Researchers from the universities of Bristol and Oxford counted more than 93,000 on-screen appearances of brands associated with unhealthy food and drink, alcohol, gambling, prediction markets and cryptocurrency during coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Their analysis covered 172.6 hours of live play across all 104 matches and found such branding in every game.
The study focused on advertising embedded in match footage, including pitchside displays, rather than commercials shown during breaks. Harmful-product branding was visible for 39.3 hours, close to a quarter of the live action, meaning viewers could not avoid all of it without missing play. Researchers used Isambard-AI, a University of Bristol-based supercomputer, to analyse the footage.
Unhealthy food and drink dominated the results with 65,722 appearances, or 70.4 per cent of the total. The team also recorded 9,360 appearances for prediction markets, 9,266 for alcohol, 6,429 for gambling and 2,632 for cryptocurrency. Four large brands—a soft-drink producer, fast-food chain, sports-drink maker and crisp brand—collectively accounted for 65 per cent of the harmful-product logos detected.
For Britain, the researchers estimated that the branding produced 267 billion impressions across 53 broadcasts for which audience information was available. That figure represents repeated opportunities for logos to be seen, not 267 billion individual viewers. FIFA separately reported that almost six billion people worldwide engaged with the tournament and that broadcast records were broken in more than 30 countries.
The authors are particularly concerned that the same embedded footage reached territories with different restrictions on alcohol, gambling and prediction-market promotion. Their report says one heavily advertised gambling operator listed licences in about 20 countries even though the tournament was shown in more than 220 territories. The study argues that virtual advertising technology could have replaced pitchside branding for particular markets; similar systems had previously been used at UEFA Euro 2024.
Researchers called for national advertising rules to cover commercial branding within live sport and for penalties when those requirements are breached. They also urged FIFA to adopt an independently designed public-interest standard for sponsorship and to replace branding where a product cannot legally be advertised or offered.
The report links its concerns to existing evidence that marketing can influence consumption of unhealthy products, alcohol and gambling, particularly among children and young people. Its observational count does not by itself measure whether a particular viewer changed behaviour after seeing a logo. Instead, it documents the scale and persistence of exposure during one of the world's most watched sporting events.
The findings place technology at the centre of both the problem and a possible remedy: automated analysis revealed how frequently branding entered the broadcast, while virtual-board systems could tailor what audiences see. The policy dispute is whether organisers and regulators will require that capability to be used when global sponsorship deals collide with local health rules and licensing regimes.
