It's just an ad break, and now that it has been normalized, probably everyone will do it. They should just say directly we have quarters from now on because we want to show you more ads, the most annoying part is this gaslighting, pretending it is for hydration.
Are you going to be leading the campaign to get your national FA to return all of the money it received from the highest-revenue-sharing-ever US World Cup?
Each year, I watch less and less football. In Portugal you have to subscribe 2 or 3 streaming platforms if want to follow the Portuguese League, the Champions League, and eventually other country leagues (like Premier League and La Liga).
Now, we see huge panels (double the height) for ads in stadiums which become very intrusive when watching on TV (20–30% of the screen ends up being used for ads). Added the hydratation->ADs breaks, and increased World Cup tickets insanely.
Football used to be for everyone, now they're are killing it for almost everyone.
Yes, the important hydration break. Because players didn't have ample time to drink something up until now before free kicks, corner kicks etc and during VAR checks every ~ 10 minutes. Glad I stopped watching more than 10 years ago.
A break to drink water is not a new thing in La Liag. It's however only implemented when the temperature reaches a certain threshold (I think 30 degrees but I may be wrong), which I think makes sense and is acceptable.
The World Cup turned it into a farce by making it mandatory even during a rainy 19 degrees weather, or inside climate controlled stadiums.
It's still close to 40 degrees in Sevilla these days.
It was only mandatory so that teams wouldn’t feel like they were disadvantaged if a rival got breaks during games that crossed a set temperature limit and they did not. League game fixtures are so random that this would not be an advantage, but for a short cup tournament like this it could be a big tactical/performance advantage, especially in the knockout phase.
But the problem with marketing and advertising is that it's impossible to know if a campaign will be a hit - a flop - or the butt of jokes from an entire generation (e.g. New Coke, Jaguar 2025; or it may very well just work despite all the industry naysayers like Apple's translucent plastic look from 1998 - I/we felt no-one would ever buy an overpriced and non-expandable PC that looked like a kid's toy, or a loo-seat laptop.
...of course, what actually happens is the strongest personalities in the C-suite eschew what their MBA course taught them about trusting the experts below them in the org chart; instead they champion their own personal pet ideas, no matter how much predictable damage they'll do to the company's share-price, because they couldn't possibly be wrong; he is the CTO, after-all; very smart!
Yes, it could be a mass-delusion drive ad-spend, but I think you're vastly underestimating how much these logos actually go in to "brand recognition".
Next time you walk into your local electronics retailer and look at TVs, you might see a Samsung, LG, HiSense.
Chances are, if not for massive amounts spent on advertising sports, you'd overlook some of these brands in favour of the ones you recognise.
It won't be a conscious, "I saw this during the north London derby so I'll buy it", but subconscious name recognition will have a huge impact on willingness to buy.
The problem is that you have no idea if those ads are working, not really.
Do I go to McDonalds because I saw an ad, or because it 3 minutes away and the kid wants nuggets? Do I shop at my local supermarket because they buy every third ad on YouTube, or because it's the closest? There are a ton of details that influence our daily choices, and I'm not suggesting that ads aren't one of them, but I'm starting to doubt that it's the defining one. When I look at what I buy it's: availability, cost, and specification. There's not a hold lot advertising can do about any of those three.
If we could truly measure which ads works and which doesn't the entire ad based economy would crash over night.
On the contrary: it's because people ignore them so much that motivates those very same brands to constantly push harder, and more obnoxiously, each time major sporting events are on.
Like, what-on-earth was Visa thinking when their sponsorship of the Olympics had all the food-vendors and merch sellers boasting how they were "Proud" to decline payments from customers unless they're using Visa-networked cards[1] - which demonstrates they just can't exercise restraint.
The gambling ads have a conscious effect for me: I think “what a terrible world this portrays, I’m glad I don’t gamble”. For me, being reminded of gambling is just a reminder of the fact that I don’t like gambling. The same is true of some other ads too, they mostly serve to remind me that I define my personality in opposition to these things.
