9 Ads per Minute: FIFA Cup 26 – "the price of the beautiful game"

A new study analyzing the 2026 FIFA World Cup found over 93,000 visible brand appearances promoting unhealthy food and drink, alcohol, gambling, and speculative products across 172.6 hours of live play—equivalent to nine ads per minute that viewers could not avoid without missing the football. Unhealthy food and drink brands dominated, accounting for over 70% of all harmful commodity branding detected, with nearly six billion people globally exposed to this marketing. The research highlights concerns about the health and social impacts of such advertising, particularly on children, given the tournament's unprecedented global reach.