Growing up in Canada, there was a travel tip you heard before almost any trip abroad: Sew a maple leaf flag onto your backpack. It was a way to indicate who you were and, just as importantly, who you were not. Sometimes, you see Americans doing the same thing. It was an early lesson in the power of symbols. It has a meaning, and this meaning can be easily borrowed. This tactic has long been used at the world’s biggest sporting events. Incorporating national symbols into event identities was a shortcut to recognition, pride, and belonging. But what was a creative shortcut has become a danger. As the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics prepare to arrive in the United States, these shifting strategies are playing out on the global stage.
These events are bigger than sports. They are rare global moments that can still capture collective attention across borders, languages and political divides. The identities of these events elevate matches and competitions into cultural moments. They influence how audiences see the host, how countries see each other, and whether those moments ultimately deserve their place in public memory and history. When they work, they create a sense of belonging on a global scale. When they fail, they push us further apart.
For most of the sport’s modern history, getting this identity right has been relatively easy. The event’s branding relied on national symbols – flags, logos and familiar motifs – to communicate meaning quickly and clearly. The audience didn’t need much explanation. When looking at the simple red circle of the 1964 Olympic Games logo, viewers immediately knew they were looking at Tokyo. The symbolism was widely apparent and, at the time, largely undisputed.
Today, it is not that simple for two reasons: space and time. The scope is unprecedented. The 2026 FIFA World Cup will span 16 cities across three host nations and reach billions of viewers across fragmented media environments. Historically, major sporting events have been smaller and more contained, and usually rooted in a single host country. The default approach, of anchoring identity in national symbols, has succeeded because of the question of “whose identity?” He had a clear answer. This clarity no longer exists.
And then there is time. Host countries are now selected up to a decade before the event. This gap between the parade and the opening ceremony is long enough to include multiple election cycles, leadership changes, geopolitical realignments, and major shifts in public sentiment. The political, cultural and social context through which the identity of the event is conceptualized is no longer the context in which it will be launched.
The LA28 Olympics will open at the height of the US presidential election season, arguably one of the most contentious symbolic environments imaginable.
What happens when an event spans multiple countries, each with its own internal divisions? As they unfold before a global audience, each carries different cultural interpretations? When meaning is shaped in real time by social media, rather than determined in advance? At this scale, relying on codes outside your control becomes dangerous.
The old rules of the game worked for a while. The last time the United States hosted the Summer Olympics and World Cup was in 1984 and 1994. Both relied heavily on the stars and stripes in their logos, a clear shorthand for American identity, and well-suited to their moments.
What has changed since then is structural, not just aesthetic. Social media has democratized how identity is defined, interpreted and contested. Multinational hosting has complicated the question of whose symbols should dominate. Long planning cycles ensure a mismatch between the world in which an event is given and the world in which it ultimately arrives. This tension is not new. The Olympic Games and World Cup have always been shaped by broader social forces.
The 1936 Berlin Olympics turned national identity into propaganda. At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, politics reached the podium when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists, reshaping how we remember the Games. The gesture was initially condemned, and is now honored at the Smithsonian. The Olympic boycotts in 1980 and 1984 revealed another enduring tension: the events were awarded in a single political climate. (detente)It was handed over to another Cold War.
The planning cycle problem has always been there. What has changed is the speed and scale with which meaning changes. So the question becomes: What will replace traditional national symbolism when it can no longer reliably carry this weight? For 2026 and 2028, the solution is not to abandon identity, but to rethink how it works.
Increasingly, major global events are turning toward elements that can represent place without relying exclusively on fixed and contested symbols: the landscape, geography, and physical and cultural fabric of the site. They are less susceptible to political cycles and remain more stable over time.
You can see this highlighted in recent international events. The 2023 Women’s World Cup, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, drew on styles developed with indigenous women artists, and based visual identity on land, movement and cultural fabric rather than overt national symbolism. The result is more deeply rooted and specific than any individual country and, paradoxically, more global.
The transitional logo for the 2034 Winter Olympics in Utah took a similar approach, eschewing national and state iconography and instead relying on the landscape and movement of the sport. These systems are designed to evolve: flexible enough to reflect different cities, sounds and moments without collapsing into one rigid narrative.
On the scale of something like the 2026 World Cup, this flexibility is not just creative, it is practical. Sixteen host cities and a tiered sponsorship model, where local markets sell regional partnerships alongside global partnerships, requires a system that is able to adapt across audiences and platforms, not a single bloc. More than just a challenge for 2026 and 2028, this is the future of all global events.
As audiences become more connected, more engaged and more vocal, expectations about authenticity and scrutiny of how identity is expressed will intensify. The old abbreviations are no longer valid. Every host country will face the same question: How do you create something that feels authentic, inclusive, and able to bring people together?
Because that’s the goal in the end. When event identities rely too heavily on national symbolism, they risk being read like tourism campaigns or a home team kit. They collapse the distinction between the event and the country that hosts it. The strongest expressions of national identity come instead from athletes and fans, in the flags they carry, the clothes they wear, and the anthems they sing. This meaning belongs to them. The role of event identity is different. It is not about representing one nation, but about creating a framework in which every nation feels welcome.
Obtaining this right involves great risks. These are multi-billion dollar platforms that are only seen once in a generation. Things cannot be reset if something goes wrong, and in a global environment shaped by polarization, fragmentation and competing narratives of identity, these events hold a rare potential for unification. The shift we are witnessing, from designing around national identity to designing for the moment itself, is a response to this reality. Recognizing that meaning today is fluid, contested, and impossible to fully control. National symbols borrowed meaning. The strongest identities build meaning of their own.
