On a hot evening in Los Angeles, from the picturesque Griffith Observatory overlooking the Hollywood sign, FIFA president Gianni Infantino revealed the branding for the 2026 World Cup.

It’s a landmark date in the build-up to any major tournament. The carnival-inspired trophy for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the red, white and blue shield for the 1994 World Cup in the United States; the color scheme, the logo and the mascot become tied to the tournament they represent. It creates anticipation and fuels excitement. This iteration, however, feels less inspired.

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Unlike the Stars and Stripes that adorned the iconic logo from ‘94, nothing screams America about this design. According to FIFA, it’s inclusive branding, simple and highly customizable. It’s a logo that can easily be transferred and used across merchandise, and there will be unique color patterns and slogans for each host city.

#WeAre26

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) May 18, 2023

The Athletic’s instant analysis:

This is it, really? This is the actual logo for the World Cup? The largest sporting event in the world?

Yes, this is it. — Maurer

How does this compare to previous World Cup logos?

This one is decidedly blander and lacks a lot of the character of previous editions. The tournament has been an exercise in branding since the first edition in 1930, when a local Uruguayan artist painted the official poster for the event, a relatively abstract rendering of a goalkeeper stretched out in flight. It was an instant hit and over the ensuing decades, the iconography and visual identity of the World Cup has become more and more important.

There was Mexico in 1970, when famed designer Lance Wyman took a stab at the design, crafting a visual identity that was concentric, with numbers and letters embedded within each other. The official logo and poster for that tournament, a simple, graphic representation of the then-new Adidas Telstar, helped make that ball the most instantly-recognizable piece of sporting equipment imaginable. Other tournaments have shined as well — Italia ‘90 brought an almost abstract touch to things, while the 1994 World Cup was decidedly more … obvious. Red, white and blue, with a soccer ball flying past the red and white bars of the American flag. Years later, the design remains iconic.

“In general, we weren’t being very subtle, right?” Alan Rothenberg, then the president of U.S. Soccer, told The Athletic last year. “You look at what we did with the logo — red, white, blue, with the American flag and the soccer ball going through it, rather than something abstract. We were kind of hitting people right between the eyes.”

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More recently, the tournament logos have felt a bit standardized, with the general outline of the logo being that of the Jules Rimet trophy.

They’ve always incorporated cultural elements of the host nation. In Qatar, for example, the logo was crafted to look like a woolen shawl, a traditional garment of the region. Russia’s World Cup in 2018 featured bold red, gold, black and blue colors. FIFA said it was inspired by centuries-old techniques seen in world-renowned Russian art dating back centuries.

The logo for this coming tournament, which will be hosted across three different nations, feels like a generic exercise in “clean” design, the sort of thing we see a lot of these days. — Maurer

So why did they make it this way?

FIFA answered questions Wednesday during a session with national media. The impetus behind the design, an official said, was to make the brand inclusive and simple and highly customizable across multiple platforms. They wanted to bring the World Cup trophy to the forefront of the logo, FIFA said, and they wanted to create a system that could be reused in future tournaments and feel “iconic” to all age groups.

The simplicity of the design is a feature to FIFA, not a flaw. They see the plain-Jane logo plastered on sweatshirts, caps, shoes, on the front of jerseys at the tournament … everywhere. There are variations of the logo where the “26” is divided into 16 grids, representing the 16 host cities, and further iterations where the numbers contain 48 panels, representing the teams in the tournament. FIFA has also created unique color palettes and design inserts for each host city. The base logo, though, will remain the same.

Representatives for FIFA said the design process for the logo was led by their own in-house brand team, with input from a number of consulting agencies, though they declined to name those. — Maurer

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What other path could they have taken?

Canada has never hosted a World Cup but the U.S. and Mexico have, and the 1970 tournament and 1994 tournaments both featured some of the best designs in the competition’s history. FIFA might have considered retreading or reimagining some of those earlier visual identities, or maybe crafting a different version of the logo for each host country. Instead, what it rolled out feels bland and lifeless. Who knows, maybe it will grow on us. We’ll see. — Maurer

What they’re saying

CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani said Wednesday’s launch event was “a bit of a kickoff, other than the launch of the cities we had last year.”

“This is really the first ahead of 2026, and then there’ll be many more after this. Obviously, the cities are really excited, really behind it,” he added. “They got selected last year and now they’ll get their feathers going with the colors and all that kind of stuff. And so it’s really exciting. And I think obviously, we have a lot of work to do moving forward, but it’s kind of I feel it’s almost like starting now.”

Montagliani also addressed the prospect of the U.S. and Mexico hosting the 2027 Women’s World Cup.

“It’s a process. Obviously, it’s exciting. Two countries that you know, have facilities and have the history of organizing. Right now, it’s just the beginning,” he said. “So there’s a whole process behind it, we are behind it, CONCACAF is behind it. And let’s see what happens.”

Montagliani added that discussions have taken place regarding coverage issues for the Women’s World Cup. “(Discussions) have started, I have to say, on a bit of a different level,” he said. “So it is moving and I think it is important to understand here where we are coming from. We are investing in the women’s game, we are investing in women’s football.”

Infantino touched on safety and security concerns for the 2026 tournament.

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“Qatar is small, especially compared to North America. We organized that with the authorities, the local authorities, but also the police authorities from all participating countries. We created really, very strong and powerful network of relation of cooperation and everything went very, very smoothly in terms of security in the World Cup. I’m sure that the same will happen here,” he said.

“We come here to bring happiness and passion and joy for our people, for local people in America and North America, our communities from all over the world that already live here, plus the fans coming from abroad. … We are working already now, three years ahead, with the police authorities, the government authorities from the three countries and from those who will participate, to make sure that it will be peaceful.”

Required reading

(Photo: Harold Cunningham / FIFA via Getty Images)