This research report examines the advertising of harmful products during the live broadcasts of the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup football tournament. Data was collected on advertising for unhealthy food and beverages, alcohol, gambling, prediction markets, and cryptocurrencies. The researchers developed an AI computer vision model to analyse all 104 matches.
Findings include:
- 93,409 harmful commodity logos were detected (equivalent to 9 logos per minute), visible during 22.8% of broadcasts.
- 70.4% of all harmful logos were for unhealthy food and beverage brands, the most common product detected.
- Gambling branding was seen by people in countries where the the operator was not licensed or where commercial online gambling was illegal.
Recommendations include:
- Ensure live sport advertising is covered by marketing regulation.
- Adopt an independent public interest standard for advertising in live sport.
- Use technology that allows the removal or replacement of branding where products or services cannot be legally advertised or offered.
