TopRanked.io Weekly Affiliate Digest: What’s Hot in Affiliate Marketing [Sports Betting + TikTok + World Cup]

Hey there, affiliates.

If you know anything about sports, then you probably know some people like to call soccer “the beautiful game.”

And, in a way, it’s not hard to see why:

But here’s the thing you might not have expected.

As an affiliate, soccer really does earn its reputation as one very, very beautiful game.

Why?

Simple:

This week, we’re going to see just how beautiful it can get.

TopRanked.io Affiliate Niche of the Week — Sports Betting

For those of you who’re regulars around here, you might notice there’s no “top program” review this week.

That’s on purpose.

What follows in the news section is a little too “global” for any one program.

Why?

Tl;dr — the obvious monetization solution is sports betting, and that brings a whole bunch of “geo” considerations with it.

So instead, this week, I’m simply going to drop a few fun facts about the niche (to show you how great it is independent of any particular opportunity).

And then, I’m going to tell you where to find all the best sports betting affiliate programs.

Sports Betting — Fun Facts

Here are a few fun facts about why you should care about sports betting as an affiliate:

• The market is huge. Numbers here are all over the place, but global estimates range anywhere from just shy of $100 billion annually, all the way up to double that and beyond.
• Sports book rev share commissions are amazing. Rev share plans start out well into the double digits (25% isn’t an uncommon starting rate), and scale anywhere up to the 50% range as your performance increases.
• Sports book CPA deals are equally amazing. Count on triple-digit payouts in established markets.
• And yeah, if you negotiate a hybrid deal, you can bet that’ll be equally amazing.

Convinced this is worth giving a shot?

Great.

Here’s How to Get Started in Sports Betting

If you wanna get started in sports betting as an affiliate and don’t know where to start finding an audience, then read on to the news section below. There’s one opportunity.

And as for the monetization part of it, the best place to start is TopRanked.io for an authoritative roundup of the best sports book affiliate programs.

Here’s a sample of just one of those programs:

MegaPari Affiliate Program | Earn up to 50% Revenue Share

Affiliate News Takeaways: Sports + TikTok + World Cup + Kids equals… the Perfect Storm

Yesterday, FIFA and TikTok announced they’d reached a first-ever “Preferred Platform” partnership for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Which probably just means TikTok paid FIFA a bunch of money and called it a partnership.

But the details are irrelevant here.

In fact, most of the entire news drop is irrelevant for us affiliates, even for those of us in sports niches.

At least, it is at first glance.

But there’s an opportunity here (and yeah, it’s a sports opportunity), which we’ll get to in a minute.

First, for the curious, the tl;dr of this news release is that TikTok gets a bunch of FIFA stuff it can use during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Creators can access a library of behind-the-scenes FIFA content.

There’ll be a special “hub” with highlights and other interactive stuff.

Some media partners will have the right to live-stream some parts of the matches.

Blah, blah, blah.

That’s more or less the gist of it.

If you want the details, go read the original PR. But fair warning, it’s kinda boring.

But here’s something that is interesting.

Think about what this is going to do for TikTok.

If you don’t know what I mean here, consider these two points:

• Social media is basically just “media” these days.
• TikTok basically scored an exclusive licence to the biggest sporting event of the year.

Add 1+1 together, and what do you get?

No… it’s not “window”.

But it is (probably) a solid spike in TikTok traffic and engagement around World Cup time.

Especially for anything that’s World Cup-related content.

And that, right there, could be a solid opportunity if you’re trying to get some eyeballs on your content.

Especially if your content is World Cup-related.

See the pattern?

Now, maybe this particular opportunity isn’t your thing.

Maybe you hate TikTok.

Maybe you hate the idea of competing against thousands of other accounts that all want to attract the same eyeballs.
And that’s cool. There are plenty more 2026 World Cup affiliate monetization opportunities out there.

Or maybe you fall into the camp that thinks this is just a desperate play by TikTok that’s bound to fail.

After all… isn’t TikTok only about viral dances and… Tide pods?

And yeah, maybe back in the day it was.

But, in case you haven’t been keeping up with the times, TikTok’s kinda popular with sports lovers these days.

In fact, there’s a much bigger sports audience on the platform than you might expect.

In fact, it’s so popular that TikTok even published a special 2025 “SportsTok” report.

Here are a couple of interesting highlights:

• 75% of TikTok users over the age of 18 are sports fans.
• 57% of TikTok users watch sports content on TikTok weekly.

Oh, and remember that bit earlier where I said something about “Social media is basically just “media” these days.”?

Some of TikTok’s numbers suggest that it’s not just “media”, but is actually “preferred media”. Specifically, this one:

• 59% of users say watching sports content on TikTok can be more interesting than the game itself.

So, tl;dr… sports are huge.

