot After Injury Hex

Emily Caron
·6 min read

Visa had a plan.

One hundred days out from the start of this summer’s Women’s World Cup, the global financial services giant was set to announce the largest assembly of women’s soccer players it had ever sponsored—33 players from 27 countries—before they took off for Australia and New Zealand to compete on the sport’s biggest stage. Players were chosen, the company said, based on their athletic achievements but also their display of shared values with Visa, including community impact. Among the signees were three of the U.S. women’s national team’s best: Mallory Swanson (née Pugh), Sam Mewis and Catarina Macario.

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All three Americans are among the next generation of U.S. soccer stars, inheriting the mantle from the likes of Tobin Heath and Carli Lloyd. But two were already operating on tight timelines. Mewis, the 2020 U.S. Soccer player of the year, was fresh off a second knee surgery and working through what was expected to be a lengthy recovery—all but ruling her out for this summer’s competition. Macario had not yet returned to the pitch for country or club after suffering her own knee injury (a torn ACL) last June, but a sliver of hope remained that she’d be ready in time.

Then, the weekend before Visa (NYSE: V) was set to announce the signings, the 25-year-old Swanson went down with a serious left knee injury in a USWNT friendly against Ireland. She was quickly ruled out for the season—taking Visa’s last roster spot on tournament-favorite Team USA with her.

Team Visa’s unexpected losses weren’t limited to the U.S. Fran Kirby, one of two English players in the group, was ruled out for the World Cup in early May with a knee injury. By mid-June, Visa had lost Costa Rican star Shirley Cruz, who retired after unexpectedly not making the national team roster, and Japan’s Mana Iwabuchi, who was left off her country’s final 23-player squad for the World Cup.

This was, for better or worse, familiar territory for Visa—whose women’s sports sponsorships have been hounded by something akin to EA Sports’ Madden curse or the Sports Illustrated cover jinx. Call it the Visa hex.

The credit card company, which signed on as the first global FIFA women’s football partner in 2021, started its Team Visa sponsorship program back in 2000 to provide financial and educational support to athletes. Visa has backed around 500 athletes since the program’s inception, including some of sports’ biggest stars—often to great fanfare—but not all have panned out as planned.

Simone Biles, for example, was among the athletes backed by Visa ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. The gymnastics phenom, all-around favorite and face of Team USA went on to withdraw from all but one event in the Games to focus on her mental health, a prioritization Visa publicly said it was “proud” to support. The company’s follow-up Olympic cycle included equally esteemed athletes like Mikaela Shiffrin—the most decorated alpine skier in history. In a story that dominated headlines throughout the 2022 Winter Games, Shiffrin, the heavy favorite in numerous events, left Beijing without a single medal.

The 2023 World Cup is the next big women’s sports sponsorship push for Visa, which signed on as the first global FIFA women’s football partner in 2021. And the company found itself without several of its stars (and without any of its USWNT reps) on the eve of its World Cup rollout.

This is not to imply that every Visa athlete is—dare we say—cursed. In Tokyo, the company also sponsored American swimmer Katie Ledecky, who won two gold and two silver medals. In Beijing, Olympian Nathan Chen (who took gold in the men’s figure skating free skate) and Paralympian Oksana Masters (who became the most decorated U.S. winter Paralympian of all time after making the podium in every single one of her seven events) were also on Visa’s roster.

Nor is this to equate Visa’s unexpected World Cup turnout with something as disastrous as, say, Reebok’s now-infamous $30 million “Dan and Dave” ad campaign that the company pinned its entire Olympic strategy on back in 1992.

But superstition still runs deep amongst sports fans and athletes alike.

Take the Sports Illustrated cover jinx, which allegedly stole a record from Pete Rose, a season from Tom Brady and a Super Bowl from Cam Newton and the Panthers, just to name a few. Then came the “Madden curse,” of course, which saw the video game cover plague football’s pro ranks for two decades. Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb were among its most notable victims. More recently, the “Drake Curse” found such a foothold in internet culture in the last decade that even taking a photo with the Canadian rapper was deemed a dangerous endeavor.

For what it’s worth, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes broke the Madden curse after appearing on the cover in 2020 and proceeding to win a Super Bowl. The superstition around Drake’s sports endorsements has also seemingly subsided, leaving hope for the 22-year-old Sophia Smith—the young USWNT star who joined Team Visa as player No. 34 in the weeks following the company’s initial announcement.

While Smith and the rest of the USWNT prepare for the start of the tournament on July 20, Visa is making its own arrangements for how to still leverage the platforms that Swanson, Mewis and Macario have.

Part of the company’s plans include awarding $500,000 in grants to small business owners across the globe throughout the World Cup. Tied to Visa’s fan-voted Player of the Match award, a women-owned small business from the home country of each selected athlete will receive a grant from Visa—one for each of the 64 games. The awards range from $5,000 for first-round matchups to $50,000 for the grand finale.

Andrea Fairchild, senior vice president and head of sponsorships at Visa, said this is where she sees the injured athletes playing the biggest role.

“[We] will continue to use those [who] aren’t going, to champion women’s empowerment around the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” Fairchild said in a phone interview. “Their voices are going to be really elevated during this time frame. The whole idea is to utilize them to help rally around the Player of the Match and the small business grant program to get that message out.”

Spectators may see Swanson digitally encouraging fans to vote for a match’s best player or Macario announcing the grant winners on social media. Clients and employees could also see them at activations. In fact, the sidelined athletes may have more time now to participate in the sponsorship campaign.

Plus, Visa, which also sponsors UEFA women’s football, as well as the Mexican Football Federation, Canadian Soccer Association and U.S. Soccer, still has Smith and more than two dozen other athletes making the trek to Oz.

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