Steve Dempsey

IT’S BEEN A pretty good World Cup. Most of the matches have had a carnival atmosphere. There have been few drab nil all draws, the fans have been colourful and in celebratory mode.

But there’s also been plenty to give out about. Fifa president Gianni Infantino, the Mekon of football, has been ubiquitous. The US president tried to meddle in Florian Balogun’s red card. And you could argue that Argentina had a very easy ride to the final. Then there’s the hydration breaks. 

Last December Fifa announced these breaks midway through each half as a player welfare initiative.

“Players at the FIFA World Cup 2026™ will benefit from three-minute hydration breaks in each half of games as FIFA prioritises player welfare,” they said.

So player safety is to the fore here. Perhaps Gianni Infantino got the idea by rewatching Ireland’s game against Mexico in USA 94, where temperatures in Florida hit 43 degrees and players were barred from drinking bottled water. 

But shock horror! There is a commercial upside to this player safety initiative, that Fifa never mentioned when it was talking about the need for players to stay hydrated in extreme heat.

Broadcasters have the ability to use this time to cut to commercials. These ad breaks can start 20 seconds after the referee blows the whistle for the break and have to end 30 seconds before the action starts again.

The maths

That’s about four minutes of additional ad time per match, or 416 minutes of additional ad time over the duration of the whole World Cup. It’s an advertising goldmine. And an act of commercial alchemy: Fifa has made ad slots where none existed before. 

How much is this goldmine worth? Well, in America, Fox which is the sole broadcaster is estimated to bring in about $250 million in ad revenue for these entirely new commercial breaks. This would cover more than half of the $485 million Fox paid for the broadcasting rights. It will also make the rights for the next tournament that has water breaks far more valuable.

Purists are up in arms. So too are some players and managers.

“Playing four periods instead of two alters the culturally constructed conception of how to interpret football,” said Uruguay’s coach Marcelo Bielsa.

Mauricio Pochettino, the US coach said that hydration breaks weren’t needed at all matches, and should also be used “when the conditions are extreme”.

Arsenal and Germany midfielder Kai Havertz said: “They’re usually annoying, especially when you’ve just had two or three good situations and feel your flow is being interrupted.”

But come on, what did we expect from a mostly American World Cup?

For decades, American sport hasn’t just been funded by advertising. It has been shaped by it. Television didn’t just buy the rights to broadcast games; it changed how those games were shown.

Timeouts, replay reviews, and a whole heap of other stoppages all created predictable commercial opportunities. Stadium names became sponsorship deals. Half-time became an entertainment show. Even betting odds became part of the broadcast. The commercial break stopped being something that happened around the sport and sewn into the fabric of the sport itself. It’s America Baby!

In this way, the hydration break isn’t really a commercial innovation, it’s an inevitable next step. But it’s also advertising genius to realise that the 90 uninterrupted minutes of football represented one of the last pieces of commercially unclaimed real estate in modern media.

Geographical lottery

The question is, will it become standard? The answer probably depends on what you’re watching and where you’re watching it.

Big summertime Fifa tournaments, such as world cups and world club cups, are likely to include additional breaks going forward. Broadcasters in markets where ad interruptions are rife, are likely to roll them out without a second thought.

Broadcasters serving audiences used to, and who expect 45 mins of uninterrupted football, may need to train their viewers to accept ads. But be under no illusions: train them they will.

Will this also be the case in national leagues and cup competitions? Will mid-winter Champions League matches in eastern Europe feature extra ad breaks, dressed up as hydration breaks?

Will Premier League matches include water breaks? This seems less likely in the short to medium term. It’s just not hot enough. Perhaps the weather is the only thing that will keep football a game of two halves? 

While the hydration breaks may be irritating for European audiences, they may be a good thing for the game globally. They make broadcasting rights far more attractive, and therefore could make the game more visible in markets where it’s second fiddle to other sports. Undoubtedly, this was a consideration for Gianni Infantino and the Fifa suits.

But perhaps Infantino’s inspiration didn’t come from a desire to grow the game’s popularity, or from watching Steve Staunton melt in the Florida heat in 1994. Perhaps his inspiration came from another sporting innovator: Brian O’Driscoll.

O’Driscoll performed a similar act of commercial alchemy when he created a commercial opportunity where none previously existed by chugging down Powerade during post-match interviews after mid-2000s rugby tests.

Looks good, Infantino must have thought, I’ll have some of that! Game recognises game.

Steve Dempsey is a media and technology expert and commentator.