Not just in a “this is a big category on a social media site” kinda way. But more in a “this is actually my #1 destination for sports” kinda way.

And that means, come this World Cup, TikTok could become absolutely huge.

• A majority of users already say they prefer TikTok for sports.
• TikTok now has a deal with FIFA to get a bunch of exclusive stuff that’ll add even more appeal to the platform.

But it gets even bigger from here.

You know how TikTok’s biggest cohorts of users tend to skew younger?

And do you remember how, a few weeks ago, in our 1xBet World Cup Affiliates edition, we picked up on the following in the US:

• Soccer (particularly international-level stuff) is exceptionally popular with the kids these days (compared with older generations).
• To give one comparison, only 34% of U.S. sports fans watched a FIFA Club World Cup game.
• But a whopping 58% of the 18-34 year old population watched a FIFA Club World Cup game.

In other words, while soccer might not be “popular” in the U.S., it’s actually kind of big with younger audiences.

And you know where younger audiences like to hang out?

That’s right.

TikTok.

Takeaway

Here, you have a series of things converging at once.

• TikTok already is a major destination for sports content.
• It’s going to become an even more major destination (by way of its exclusive FIFA partnership) for 2026 FIFA World Cup content.
• Soccer is actually popular with 18-34 year olds in the United States.
• The United States is (jointly) hosting the FIFA World Cup this year.
• And all those 18-34-year-olds are already running rampant on TikTok.

In other words, you have the perfect storm.

Only question is, how are you going to monetize this storm?

If you need a good place to start, then go check out TopRanked.io for our full listing of all the best sportsbook affiliate programs.

Or, if you’re less U.S. focussed and need just one program to hit most of the world with, then why not try this one:

1XBET Affiliate Program: Earn 40% Lifetime Commissions

To quote one line from that review, it’s “available in at least 69 languages.”

Nice.

Closing Thought

Last week, we closed with New Year’s cat meme that apparently had a deeper lesson than it seems.

Here’s that meme again.

And here’s the lesson again:

• Society will tell you there’s a “right way” to achieve something.
• Usually, that “right way” will rhyme with “optimize more”, “work harder”, or, in the case of a cat that no longer fits into its basket… “lose weight”.
• But, usually, there’s more than one way to achieve the same result.
• Sometimes, a “less correct” approach will get you the same result, but 10x quicker/more efficiently/easier/etc.
• If results are what counts, then maybe that’s the right way.

Sounds good.

But then I read this, courtesy of James Clear:

“New goals don’t deliver new results. New lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is a process, not an outcome. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results.”

Now. Most of this I tend to agree with.

But it kinda seems to be conflicting with the above advice.

After all, if the cat’s a fat slob that sleeps all day, doesn’t do sports, and gorges on Fancy Feast during its limited waking hours… then maybe the size of the “result” — can it fit in its basket? — isn’t the problem.

It’s the lifestyle that led to becoming fat in the first place.

But then again, maybe the problem has nothing to do with lifestyles, chasing results, the correct way to solve a problem, or anything else.

Hear me out.

If you look at the cat, it’s facing more than one problem. Here are the two main issues:

• It’s too fat.
• It doesn’t fit in its basket.

Now, the real question here isn’t “how should the cat solve its problems?”

No.

The real question is “Which of these problems does the cat actually want to solve?”

And that, right there, is maybe the bigger takeaway.

Specifically, you can’t even begin to solve your problems until you’ve triaged them.

Maybe the cat doesn’t care that it’s too fat — it has accepted the health issues and is comfortable with that.

In that case, shortcut hack solutions to its other problems are perfectly acceptable.

But let’s say the cat does care about being too fat.

In that case, maybe the lifestyle solution is the correct approach.

In other words, you can’t find the right solution until you fully understand and triage your problems.

Oh, and on the topic of solutions to your problems… if you ever find yourself needing a solution to a problem like:

• I need a way to monetize some sports content.
• My current sports monetization solutions aren’t performing.
• etc.

Then you’ll probably find the solution in our full list of the top-performing sportsbook partner programs.

Here’s one example of the hidden gems you might find.

Everygame Affiliate Program: Earn Up to 35% Commissions

__

(Featured image by SevenStorm  via Pexels)

DISCLAIMER: This article was written by a third party contributor and does not reflect the opinion of Born2Invest, its management, staff or its associates. Please review our disclaimer for more information.

This article may include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “believe,” “project,” “estimate,” “become,” “plan,” “will,” and similar expressions, including with regards to potential earnings in the Empire Flippers affiliate program. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks as well as uncertainties, including those discussed in the following cautionary statements and elsewhere in this article and on this site. Although the Company may believe that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, the actual results that the Company may achieve may differ materially from any forward-looking statements, which reflect the opinions of the management of the Company only as of the date hereof. Additionally, please make sure to read these important disclosures.