How Buffalo Wild Wings owned AI surfaces during the World Cup — ranking #1 in brand visibility across its competitor set without being an official tournament partner.
Ranked #1 across the competitor set on AI-surface answers.
Across all AI-surface questions about where to watch.
BWW for the World Cup, ahead of Dave & Buster's (10.6%) and Tom's Watch Bar (10.3%).
Buffalo Wild Wings wanted to own the conversation when fans asked AI assistants where to watch the World Cup. The catch: BWW was not an official partner and could not mention the competition by name.
As fans increasingly turn to AI assistants — not just search engines — to decide where to go, the brand that shows up in the answer wins the visit. The question was how to become that answer in a category crowded with sports bars and entertainment venues, while working inside strict naming and sponsorship limitations.
Winning here meant getting ahead of the tournament, not reacting to it. The early window — before AI surfaces settled on their default recommendations — was the opportunity.
Intrepid moved before the tournament kicked off — updating content across the site and every location page asset while competitors were still planning. That head start let BWW dominate the early window and claim #1 brand visibility across the competitor set despite the sponsorship limitations.
We refreshed the content on every location page asset so that when fans asked an AI assistant where to catch the matches near them, BWW's locations surfaced as the recommendation — turning a national brand moment into local, near-me visibility at scale.
We built World Cup-specific materials across the site — framed to earn AI citations and answer the questions fans were actually asking, all while respecting the constraint of never naming the tournament directly. The content was engineered to be the source AI assistants pulled from.
Generative Engine Optimization put BWW into the answer itself — not just a search result. The result was #1 brand visibility, 92.3% positive sentiment across AI-surface questions, and a 13.1% top-mention rate that put BWW ahead of Dave & Buster's and Tom's Watch Bar during the tournament window.
"When fans ask an AI where to watch, the brand in the answer wins the night. BWW got there first — and owned the surface."
— Intrepid Digital · Buffalo Wild Wings GEO & Content
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