Across the stadiums and broadcast feeds of this summer’s FIFA World Cup, the tournament’s expanded global reach carried a vast commercial load alongside the football. A University of Bristol and University of Oxford study found almost 6 billion people watched a competition in which branding for unhealthy food, alcohol, betting and speculative products appeared roughly once every seven seconds.
The research counted around 93,000 visible brand placements over 104 matches and 172.6 hours of live action. It examined only logos, pitch-side boards and other advertising embedded in match coverage — exposure viewers could not avoid without looking away from the game — rather than commercials shown before, after or during breaks.
Quick facts
- About 93,000 harmful-product brand appearances were recorded during live World Cup broadcasts.
- Unhealthy food and drink accounted for 65,722 appearances, or 70% of the total.
- Prediction-market branding appeared 9,360 times, alcohol 9,266 times, betting 6,429 times and cryptocurrency 2,632 times.
- Such branding was visible in every match and occupied 39.3 hours of live playing time.
- Four worldwide brands supplied 65% of all recorded harmful-product logos.
The work was carried out using Isambard-AI, the UK’s most powerful supercomputer, based at Bristol. Its findings place unhealthy food and drink well ahead of the other commercial categories counted during the tournament.
A leading soft-drink company had 21,893 logo appearances, the highest figure in the study. A major fast-food chain followed with 13,915, ahead of a sports-drink brand on 12,777 and a crisps brand on 12,087.
Researchers said the concentration of exposure in those four names was striking, particularly given the audience drawn to football among children and young people. Raffaello Rossi, co-director of Bristol’s Gambling Harms Research Centre and a co-author, described the World Cup as an unprecedented advertising platform with particular consequences for younger viewers.
Elisa Becker, a University of Oxford researcher and co-author, argued that sport should help address the international rise in childhood obesity and diet-related illness, rather than act as one of the strongest advertising vehicles for products linked to those problems.
Advertising crosses legal borders
The study also raised concerns over the international distribution of the tournament feed. Branding for alcohol, gambling and prediction markets reached countries where promotion, purchase or use of some of those products is prohibited.
FIFA has technology capable of digitally replacing perimeter advertising so that viewers in different markets receive different commercial messages. The researchers said that system was not used for the World Cup, meaning feeds containing integrated branding were shown in territories where advertised products could be unlawful or restricted.
Rossi said FIFA’s marketing arrangements showed little regard for national laws and licensing frameworks. Around 16,000 betting and prediction-market logos appeared during the event, he said, including in countries where the companies either lacked local licences or had an uncertain legal status.
One heavily promoted betting brand held licences in only about 20 countries, while the World Cup was broadcast in more than 220 territories. In most markets, the study concluded, audiences were therefore shown an operator without a local licence.
The researchers said the issue could have been avoided. UEFA used virtual advertising replacement technology during Euro 2024, they noted, and the study calls on governments and regulators to tighten marketing rules and require its use where necessary.
The central recommendation is aimed at the next generation of football viewers: unhealthy food brands, the authors said, should no longer hold such a prominent place in the sports children follow most closely.
