Why the FIFA World Cup Will be the Most Demanding Event Ever for Dynamic Ad Insertion
Sports and advertising have long been inextricably linked. Advertisers crave water-cooler moments where a big cultural event captures the imagination of people everywhere. Multi-national sports tournaments have a unique pull in that regard, and this summer’s 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to break records. According to data from WARC, the tournament will inject $10.5 billion into the global advertising market.
For rights-holders, the tournament promises to be the most valuable sporting occasion ever, with more teams, more matches, and more ad breaks than at previous editions. FIFA president Gianni Infantino claimed the global audience will be the equivalent of “three Super Bowls a day” over five weeks. While it’s easy to pick holes in his calculations (The Athletic), the point remains that this sporting festival is set to capture the attention of the world like no other event so far in the streaming age.
OTT accounts for nearly half of all TV viewing in the USA (Nielsen) and, with 100% of inventory expected to be sold and streaming CPMs reportedly ranging from $60 to $120 (Global Brands Magazine), the scale and advertising value of the tournament is simply unprecedented.
With such high stakes, Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) technology becomes absolutely critical because it is the bridge between the worlds of streaming tech and adtech. With 100% of inventory set to be sold for the tournament, the pressure is on DAI technology to fulfill that value by technically delivering every ad. Any failure to do so effectively means that money is being left on the table.
To get a sense of how these demands will play out in practice, we can draw from in-match trends during a previous soccer tournament, the pan-European 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, which saw 24 nations compete across 30 days in the summer of 2024.
Euro 2024 Quarter-Final Portugal vs. France
With France billed as the tournament favorites, there was a lot of excitement about the Portugal versus France match. It was a last 16 knockout tie that featured soccer royalty Kylian Mbappe and Christiano Ronaldo pitted against each other. Despite the hype, the match did not live up to expectations with both teams performing below par. With no goals scored during normal time, nor the added half hour of extra time, the match went to a winner-takes-all penalty shoot-out. As the game went on, a single goal became increasingly pivotal to the outcome of the game, and indeed the tournament.
How a slow-build match can impact DAI
The slow build of the game and lack of goals had an interesting impact on audience numbers. Viewership climbed steadily from kick-off and continued to rise through each stage of the match, as the prospect of a single mistake became increasingly pivotal to the outcome of the game. Audience figures surged during extra time before peaking dramatically at the conclusion of the penalty shootout.
Ad views became progressively higher for each consecutive break. The ad break before the penalty shoot-out attracted the most viewers, with an increase of 42% more viewers than the previous break. With the match going to penalties, the advertising opportunities increased. The ad break at the final whistle of normal time had twice the viewers it would have done had that been the end of the match. There was also a new, unscheduled ad break, right before the penalty shoot-out, which turned out to be the most valuable ad revenue opportunity of the match. After the penalty shoot-out was decided, there was a second additional ad break.
To properly monetize unscheduled ad breaks like these, DAI systems need to deliver maximum fill rates and maximum value for each ad spot, which means processing millions upon millions of addressable ad requests incredibly quickly. The DAI must support ad servers in order to achieve these aims and allow them the time they need to process ad requests and respond. If not, then timeouts occur and blank slates appear during some of the most valuable ad spots. Like the Euros, it’s impossible to predict how the action will play out in the FIFA World Cup 2026. In order to protect revenue at peak moments, broadcasters need to have DAI systems in place capable of adapting in real-time to handle unexpected surges in demand.
Euro 2025 Semifinal: England vs. Netherlands
In contrast to the Portugal-France game, England vs. The Netherlands was action packed from start to finish with the first goals coming early in the first half. The Netherlands were first to score with a stunning long-range strike, before a VAR review led to England being awarded a contentious penalty kick. The excitement continued into the second half when England appeared to have scored the decisive goal only for it to be declared offside, followed by a last-minute strike that clinched the game for England.
What wall-to-wall excitement means for DAI
Viewership peaked briefly in the first half during the VAR review, before dropping off again after the subsequent penalty kick. Viewer numbers grew throughout the second half, spiking when the goals were scored. The fast pace and excitement of the match had viewers completely absorbed from start to finish, with viewers tuning in on mobile devices to catch replays of the goals.
Interestingly, of all the ad breaks across the entire tournament, the first half time ad break during this game had the most viewers. The fact that the winning goal came in the final minute right before the full time ad break also made that last break particularly valuable because the end-to-end action kept viewers engaged right through to the final ad break. However, had all goals been scored in the first half, ad views would have been significantly lower at the full time break compared to the half time break because some viewers would have most likely dropped off by that point.
To maximize ad revenue generating opportunities when there are high levels of unpredictability, rights-holders need to be prepared for the unexpected. This will certainly be the case for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which is sure to be a roller-coaster of excitement, with some matches bringing goals in the latter part of the match, others delivering action from kick off right up to the full time whistle, and some not being decided until extra time and penalties.
Best Practices for Scaling Advertising in Live Sports
Monetizing major international soccer events creates unique challenges. To cope with these challenges, DAI systems need to be able to handle the global scale that soccer, and other major sporting events, brings alongside the unpredictability and extreme variations in viewership that is unique to knock-out soccer tournaments. Ad decisioning systems need time to process ad requests and deliver maximum value. This requirement remains even in cases where the inventory was sold in advance: ads must still be called and delivered to the right viewer at the right time, with one-to-one measurement enabled.
As viewers continue to move to CTV and streaming services for their sports viewing, each successive major sports event breaks new records. The 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to raise the bar even higher than usual. Euro 2024 was a high water mark for sports streaming, with 6 billion one-to-one addressable ads stitched. Just two years later, the 2026 FIFA World Cup will more than double that. To monetize sports at this scale, with the unpredictability and extreme fluctuations in viewership that soccer tournaments inevitably bring, ad insertion strategies will need to be carefully architected with advanced prefetching built in as a critical requirement.
[Editor's note: This is a contributed article from Yospace. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]
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