Expected Jinx strikes Gold
Xbox’s Expected Jinx campaign, powered by Opta data, wins Gold in Data and Silver in Social at the Creativepool Annual 2026.
Award-winning brand creativity, powered by Opta
Xbox’s Expected Jinx campaign, created with Stats Perform and powered by Opta data, has won Gold in Data and Silver in Social at the Creativepool Annual 2026
Finding an authentic place in football fan culture
Finding an authentic place in football fan culture
Football is one of the world’s most crowded spaces for brands. Xbox wanted to strengthen its association with EA Sports FC by doing more than simply showing up around the game – it wanted to earn an authentic place in football fan culture.
The idea came from something every supporter understands: superstition.
The same shirt. The same seat. The same pre-match routine. Because somewhere in the back of every fan’s mind is the question:
Am I the jinx?
Xbox saw an opportunity to turn that universal fan behaviour into something supporters could actually measure.
Turning superstition into a statistic fans could trust
Working with Stats Perform, Xbox created Expected Jinx (xJ), a new football metric powered by Opta Live Win Probability data.
For more than 30 years, Opta has helped shape how football is understood and talked about through data, from expected goals (xG) to win probability and momentum.
Expected Jinx took that trusted data foundation somewhere completely new: football superstition.
Fans entered the matches they had watched or attended and received a personalised xJ score, revealing whether they appeared to bring their team luck – or whether they might be better off staying away.
It transformed a familiar fan belief into something measurable, personal and shareable – giving Xbox a new way to become part of the football conversation.
Expected Jinx in action
See how Xbox brought Expected Jinx to life, turning Opta data and football superstition into a personalised fan experience.
Turning trusted data into fan engagement
From xG to xJ, Opta has helped shape the language of football. For Expected Jinx, we created a new metric for the fans themselves – turning football superstition into something measurable, shareable and uniquely personal.
138 million
Social impressions
8.5 Million
Content views
46k
Engagements
110
pieces of earned media coverage
From fan engagement to brand impact
The campaign didn’t just capture attention. It changed how people felt about Xbox and delivered measurable commercial results.
By creating something genuinely rooted in football fan culture, Expected Jinx helped Xbox turn engagement into stronger brand connection and, ultimately, commercial impact.
8%
Increase in Xbox brand fame
27% → 36%
Increase in popularity
88%
Positive sentiment
15%
Sales above forecast
What can your brand create with Opta?
For more than 30 years, Opta has helped shape how fans understand and talk about sport. Today, that trusted data can do much more than tell the story of what happens on the pitch.
It can become part of the creative idea itself.
From new metrics and personalised fan experiences to live content, predictions, graphics and social storytelling, Opta can help brands turn sports data into experiences fans want to engage with.
Expected Jinx is one example of what happens when trusted data, creativity and fan culture come together.
