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Are football matches played in four phases?
Hydration periods are no longer a short break during which players catch their breath and replace lost fluids in high temperatures. Rather, at the 2026 World Cup, they have become one of the most influential decisions about the future of the game from an economic and commercial perspective.
What began as a medical procedure to protect players from heat stress became the focus of a global debate within weeks, from stadiums to broadcasting companies and fans to major advertisers, after those few minutes opened the door to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
For the first time, football, which has always suffered from a lack of advertising opportunities during matches due to non-stop play, found valuable commercial space in the match itself, prompting many pundits to describe the decision as the biggest economic change in the history of the World Cup tournament in decades.
A medical procedure…and unprecedented economic results
The decision by Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to standardize wet periods at all 2026 World Cup matches comes in response to the climate in which the tournament is played, particularly with the US, Mexico and Canada hosting the competition in the summer, when temperatures rise in many host cities.
Accordingly, the matches were stopped approximately twice, the first after the 22nd minute and the second after the 67th minute, for about three minutes each time, with the aim of giving the players a chance to drink water and recuperate.
Although the medical rationale seemed logical and was widely supported by experts, the real impact came outside the green rectangle, after those minutes turned into a valuable advertising window never before seen in football.
The decision was not without criticism, as many saw the periods as affecting the rhythm of the matches and reducing the viewing pleasure, according to reports. newspaper”Brand:“Spanish.
France coach Didier Deschamps was one of the most prominent critics when he said that stopping the match for three minutes stops everything on the pitch.
He emphasized that the real beneficiary is the field of football and advertising, to the extent that it seems that instead of two halves, the games are played in four halves.
Deschamps’ comments reflect growing fears that commercial considerations are gradually affecting the format of the game itself.
Football uncovers a new advertising treasure
For decades, football has been more problematic for advertisers than sports like basketball or American football because of the scarcity of natural pauses in the game.
Now, wet periods have become the first fixed, regulated advertising space during game time, allowing broadcast networks to sell new advertising at very high prices, as has been the case for many years in the American Basketball League.
Sports media analysts believe that this move changed the nature of the football television product and increased its commercial value to an unprecedented degree.
Data from iSpot, published by Forbes magazine, reveals the extent of the changes in the current tournament in the television advertising market.
The 2022 World Cup in Qatar, held during the major American sports season, has a share of just 2.77% of live TV advertising in the US. In the 2026 edition, this percentage has increased to 13%, a huge increase that reflects the expansion of the tournament’s advertising presence.
Two main factors contributed to this. the first increased the number of games from 64 to 104 after expanding the tournament to 48 teams, and the second introduced wet periods, which created hundreds of additional minutes for commercials, resulting in a doubling of US television commercial viewership compared to the previous version.
Standard advertising rates
This has not been limited to the US but European markets as well. In France, the price of a 20-second TV ad during one of the damping periods reached around 425,000 euros, making it the second most expensive ad time in the game after extra time or penalty shootouts.
It was no surprise that major FIFA sponsors such as Coca-Cola and Aramco were prioritized in buying these high-value advertising spaces.
On the other hand, comparisons show a clear difference between major tournaments. Although the Paris Olympics included 84 official sponsors, only 30 of them were clearly visible during the broadcast, while the World Cup, despite its longer duration, relied on only 21 sponsors, but they received a more intense and influential media and advertising presence.
The American network Fox was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new system. The network won the rights to broadcast the 2022 and 2026 tournaments at lower-than-expected prices due to the World Cup in Qatar being held during the American Football League season, which reduced the value of the rights at the time.
But the 2026 tournament changed the equation completely. According to a report published by The Hollywood Reporter, prices for a 30-second TV ad during World Cup games range from $200,000 to $750,000.
With 104 matchups and two halftimes per game, the total stoppage time was about 624 minutes, which is advertising space that could be worth more than $500 million, more than the network paid for broadcast rights of $485 million.
Broadcast rights are entering a new phase
The commercial success of Humidifiers changed the market’s perception of World Cup broadcast rights. Forbes estimates that the value of the rights in the United States could start at $1 billion in the next bidding cycle, and could reach $1.5 billion to $2 billion if the 2030 and 2034 tournaments are sold in one deal.
Notably, companies that had not previously competed for football broadcasting rights began to show an obvious interest in entering the market, such as Netflix, YouTube, Apple, Amazon, Disney and ESPN, after the current tournament proved that football can generate huge advertising revenues thanks to the damping-off system.
Not all television networks have adopted the same approach in exploiting these periods. In the US, the Fox network chose to invest every minute of airtime in broadcasting commercials, while the Spanish-language network Telemundo chose to continue to broadcast what was happening inside the stadium, which produced better viewing rates among some fans.
This difference led to a clear disagreement between the two networks, prompting FIFA to explore merging English and Spanish broadcast rights in future tournaments to avoid a repeat of this discrepancy.
In Europe, DAZN, TVE, M6 and beIN Sports took advantage of commercial slots, while other networks such as Britain’s ITV and Brazil’s Globo, in addition to German broadcasters ARD and ZDF, refused to interrupt live broadcasts with commercials due to regulatory restrictions or to respect the traditions of televised games.
Spain is waiting… Will the model become global?
Interest in Spain’s World Cup rights is clearly changing. After the cost of the tournament became a barrier for many channels, the availability of a new advertising platform became an important economic attraction.
Spanish broadcaster RTVE paid around €57 million for a limited package of matches, while platform DAZN won the rights to broadcast all 104 matches of the tournament through a comprehensive agreement, without disclosing their cost.
Sources at the platform confirmed that the financial results were in line with the expectations on which the feasibility study was based, raising the possibility of a significant increase in rights prices before Spain hosts the 2030 World Cup.
So far, UEFA has confirmed that it does not intend to implement the system of advertising periods in the Champions League or the European Nations Championship.
But indications from South America suggest the practice could be extended to other competitions, after the South American Football Confederation announced the adoption of 90-second water breaks for the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana from 2026.
This shows that what started as a way to protect the health of the players can gradually turn into a new economic model that has been adopted by various world championships, especially with the great commercial success achieved in the World Cup.
After all, the damping off periods are a prime example of how a simple medical decision turned into a huge economic turnaround, reshaping the relationship between football and advertising, raising the value of broadcast rights to unprecedented levels and opening up the entry of new players to the television broadcasting market.
Between those who see it as a need to protect players and those who see it as the beginning of commercial considerations overriding the spirit of the game, it remains certain that football has already entered a new phase that could reshape its future for many years to come.
