There are some big rivalries at this year’s FIFA World Cup: England vs. Scotland.
Argentina vs. Brazil.
These last two—which are among the leading VC-backed fitness wearables—have made a splash at this year’s football tournament and are fiercely competing for player endorsements, press coverage and, ultimately, new users.
But competing on soccer’s world stage comes with its own challenges, including FIFA’s wearables restrictions and the balancing act of appealing to both casual wearers and professional athletes attuned to even the smallest performance improvements.
So far, Oura, a smart ring that tracks sleep and exercise, has inked a deal to serve as the official wearables partner of the US men’s and women’s national teams, and has signed English footballers Harry Kane and Declan Rice as brand ambassadors. Meanwhile, Whoop’s heart-rate trackers have been appearing on the arms of players on at least the Dutch, English and Portuguese national teams during the games themselves.
Heated rivalries
As the wearables sector heats up, startups are competing more aggressively for market share. In the last 12 months, both Whoop and Oura have raised huge funding rounds: Oura raised a $907 million Series E in October 2025, led by Fidelity, while Whoop secured a $575 million Series G in March at a $10.1 billion valuation, led by Collaborative Fund.
Oura has an additional incentive to bulk up its active user figures: The Finnish company recently filed confidentially for a US-based IPO.
As performance data analysis has become popular in elite sports, marketing strategies for wearable device companies have evolved. “Partnerships with elite sport organizations are an important part of our marketing strategy at Whoop because they showcase our technology in some of the world’s most demanding performance environments while helping us reach new audiences,” said Briain Curtin, interim chief marketing officer at Whoop. “It’s aspirational for consumers,” he added.
Aggressive user acquisition is particularly crucial for wearable devices, largely because there’s a perceived cost to switching after committing to a device: Both companies rely on a subscription-based business model, in which most or all of the device’s functionality requires a user to pay a monthly or annual subscription fee.
And the companies are capitalizing on this: Whoop, for instance, has added blood test analytics that integrate another dimension of user health data to the Whoop app. “It knows exactly what my health goals are, it knows exactly how I’ve been sleeping for years and years,” said Colin Beirne, founding partner at Deviation Capital and an early investor in Whoop. “[Whoop] knows me in a more granular way, and so of course I’m going to bring all my healthcare data into Whoop.”
Getting airtime
The World Cup’s global reach is also crucial. “International [expansion] has been an enormous source of growth for Whoop,” Beirne said.
But getting airtime during the tournament has its challenges. Although it provides a huge audience—roughly 18 million viewers tuned into the US vs. Paraguay game on Friday—there are still strict rules about what players can wear on the field.
While players are allowed to wear heart rate monitor armbands and GPS devices, rigid jewelry such as watches and metal rings is banned during matches. However, Tori Penso, the first American woman to referee a men’s World Cup match, has been wearing her own Oura ring on the pitch.
Meanwhile, other leading sports events, such as tennis’s US Open and the grand slams, have gone even further, imposing a total ban on athletes using wearable devices while on the court.
The elite vs. the everyman
Part of Whoop’s World Cup marketing strategy has been to emphasize that several athletes wearing Whoop are doing so of their own accord. “Athletes didn’t wear Whoop because the company paid them,” said Craig Shapiro, managing partner at Collaborative Fund.
But both companies will have to walk a tightrope: appealing to both a core user base of regular people and to the professional athletes whose genuine independent endorsements are a coveted marketing boost.
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Whoop and Oura may face one obstacle in getting those endorsements, though: They’re not the best options for obtaining the exact data these athletes want, according to Andrew Wiseman, a performance scientist with the Scottish Football Association. For example, during workout sessions, heart rate variability, especially at heart rates above 150 beats per minute, can be unreliable in devices worn on the wrist or finger, Wiseman said. And during periods of hot weather, such as in this year’s tournament, unusually high skin temperatures can muddle those readings even more.
What does provide a more accurate measure of exertion during a match is a heart rate monitor chest strap, Wiseman said. But a device as disruptive and bulky as a chest strap is a hard sell to the average user.
Device rivalries have led to big advancements in the accuracy of these devices, but that may not continue at the same high rate, according to Wiseman. “The reason that is so is because they’re not tailored specifically for an elite athlete.” He added, “Anyone could buy a Whoop, and anyone could buy a GPS.”
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