By Jasmine Moore, Senior Digital Media Manager, Athletes for Hope
For 39 days this summer, I had a front-row seat to something I’ve rarely seen in my career — a unified, collective outpouring of joy across every platform, every culture, every timezone, all at once. My feeds didn’t look like the internet I usually navigate. They looked like the world at its absolute best.
And I kept thinking: this is exactly what Athletes for Hope was built for.
This year marks AFH’s 20th anniversary. Twenty years of believing that sport is one of the most powerful forces for human connection on earth. Twenty years of watching athletes use their platforms for something bigger than the scoreboard. And this summer, the FIFA World Cup 2026 gave us more proof of that belief than we could have ever planned for.
What the Algorithm Couldn’t Manufacture
I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes content go viral. The algorithm rewards consistency, timing, relevance. But some moments go viral for a reason no platform can engineer — because they’re simply, undeniably human.
The most shared moment of the World Cup wasn’t a goal. It wasn’t a penalty shootout. It wasn’t even a celebration. It was about service.
It was hundreds of Japanese fans, trash bags in hand, cleaning up their section of Dallas Stadium after their match against the Netherlands. Picking up cups, wrappers, anything left behind. And then photos emerged from the locker room: the Japanese players had left it spotless. No one asked them to. No one told them to.
It’s a cultural practice, “returning things the way you found them” learned from childhood. “It’s kind of a habit or natural, I guess,” said Nina Shimaguchi of the Japan American Society of Dallas-Fort Worth.
That video crossed every border on social media. It was shared by people who had never watched a soccer game in their lives. It started conversations about culture, respect, and what it means to show up for a shared space even when you’re not required to. It made people — millions of them — feel something.
That’s the power of sport and service that no brand campaign can replicate. Real moments of genuine human character, witnessed and admired by the world in real time.
48 Nations. One Feed.
From a social media perspective, the 2026 World Cup was unlike anything I’ve experienced professionally. For the first time since 1994, the tournament was hosted on home soil and the cultural electricity was impossible to ignore online.
My feeds became a mosaic of flags, languages, street celebrations, and fan communities I’d never encountered before. Moroccan supporters filling city squares. Argentine fans singing in Times Square. Mexican fans turning every stadium into a sea of green. American fans — newly converted, undeniably loud, proving that soccer had finally, fully arrived in this country.
Social media didn’t just cover the World Cup this summer. It became the second stadium. The place where billions of people who couldn’t get tickets still showed up, still felt the energy, still belonged to the moment.
That collective belonging is something I think about constantly in my work at Athletes for Hope. We talk a lot about the power of sport to create community. But this summer showed me that social media, when it’s used the right way, can extend joy and community infinitely.
The Story That Stopped Me
Of all the content that moved through my feeds this summer, the story I couldn’t stop thinking about was Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal.
In 2007, a 20-year-old Messi held a 5-month-old baby named Lamine Yamal during a UNICEF charity photoshoot at Camp Nou. This summer, that baby, now 19 years old — faced Messi in the World Cup Final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
What made the story even more powerful for those of us at Athletes for Hope: both Messi and Yamal are UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors. They were brought together by philanthropy before they were brought together by football.
When that story broke on social media, it wasn’t just sports fans who shared it. It was parents. Teachers. People who hadn’t thought about soccer once all summer. Because it wasn’t really a soccer story. It was a story about time, and destiny, and what happens when athletes use their platforms for something bigger than themselves.
That’s the Athletes for Hope story. It always has been.
Twenty Years of This
Twenty years ago, a group of 12 elite athletes including Muhammad Ali. Mia Hamm. Andre Agassi. Jackie Joyner-Kersee founded Athletes for Hope on a bet that sport could change the world. Not just through the games they played but through the impact they created from the platforms those games gave them.
This summer, the FIFA World Cup reminded the entire world why that bet was right.
Sport has a power no other force on earth replicates. It stops cities. It fills streets. It turns strangers into community. And social media — when it’s used intentionally, extends that power infinitely. A single act of kindness on a football field can reach 50 million people before the final whistle. A video of fans cleaning a stadium can start a global conversation about culture, respect, and what it means to show up for others.
That’s what Athletes for Hope has always believed. That the platform sport gives you is meant for something bigger than trophies. Our athletes live that every day, Stephen Curry feeding millions of children in Oakland, Katie Ledecky championing gender equality, Gabby Thomas volunteering at a free clinic, Ezra Frech building pathways for adaptive athletes.
For twenty years we’ve been telling that story. This summer, the World Cup told it to the entire world.
Sport gives athletes a platform. What they do with it is the real legacy.
Here’s to twenty more years of doing it right.