From left to right: We Are Social Canada managing director Coby Shuman, head of strategy James Lachno, New York GM and sports lead for North America Jas Dhami and VP and GM Krisztina Virag.

With a number of sports-centric AOR wins in tow and the FIFA World Cup looming, We Are Social Sport is launching in Canada.

The new offering was officially unveiled on Wednesday at We Are Social Canada’s office in Toronto, with an event that previewed Canadian-based insights from the agency’s coming North America World Cup Report.

Coby Shuman, managing director at We Are Social Canada, tells strategy that momentum to launch the sports segment has been building throughout 2025 after the agency’s recent social-media AOR wins with SportChek, the NHLPA and OLG sports-betting brand Proline. We Are Social Sport Canada also announced a project-based partnership with Major League Soccer and Kellanova on Wednesday.

“All these forces are coming together, and we have some existing sport clients already in the building, so we’re getting some critical mass here and what better time to actually plant our flag than leading up to World Cup,” Shuman says. “I think people don’t even realize what’s coming. This isn’t the Super Bowl. It’s, like, 10 times bigger than that.”

The launch event centred on We Are Social Sport’s “Winning Fans and Feeds” research, which outlines actionable areas of opportunity for brands based on Canada’s evolving soccer heritage as it prepares to play host to the 2026 World Cup alongside Mexico and the U.S.

“The gist of extending and launching We Are Social Sport in Canada is, really, to challenge brands to think about the fan first and go beyond broadcast when they’re negotiating sponsorship deals,” Shuman says. “There’s a lot of brands who who are still sleeping on what the opportunity is. And hopefully this is a good call to action and wake-up call and challenge for them.”

We Are Social Sport Canada will operate out of the Toronto office with remote leadership from Jas Dhami, general manager of We Are Social New York and the agency’s sports lead for North America. Shuman says the Canadian We Are Social Sport team will be made up of existing and yet-to-be hired new team members.

We Are Social Sport launched its dedicated sports marketing team in the United Kingdom in 2018 before 2022’s expansion into the U.S. The larger We Are Social agency was founded in London, England, in 2008 and has grown to include 1,200 employees worldwide.