1. Hydration breaks repurposed for advertising
Many commenters argue that the so‑called “hydration break” is merely a tactic to insert more ads, not a genuine player‑need.
- “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…” – serial_dev
- “The World Cup turned it into a farce by making it mandatory even during a rainy 19 degrees weather…” – lbreakjai
2. Pervasive and intrusive advertising in broadcasts
The discussion highlights the sheer volume of branding—ads per minute, logo frequency, hoardings, jerseys, and on‑screen graphics that consume a large share of the view.
- “- 9 ads per minute\n- approx. 1 logo per each 6,7 seconds” – KellyCriterion
- “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).” – rbarrosoPT
3. Financial motives and revenue sharing from events like the US World Cup
Critics point out that lucrative deals (e.g., the US World Cup) enrich FIFA and broadcasters while fans see little benefit, and that taxes/costs erode any profit for participating nations.
- “Sweden cleared $2.5M in profit from their participation, about the same as the previous edition, all the increase was eaten up by the US taxing the teams and higher costs.” – kryptiskt
- “Football fans have shown they're quite eager to tell Infantino where to stick his revenue sharing.” – windward
4. Debate over the effectiveness and value of advertising
A recurring thread questions whether ads actually influence behavior, noting wasted spend, subconscious effects, and the difficulty of measuring true impact.
- “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.” – smallmancontrov
- “If we could truly measure which ads works and which doesn't the entire ad based economy would crash over night.” – mrweasel