However, I have to presume that the effect is different for at least some other people.
Not at all true. There’s a whole industry around measuring this (e.g. https://www.edo.com). A massive amount of money is spent on advertising for large companies. McD spend ballpark $3bn across the parent and franchisees, they want to make sure they get value.
You can ignore something actively but you are a still picking up on the message of it’s ubiquitousness. I think we have all had the experience of considering buying a {redacted} or something sometime after seeing and ignoring an add for one.
I'm actually surprised it's only that many ads? How can people even take a screenshot of the screen without a bunch of ads on it? You can't even take a look at a player, there jersey has basically ads on it, the ball, the shoes, the names of stadiums... Or do they not count the adidas/nike/reebok logos?
The jersey thing is completely insane to me. I'm from North America where jerseys are largely NBA, NHL and MLB. No ads (although, NHL has started). But the euro jersey has the biggest ad dead fucking center.
I understand the concept that the kit colours is what identifies the team, but still, I can't justify wearing a giant advertisement. If you gave it to me, I'd refuse it. Fuck you, pay me.
Our findings reveal the sheer scale of branding embedded throughout tournament broadcasts, making exposure to unhealthy food, alcohol and gambling brands both omnipresent and unavoidable for viewers.
Do we really need an academic study to tell us that yes, there were ads on the sides of the football pitch at the World Cup, and that FIFA's choice of sponsors is questionable (but hey, questionable sponsors pay better than less questionable ones)?
To quote one of my teachers, "you may read the Constitution and think it's all obvious, that it's like writing a law that says people need air to live. The problem is, if you don't explicitly write it down someone may actually try to steal the air".
I didn't need someone to tell me that FIFA is full of ads. But studies like this provide a precise, measurable target to work with.
Worked on the ad insertion side for a league feed once, and hydration breaks exist because they're the only reliably schedulable stop in a 45 minute half.
Most comments may have ignored this so far, but this is an interesting AI based research.
At the end of the article is this excerpt
> Results from this research were generated using an AI computer vision model developed by the research team on Bristol’s Isambard-AI, the UK’s most powerful AI supercomputer. Isambard-AI powered the analysis of 172.6 hours of live match footage from all 104 games played between 11 June and 19 July 2026.
So, basically now merchandizers, auditors, compliance monitors, etc. have a tool using which they can quantify whether broadcaster complied with contractual requirements of showing their ads/merch/logos as per contract. And if they missed, then they can quantify the delta - to sue the broadcaster for the balance as well.
Also, it can enable many countries, where certain content is not allowed, then this tool can simply give them data points without having to employ someone, or have someone review the output of the AI tooling.
If I were to watch FIFA-controlled content, I would be annoyed about this.
Also, if I were not use heroic ad-blockers. But as I neither watch
FIFA's money laundering scheme nor its ad-pester business (all gets
blocked here without mercy), it does not affect me in the slightest.
Hopefully these clowns pay proper taxes to aid everyone, but I bet
they park their money in offshore areas anway.
- 9 ads per minute
- approx. 1 logo per each 6,7 seconds
And it seems the "hydration break" has been adopted by La Liga.
It's just an ad break, and now that it has been normalized, probably everyone will do it. They should just say directly we have quarters from now on because we want to show you more ads, the most annoying part is this gaslighting, pretending it is for hydration.
Yep. US World Cup ruined it for the rest of us :(
Are you going to be leading the campaign to get your national FA to return all of the money it received from the highest-revenue-sharing-ever US World Cup?
Football fans have shown they're quite eager to tell Infantino where to stick his revenue sharing.
It earned the most money, but was it the most sharing? The hosting cities were taken advantage of and clubs are in fact rebelling against fifa now.
Each year, I watch less and less football. In Portugal you have to subscribe 2 or 3 streaming platforms if want to follow the Portuguese League, the Champions League, and eventually other country leagues (like Premier League and La Liga).
