As the FIFA World Cup frenzy came and went, we wondered how this soccer craze affected reading behaviour in Canada.
To start, we looked at search trends to get a sense for the interest in soccer books amongst Canadians over the last five World Cups. These took place over 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022, and 2026. As shown in the graph below, we can see, between the last World Cup and this one, there has been a steady growth in frequency of Canadian searches for soccer books, signifying a consistently growing interest in the subject matter.
Sales of soccer-related titles in the Canadian market
Using SalesData, which represents 85% of physical English-language trade book sales in Canada, we then looked at how the sales for titles under categories relating to soccer have been doing in each major category. The BISAC codes we looked at are:
- Juvenile / Juvenile Fiction / Sports & Recreation / Soccer
- Juvenile / Juvenile Nonfiction / Sports & Recreation / Soccer
- Non-Fiction / Sports & Recreation / Soccer
- Non-Fiction / Sports & Recreation / Coaching / Soccer
- Young Adult / Young Adult Nonfiction / Sports & Recreation / Soccer
- Young Adult / Young Adult Fiction / Sports & Recreation / Soccer
As shown below, the soccer category to experience the most dramatic growth in sales has been the Juvenile category. We can also see varying popularity for Non-Fiction titles and a slight growth in soccer-related titles under the Young Adult category during the last year.
To get a more in-depth understanding of how this growing excitement around the World Cup impacted the Juvenile category over the year, we zoomed in to this category to look at sales between January and July of 2026.
As shown in the graph below, we can see a drastic increase in sales of Juvenile Fiction / Sports & Recreation / Soccer titles in 2026 when compared to 2025. Sales see a consistent incline from February, climbing to the peak in July.
This category had a staggering 2,758% increase in year-over-year sales during July 2026.
Similarly, Juvenile Nonfiction titles steadily grew in sales, peaking in June 2026, before dropping slightly in July. For this category, there was a 744% increase in sales year-over-year during July 2026.
Top selling
- The Academy by T.Z. Layton
- The Academy II: The Journey by T.Z. Layton
- The Academy III: Tournament of Champions by T.Z. Layton
- The Academy VI: Rise of the Scorpions by T.Z. Layton
- The Academy IV: Title Fight by T.Z. Layton
Borrowing of soccer-related titles in the Canadian market
When we looked at the same BISAC codes using LibraryData, which collects weekly circulation data from over 85 public library systems across Canada representing approximately 25% of the Canadian English-language population, we saw similar interest in Juvenile soccer titles. In Canadian libraries, loans for this category climbed from 2019 to 2023 before the growth stabilized slightly between 2023 and 2025. Though it looks as though it has picked up in 2026.
When we take a closer look at loans of Juvenile titles between January and July 2026 as compared to the same timeframe in 2025, we see that while the sales start off at a similar point at the beginning of the year, loans grew significantly towards the summer when compared to the last year.
While renewals see a similar trend in growth as loans, Juvenile titles are still the most popular, we can also see a bigger spike in growth for Non-Fiction titles.
This increase in loans is most dramatic between May and July 2026. For year-over-year sales, loans experienced its highest growth of 155% during June of 2026.
For Juvenile Nonfiction / Sports & Recreation / Soccer titles, loans started off lower than they did in 2025, before starting a climb in March and really taking off between May to July 2026. Similar to the Fiction category, loans increased the most in June 2026, going up by 235%.
Top borrowed
- Curious George Plays Soccer by H. A. Rey
- Soccer on Sunday by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca
- Eyewitness Soccer by DK
- Lucy Tries Soccer by Lisa Bowes đ and James Hearne đ
- The Academy III: Tournament of Champions by T. Z. Layton
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Until next time!
