FutureBrand Partners With World Athletics To Create Brand For 2026 Ultimate Championship

The Ultimate Championship brings together world champions, Olympic champions, Wanda Diamond League winners and the year's best performing athletes. It launches in Budapest in 2026, when the world's greatest will settle the debate across three sessions of action from Friday, 11 to Sunday, 13 September, says World Athletics. World Athletics commissions FutureBrand to bring the vision for this event to life, developing the brand strategy, visual and verbal identity and experience.

To ground the brand in audience insight, FutureBrand explores what fundamentally drives people to engage with athletics, how those motivations are evolving and how the competition is uniquely positioned to answer them. This led to the creation of the brand idea 'Class of One': a focus on winning above all else, and the moments that matter most to audiences. It taps into a primal fascination with human performance and aims to set a new blueprint for the future of athletics, says World Athletics. 

The visual identity centres on a logo symbol: the 'Star Flare'. Designed with an aim to be universally recognisable, the star reflects the awe, excellence and positivity of competition, while its form conveys the energy, intensity and drama of athletes in pursuit of excellence. It is composed of three colliding elements, each representing one of the Ultimate Championship's core athletics disciplines: running, jumping and throwing. Its contemporary 3D rendering and dynamic motion behaviours aims to maximise its presence in digital channels, aligning with the progressive nature of the new competition, says World Athlete. The symbol enables a wide range of visual applications across a system of patterns, icons and graphics — each informed by its distinctive character. A monochromatic colour palette is complemented by vibrant gradient accents that mimic the iridescent surface of the hero symbol.

Together, these elements create a visual identity that aims to be distinctive, impactful and celebratory, adds World Athlete. A tone of voice is developed to pair with the visual identity, based on the personality traits 'obsessive', 'audacious' and 'dramatic' — it is designed to give the competition a stronger voice that amplifies love for the sport and makes it more accessible to new audiences, says World Athlete. The project also includes brand experience work — displaying the Ultimate Championship's experience principles, creating audience personas and establishing opportunities for impact across the customer journey, adds World Athlete.

Maria Ramos, Director of Brand and Marketing at World Athletics says, "Our goal was to create a brand that not only energises athletes and fans alike, but also stands apart through its distinctive tone, ambition and vision."

"Collaborating with FutureBrand allowed us to tap into inspiration from both within athletics and far beyond it — bringing fresh perspective and depth to everything we built," concludes Ramos.

For more information, visit worldathletics.org.  You can also follow World Athletics on Facebook, X, Instagram, or on TikTok.

*Image courtesy of contributor