Now, we see huge panels (double the height) for ads in stadiums which become very intrusive when watching on TV (20–30% of the screen ends up being used for ads). Added the hydratation->ADs breaks, and increased World Cup tickets insanely.
Football used to be for everyone, now they're are killing it for almost everyone.
Yes, the important hydration break. Because players didn't have ample time to drink something up until now before free kicks, corner kicks etc and during VAR checks every ~ 10 minutes. Glad I stopped watching more than 10 years ago.
and the Italian league.
honestly I think it's not a bad move - as it allows for tactical flexibility.
A break to drink water is not a new thing in La Liag. It's however only implemented when the temperature reaches a certain threshold (I think 30 degrees but I may be wrong), which I think makes sense and is acceptable.
The World Cup turned it into a farce by making it mandatory even during a rainy 19 degrees weather, or inside climate controlled stadiums.
It's still close to 40 degrees in Sevilla these days.
It was only mandatory so that teams wouldn’t feel like they were disadvantaged if a rival got breaks during games that crossed a set temperature limit and they did not. League game fixtures are so random that this would not be an advantage, but for a short cup tournament like this it could be a big tactical/performance advantage, especially in the knockout phase.
I think people simply ignore the banners and logos all around so its not that much of a problem
They clearly don't, otherwise it wouldn't generate so much advertising revenue.
That assumes advertisers are correctly measuring the impact of their ads. They could just be wrong.
If you invest millions, you make sure that being wrong is a very tiny probability.
And as a provider of advertisement surfaces you have every incentive to oversell the reach of your surfaces.
That doesn't match the behavior I've observed from large corporations.
VC firms batting at such a small rate.
"I am convinced that about one-half the money I spend for advertising is wasted, but I have never been able to decide which half."
That's the ideal, yes.
But the problem with marketing and advertising is that it's impossible to know if a campaign will be a hit - a flop - or the butt of jokes from an entire generation (e.g. New Coke, Jaguar 2025; or it may very well just work despite all the industry naysayers like Apple's translucent plastic look from 1998 - I/we felt no-one would ever buy an overpriced and non-expandable PC that looked like a kid's toy, or a loo-seat laptop.
...of course, what actually happens is the strongest personalities in the C-suite eschew what their MBA course taught them about trusting the experts below them in the org chart; instead they champion their own personal pet ideas, no matter how much predictable damage they'll do to the company's share-price, because they couldn't possibly be wrong; he is the CTO, after-all; very smart!
Yes, it could be a mass-delusion drive ad-spend, but I think you're vastly underestimating how much these logos actually go in to "brand recognition".
Next time you walk into your local electronics retailer and look at TVs, you might see a Samsung, LG, HiSense.
Chances are, if not for massive amounts spent on advertising sports, you'd overlook some of these brands in favour of the ones you recognise.
It won't be a conscious, "I saw this during the north London derby so I'll buy it", but subconscious name recognition will have a huge impact on willingness to buy.
Right, you won't buy a GHTESKJVFII even if it happens to be the best product
The problem is that you have no idea if those ads are working, not really.
Do I go to McDonalds because I saw an ad, or because it 3 minutes away and the kid wants nuggets? Do I shop at my local supermarket because they buy every third ad on YouTube, or because it's the closest? There are a ton of details that influence our daily choices, and I'm not suggesting that ads aren't one of them, but I'm starting to doubt that it's the defining one. When I look at what I buy it's: availability, cost, and specification. There's not a hold lot advertising can do about any of those three.
If we could truly measure which ads works and which doesn't the entire ad based economy would crash over night.
On the contrary: it's because people ignore them so much that motivates those very same brands to constantly push harder, and more obnoxiously, each time major sporting events are on.
Like, what-on-earth was Visa thinking when their sponsorship of the Olympics had all the food-vendors and merch sellers boasting how they were "Proud" to decline payments from customers unless they're using Visa-networked cards[1] - which demonstrates they just can't exercise restraint.
[1]: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2012/07... - Visa's official slogan really was “We are proud to accept only Visa.”
Meta/Snap should make AR-glasses that block out ads.
