Spain have won the World Cup, following their 1-0 extra time victory over Argentina in Sunday’s final. It’s the end of a tournament that was notable in many respects: 2026’s contest brought a new format, political subplots, a high level of geographical diversity, a half-time show, and a number of notable memes. But how did the 2026 FIFA World Cup compare to previous tournaments in terms of public perceptions?

Data from YouGov SportsIndex UK allows us to explore how the 2026 tournament performed among the UK public. Index scores, a measure of a tournament’s overall brand health taken by averaging several metrics, sat at 10.8 at the beginning of the contest on 11 June; by the time the final whistle blew on 19 July, this had risen to 18.5 (+7.7). By comparison, Qatar 2022’s scores fell from 1.5 to 1.0 (-0.5), while Russia 2018 saw an improvement from 8.5 to 24.9 (+16.4).

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If we look at Impression scores, which track whether the public have a positive or negative view of a sporting event, 2026 saw an improvement from 6.7 to 18.4 (+11.7). Qatar saw a rise from -14.1 to -13.3 of 0.8 points, while Russia’s scores rose from 5.6 to 30 (+24.4).

When we look at Quality scores, which track whether an event is staged to a good or poor standard, WC2026 saw an uptick from 32.3 to 37.7 (+5.4). Qatar’s scores barely moved, with scores changing from 20.3 to 20.5 (+0.2), while Russia’s leapt from 22.2 to 42.0 (+19.8).

The legacy of this year’s World Cup is yet to be written, but the current verdict (in terms of public image) suggests that it’s regarded far better than Qatar, and a little short of Russia 2018. In any case, it may be interesting to see how the 2030 centenary World Cup – set to be played across six countries – compares four years from now.

This article originally appeared in City A.M.

Image: Getty

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