Unveiling Xiaohongshu's World Cup Campaign: Copyright Turning Point, the 20-day Race Against Time and How a Community Scales Up
Text by | Zhong Yixuan
Edited by | Qiao Qian
At 6 a.m. Beijing Time, the final whistle blew at MetLife Stadium in New York. 16 years on, Spain lifted the FIFA World Cup Trophy once again, marking the official end of the World Cup.
In China, Xiaohongshu, which won the live streaming copyright for the first time, has wrapped up its World Cup mission, but the story behind the scenes is far from over.
Let's rewind two months back. In late May, on the day Xiaohongshu officially secured the World Cup copyright, the news caused a stir almost across the entire company.
Unlike the public, who were shocked by the huge mismatch between the World Cup and the platform, internal employees were stunned that Xiaohongshu actually managed to get the deal. An employee close to Xiaohongshu told 36Kr that Xiaohongshu was the first party to enter the World Cup copyright negotiation, and the move was not a last-minute decision.
Yet almost everyone inside the company deemed the chance "extremely slim" — Xiaohongshu's competitors had far more experience in event hosting and better preparation. On top of that, this World Cup was extremely special: CCTV's copyright deal was only finalized 28 days before the tournament kicked off, leaving very limited time for new entrants with barely any extra room for maneuver.
Preliminary work had to be done in advance. For a long period, the Xiaohongshu team prepared products based on two scenarios at the same time: one with video copyright but no live streaming copyright, and the other with both.
Even during the waiting period, almost all feedback they received was negative. Back then, news about copyright speculation was everywhere, but Xiaohongshu was never mentioned in any of the reports. When inviting World Cup creators, rumors spread widely, and creators asked Xiaohongshu's operation teams: "We've heard your competitor has already secured the copyright, is there any hope left for Xiaohongshu?"
Disparity often breeds surprises. The moment the copyright was confirmed, shock, excitement and even pride became the first reaction of many Xiaohongshu employees.
But the reality was extremely tough: only around 20 days were left before the World Cup kicked off. What they were about to face was Xiaohongshu's first ever World Cup live broadcast, and the one with the shortest preparation cycle in history.
This meant enormous challenges: for the same platform live streaming copyright, Douyin signed the deal and officially announced it back in June for the 2022 World Cup, with 5 full months of preparation. Xiaohongshu only had more than 20 days. Before the copyright was confirmed, no one could predict the result, so most of the original product designs had to be completely overhauled.
Not to mention the upfront technical investment. Products can be revised, but as long as there was a glimmer of hope for the broadcast rights, the studio had to be prepared in advance, which was an unavoidable hard cost. There was also a practical problem: live streaming is always the core entry point for audiences. For its first World Cup broadcast, how could Xiaohongshu outperform the seasoned sports platforms in the competition of equipment and experience?
Therefore, in the face of this global, super-large World Cup project, all departmental barriers were quickly broken down. A race against time began.
Spain lifted the trophy at the 2026 FIFA World Cup final in USA, Canada and Mexico, Source: Visual China
"We're finally at the table"
The day after getting the World Cup live streaming copyright, the Xiaohongshu team experienced what was arguably the most dramatic up-and-down moment in their careers.
At first, there was overwhelming excitement: an event of this scale had never been hosted on Xiaohongshu before. Securing the copyright meant the sunk cost of the pre-built studio was not wasted. But soon, the team was informed that for this World Cup, all platforms could only get standard-definition HD signals.
This was worlds apart from their expectations. For previous World Cups, broadcast platforms could get large-screen, professional-grade source streams, and all of Xiaohongshu's upfront investments were prepared for this level of link. Even with the studio ready, once the source changed, the entire plan had to be adjusted, more than half of the equipment needed to be updated, and everyone was stunned.
The more genuine feeling was that no one wanted to lose. If they put in huge efforts but the picture quality was worse than the last World Cup, it would trigger widespread complaints from internet users.
Time did not allow them to dwell on their emotions. In just half a day, the team quickly made a decision: no matter what, Xiaohongshu must be different, and must deliver ultra-HD picture quality.
Nearly all Xiaohongshu employees mentioned that they accomplished things they had never dared to imagine before —
The team responsible for optimizing the live signal to ultra-HD level did not get the actual official signal until June 7, only 5 days before the opening match. They finally completed the task in the extreme 3 days ahead of the kickoff.
