Even in the context of a World Cup not exactly short on controversy, the so-called hydration breaks mandated by FIFA have caused an outsized uproar.
World soccer’s governing body announced in December last year that every match at the 2026 World Cup would include a hydration break at the mid-point of each half, effectively dividing games into quarters.
Fox, the English-language broadcasters of the tournament in the United States, have been one of the biggest beneficiaries of hydration breaks, which have allowed them to smuggle in more adverts.
One study suggests that Fox are likely to have extracted at least $250m in extra advertising revenue in the six minutes across both hydration breaks, potentially as high as $600m. For a TV deal that cost $485m, that is an extraordinary upside.
Fans, unsurprisingly, are almost universally opposed, seeing it as a cash grab by FIFA and broadcasters alike that disrupts the flow of a momentum-based sport. The breaks are roundly booed in-stadium.
But for fans worried that hydration breaks could make their way into the next World Cup and perhaps even the domestic game, there has been a worrying development.
World Cup hydration breaks barely impacting viewing figures
If viewers do not want hydration breaks at the 2030 World Cup in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, they might be advised to ‘vote with their feet’, so to speak.
As long as FIFA thinks the audience will stay with them, they will happily accommodate broadcasters’ demands for more advertising space, which inflates the price of TV deals, the organisation’s single biggest revenue stream at a projected $3.9bn over the course of the current four-year cycle.
But new research from Octagon, a sports media consultancy, suggests that hydration breaks are barely affecting viewing figures.
According to their data, World Cup matches lost only two to three per cent of their total viewership during hydration breaks, which is nothing compared to the 14 per cent lost at the half-time interval.
Fox has been airing full-screen adverts during the breaks, as opposed to in other markets where a less intrusive split-screen approach has been adopted.
In the UK and other European markets, by contrast, broadcasters are staying with the ‘action’ (or, indeed, lack thereof) entirely, using it as an opportunity for pundits to give more analysis.
While hydration breaks are, for now, a one-off at this World Cup, commentators such as soccer finance expert Professor Kieran Maguire warn about the dangers of mission creep.
He told HITC:“I suspect it will now be a case of who blinks first. I don’t think the Premier League will be a leader in having hydration breaks – but they will be more than happy to be a follower.”