If only they were not glorified ad companies themselves...
I am sure you are aware that on a subconscious level the ads have an impact on you, even if you think you are actively “ignoring” them
The gambling ads have a conscious effect for me: I think “what a terrible world this portrays, I’m glad I don’t gamble”. For me, being reminded of gambling is just a reminder of the fact that I don’t like gambling. The same is true of some other ads too, they mostly serve to remind me that I define my personality in opposition to these things.
However, I have to presume that the effect is different for at least some other people.
Not at all true. There’s a whole industry around measuring this (e.g. https://www.edo.com). A massive amount of money is spent on advertising for large companies. McD spend ballpark $3bn across the parent and franchisees, they want to make sure they get value.
The worst part is, the value they get (monies) is not the same value you get (worse health all over).
You can ignore something actively but you are a still picking up on the message of it’s ubiquitousness. I think we have all had the experience of considering buying a {redacted} or something sometime after seeing and ignoring an add for one.
People don't ignore anything. Everything is absorbed one way or another.
For many this was their first opportunity to invest in binary event contracts, so this is a win for financial liferacy
*literacy?
this is funny on multiple levels.
I'm actually surprised it's only that many ads? How can people even take a screenshot of the screen without a bunch of ads on it? You can't even take a look at a player, there jersey has basically ads on it, the ball, the shoes, the names of stadiums... Or do they not count the adidas/nike/reebok logos?
Hoardings is UK English (so... English) for the advertising boards around a football pitch
The jersey thing is completely insane to me. I'm from North America where jerseys are largely NBA, NHL and MLB. No ads (although, NHL has started). But the euro jersey has the biggest ad dead fucking center.
I understand the concept that the kit colours is what identifies the team, but still, I can't justify wearing a giant advertisement. If you gave it to me, I'd refuse it. Fuck you, pay me.
Do we really need an academic study to tell us that yes, there were ads on the sides of the football pitch at the World Cup, and that FIFA's choice of sponsors is questionable (but hey, questionable sponsors pay better than less questionable ones)?
To quote one of my teachers, "you may read the Constitution and think it's all obvious, that it's like writing a law that says people need air to live. The problem is, if you don't explicitly write it down someone may actually try to steal the air".
I didn't need someone to tell me that FIFA is full of ads. But studies like this provide a precise, measurable target to work with.
also in the thread about OONI censorship measuring program people said they don't need a study to know China censors the internet
Marketing, the great value siphon. Marketing adds NOTHING of value of the world.
Product discoverability has some value, but marketing is largely a zero sum game.
Worked on the ad insertion side for a league feed once, and hydration breaks exist because they're the only reliably schedulable stop in a 45 minute half.
It's not only the World Cup, it's everything, everywhere, all the time. We are drowning in marketing messages. It's gross.
AR glasses with ad blocking would be a must-buy for me…though how would I learn about it?
Seems like a good feature for AirPods too, though the new CEO Ternus seems committed to the opposite.
Most comments may have ignored this so far, but this is an interesting AI based research.
At the end of the article is this excerpt
So, basically now merchandizers, auditors, compliance monitors, etc. have a tool using which they can quantify whether broadcaster complied with contractual requirements of showing their ads/merch/logos as per contract. And if they missed, then they can quantify the delta - to sue the broadcaster for the balance as well.
Also, it can enable many countries, where certain content is not allowed, then this tool can simply give them data points without having to employ someone, or have someone review the output of the AI tooling.
I'm sure this was already easily doable for years by using plain and boring computer vision
TIL that Fifa made a movie that had the worst US box office of an movie ever, taking $918 in its opening weekend.
If I were to watch FIFA-controlled content, I would be annoyed about this.
Also, if I were not use heroic ad-blockers. But as I neither watch FIFA's money laundering scheme nor its ad-pester business (all gets blocked here without mercy), it does not affect me in the slightest. Hopefully these clowns pay proper taxes to aid everyone, but I bet they park their money in offshore areas anway.