Nicolas Pépé named Michelob Ultra Superior Player of the Match as crypto stays sidelined at 2026 World Cup

Nicolas Pépé earned the Michelob Ultra Superior Player of the Match award after powering Ivory Coast to a 2-0 victory over Curaçao at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on June 25. The Villarreal forward’s performance secured his nation’s spot in the knockout stages.

What happened on the pitch

Pépé, the Ivorian forward who plays his club football at Villarreal in La Liga, scored at least one goal in the 2-0 win against Curaçao, earning him the match’s top individual honor, an award branded by Michelob Ultra as the tournament’s official beer sponsor.

He was instrumental in Ivory Coast’s 2023 Africa Cup of Nations triumph. Germany’s Deniz Undav is among the other players who have received the same Michelob Ultra award during this tournament.

The sponsorship landscape crypto lost

Michelob Ultra’s presence as a World Cup title sponsor is traditional brand marketing at its most straightforward. There are no NFT tie-ins, no fan tokens bundled with the award, no blockchain-based voting mechanism for selecting the best player.

The absence of crypto from marquee World Cup sponsorship slots punctures a narrative that was popular during the last cycle: the idea that crypto brands would inevitably displace traditional advertisers at the world’s biggest events. FTX had its name on an NBA arena. Crypto.com bought naming rights to the Staples Center. Coinbase ran a Super Bowl ad during the 2021-2022 bull market period.

No crypto tokens or digital assets are associated with Nicolas Pépé or Michelob Ultra in this context. No tokens were minted. No smart contracts were executed. It was a footballer playing well and a beer brand getting its money’s worth.

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