A new study says FIFA’s World Cup 26 featured harmful product advertising at a rate of roughly 9 ads per minute of live play, with unhealthy food and drink brands dominating sponsorship across broadcasts in the UK and beyond.
The research was led by the University of Bristol in collaboration with the University of Oxford. The team used the UK’s most powerful supercomputer, Isambard-AI, based at University of Bristol, to analyse all 172.6 hours of live play across the 104 matches.
The Numbers Behind the Ads
The team estimated 267 billion impressions of harmful product advertising across the UK’s 53 broadcasts. Harmful product branding appeared in every match and was visible during 39.3 hours of live play.
Unhealthy food and drink brands dominated sponsorship, covering more than seven in ten (70.4%) of all branding detected. Prediction markets appeared 9,360 times, alcohol 9,266, gambling 6,429 and cryptocurrency 2,632.
| Brand | Logo Count | Share of Total |
|---|---|---|
| A familiar soft drink brand | 21,893 | 1st |
| A fast-food chain | 13,915 | 2nd |
| A sports drink brand | 12,777 | 3rd |
| A crisps brand | 12,087 | 4th |
| Together | 65% of all harmful commodity logos |
Those four brands accounted for 65% of all harmful commodity logos.
What FIFA Did and Didn’t Do
FIFA’s match footage with embedded advertising was shared with broadcasters worldwide. FIFA did not use virtual board replacement technology which would allow different advertising in different countries.
One gambling brand listed licences in around 20 countries while the World Cup was broadcast across more than 220 territories. FIFA’s commercial model failed to account for national laws governing harmful commodities.
The study’s co-author, Dr Raffaello Rossi, said the platform was “unparalleled” for advertising exposure.
The Case Against Live Broadcast Sponsorship
Dr Elisa Becker said sport “should be part of the solution to poor health – not one of the world’s most powerful advertising platforms for the products driving it.”
Beth Bradshaw of the Obesity Health Alliance called the research a “major loophole” in protecting children from unhealthy marketing.
The researchers urge FIFA to adopt an independently developed public interest standard for commercial partnerships and to use existing technology to remove or replace banned branding.
What Happens Next
The researchers call for marketing rules to apply to embedded branding in live sports broadcasts. UEFA EURO 2024 previously allows different pitchside advertising in different countries.
The study’s call on FIFA is specific: adopt an independently developed public interest standard, and use existing technology to remove or replace banned branding.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs narrow rules against direct harm, such as forcing companies to disclose safety failures they hid, and is against broad rules that hand the market to the incumbents. FIFA’s World Cup 26 sponsors, from unhealthy food and drink brands to gambling and cryptocurrency, appear through every minute of broadcast football. The companies behind them are not hiding their failures — they are paying for them to be seen. The paper opposes letting big companies hide their failures, and it opposes giving FIFA the power to regulate live embedded advertising across the globe.
The study shows a remarkable concentration of sponsorship in just a few brands, with one familiar soft drink brand and a fast-food chain alone accounting for more than a third of all harmful commodity logos. FIFA’s decision to share match footage with embedded advertising worldwide, without virtual board replacement technology, means the same harmful branding is visible across more than 220 territories while one gambling brand holds licences in only around 20 countries. That is the danger of incumbency, not the technology itself. The paper’s position is against federal regulation of embedded advertising that freezes today’s leaders in place and locks out whoever would have challenged them.
FIFA should adopt an independently developed public interest standard for commercial partnerships, and it should use existing technology to remove or replace banned branding. The researchers’ call is specific and sensible. The paper wants FIFA to be part of the solution to poor health, not one of the world’s most powerful advertising platforms for the products driving it.
Key Facts
- 267 billion impressions of harmful product advertising
- 39.3 hours of visible branding across 172.6 hours of live play
- 9,360 prediction market appearances
- 9,266 alcohol appearances
- 6,429 gambling appearances
- 2,632 cryptocurrency appearances
- 16,000 gambling and prediction markets logos total
The researchers have made their case. FIFA’s response is not known at this time.
Source material: “9 Ads per Minute: FIFA Cup 26 – "the price of the beautiful game",” bristol.ac.uk.
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