To be fully prepared, Xiaohongshu developed complex contingency plans. Take the power outage plan as an example: apart from Plan A, there is a Plan B backup, and another backup for Plan A, with multiple layers of backups on top of backups. The team even made a black swan contingency plan: in the extremely unlikely scenario that the partner's system loses power, Xiaohongshu's own backup system will go online immediately and take over the broadcast seamlessly.
All of this was done to technically deliver smooth, clear World Cup live streams for the audience.
At dawn Beijing Time on June 12, the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup USA, Canada and Mexico officially kicked off. Chinese football fans realized for the first time that they could watch free, high-definition World Cup live streams on Xiaohongshu.
At the same time, in Xiaohongshu's studio, 10 seconds before the opening match, several people stared at the go-live button and shouted the countdown together. All cameras were working, the picture was normal, the picture quality was normal, and all parameters were normal. That moment was described as pressing the "nuclear bomb" launch button.
Xiaohongshu's World Cup journey had officially begun.
During this World Cup, among all domestic live broadcasts, Xiaohongshu delivered ultra-HD live streams with top-tier picture quality and clarity. After the broadcast went live, a large number of users flooded into Xiaohongshu, the number of viewers kept hitting new records, and all traffic was smoothly carried by the system.
The team admitted that being the top in picture quality and breaking records for concurrent viewers are both of great significance to Xiaohongshu. "The World Cup brought more than dozens of times the usual live viewership, and it also proved that Xiaohongshu has the technical capacity to support such a large-scale event, and is capable of becoming an industry-leading live streaming platform."
Live streaming is the primary window for watching matches, but all discussions and experiences are ultimately presented in the World Cup product design. During the World Cup support period, the product team also spent every day working in a wartime state.
Since the copyright was confirmed very late, the product design had to be almost completely redone. In the current World Cup main venue, all designs except for the cash quiz and My Favorite Team features were completed urgently within 20 days.
If you look closely, you will find that on Xiaohongshu, a small football icon appears after many users' nicknames. If the team they support keeps winning, the icon will evolve sequentially into a silver ball, a golden ball, and finally the FIFA World Cup Trophy.
"Our ability to execute under pressure has improved a lot, and our technical, product and other capabilities have expanded greatly in a short period of time," multiple participating teams said.
For this World Cup, Xiaohongshu gave it almost the highest weight of resource allocation: the platform set up a first-level Tab entry, invested massive resources to achieve the ultra-HD effect, and did not insert any ads before the live broadcast, which was a consensus reached internally from the very beginning — the commercialization concession was entirely to prioritize user experience.
Messi wept as he watched Spain players celebrate during the post-match ceremony, Source: Visual China
Make the World Cup strongly relevant to everyone
The beauty of football makes it transcend differences in race, country and culture. Since its birth in 1930, the World Cup, with its ultimate level of competitiveness, has attracted countless fans to go crazy for it, and has become the most high-profile sports IP across the world.
But as a community whose platform tone, user group and sports foundation are all different from football, how on earth should Xiaohongshu run the World Cup project?
36Kr learned that Xiaohongshu's internal team once discussed what exactly is the uniqueness and differentiation that belongs to Xiaohongshu, compared with other sports platforms. In other words, after spending huge sums to buy the copyright, how should Xiaohongshu define the goals of this World Cup project?
In the end, the internal team confirmed that no matter whether they got the live streaming copyright or not, the following three goals would not change: a space for global fans to chat together, a gathering place for all football lovers, and a birthplace for viral football memes.
This determines what kind of World Cup experience users will see on Xiaohongshu. Strawberry, the head of Xiaohongshu's World Cup operation team, said that the product and operation teams put a lot of thought into the design of every entry tab, and kept iterating even after the tournament started.
Take the event focus section on the homepage as an example. It was initially defined as content such as national team introductions and player profiles. Later, users gave feedback that there was no World Cup highlights entry on Xiaohongshu, so this section was later adjusted to deliver time-sensitive content with World Cup highlight moments.
When it comes to specific product design, there were constant discussions about whether to start from the perspective of non-professional fans or professional fans. If designed from the perspective of professional fans, the expression would be more technical. If designed from the perspective of the community, the design needs to be understandable for all users.
Even for a tiny penalty icon. In the past, according to fan conventions, if a penalty is scored in a penalty shootout, it will be marked with a red football, and if it is missed, an X will be added on top of the football. Some people pointed out that Xiaohongshu has a large number of casual football fans, and this type of fan icon will create a high threshold for understanding. After discussion, the team finally reached an agreement: keep the original football icon, but add a small "penalty" mark in the middle.
The point of this small change is that the team hopes ordinary users can understand what the icon means, while avoiding making professional fans feel disconnected.
For core football fans, Xiaohongshu hopes to be professional. For the platform's native users, Xiaohongshu also wants to help them learn more about football.
Therefore, on the premise of ensuring professionalism, most of the internal designs are made to give ordinary people a sense of participation in the World Cup, even though football itself is a competitive sport with certain entry barriers.
The match between Cape Verde and Argentina is a typical example. On a calm morning on July 4, Cape Verde, ranked 67th in the world, played against Argentina, the champion of the previous World Cup. No one expected Cape Verde to perform well because of the huge gap in paper strength.
But this match became one of the most popular matches in this World Cup. Cape Verde, an island country in the Atlantic Ocean with a population of 540,000, has no sky-high priced star players, and its players usually play in low-level leagues. However, after drawing with Spain (the champion of this World Cup) in regular time, they drew with Argentina again — the two teams are the final top 2 of this World Cup. Although they finally lost to Argentina 2:3, Cape Verde almost created a miracle.
The 40-year-old Cape Verde goalkeeper Wozinha quickly became a trending topic. He did not get his first professional contract until he was 25 years old, with a market value of only 50,000 euros, but he repeatedly blocked Argentina's fierce attacks. He is a hero grown from ordinary soil.
This is the charm of football: it has nothing to do with politics, power or hierarchy, and only pursues the fairest glory. It is football that pulled Cape Verde, this small country, out of obscurity, and let the whole world notice it again.
Before that, the platform only made posters for winners. But on that day, Xiaohongshu made an exception for Cape Verde, and made a poster of Wozinha. In the veteran's resolute eyes, Xiaohongshu's employees wrote a gentle copy for him —
"The Buddha says all beings are equal, and then football was born."
The copy written by Xiaohongshu for Cape Verde
How the platform sets topics usually represents the community's years of judgment on its users and its own tone. This poster quickly broke Xiaohongshu's record for sports poster data, and even outperformed the posters of those globally renowned football stars. Soon, the copy was also used by the Xiaohongshu team on the match schedule calendar, and was remembered by many fans.
Finding common ground and making the World Cup strongly relevant to everyone is what Xiaohongshu, as a UGC community, hopes to achieve. The logic behind the football player cards and the AI grandstand capture feature is the same. In the past, player cards were usually exclusive to professional athletes, but Xiaohongshu's product managers began to think: as an ordinary fan, do they also deserve to be recorded? So the exclusive card for fans was born.
The grandstand capture feature also went viral on Xiaohongshu, with more than 200 million exposures. The reason is simple: only a very small number of people can actually travel to USA, Canada and Mexico to watch the matches live. In the past, for Chinese audiences, the biggest connection with the World Cup seemed to be taking a photo with the TV set, but AI changed all of that.
Xiaohongshu wants to convey the commonality of the World Cup to every user, so that both football fans and non-fans can discuss the event in the same space.
Come for football, stay for the community
The FIFA World Cup USA, Canada and Mexico has come to an end. Spain lifted the trophy, and the story of the twilight of football gods, no matter how many regrets it has, has officially stepped down from the historical stage.
In terms of data, the World Cup has brought obvious improvement to Xiaohongshu: during the tournament, the volume of football-related posts on Xiaohongshu increased by more than 10% month-on-month. In July, the month-on-month growth rate of Xiaohongshu APP usage duration increased by 2 times, the month-on-month growth rate of daily published notes was 3 times that of June, and the number of users who watched live streams for a long time in the interactive live scenario also increased by 5 times year-on-year.
Data shows that male users account for a very high proportion of World Cup live viewers. During the group stage, male users accounted for 60% of viewers in most matches, and in the late-night matches of the final stage, the proportion of male viewers reached 80% or even higher.
After hosting the World Cup, as an App aiming to become a national community, Xiaohongshu needs more diverse content supply and more diverse users, so that the community can have greater development potential.
But there is an old problem: fans may have high loyalty to the World Cup, teams and even players, but their attitude towards platforms is usually casual —