A quiet FIFA decision made last December is now reshaping the rhythm — and the business — of World Cup football.
“Players to benefit from hydration breaks at FIFA World Cup 2026.”
That was the headline FIFA used when it confirmed that three-minute water breaks would be built into every match at the men’s tournament in the US, Canada and Mexico this summer.
FIFA says the breaks are meant to help players manage the heat of a North American summer, and that they will be implemented in every game — no matter the temperature — to guarantee what it calls “equal conditions for everyone”.
FIFA
In a statement released earlier this week, FIFA President Gianni Infantino returned to the same core message: FIFA, he said, profits “absolutely nothing” from the interruptions.
“There is no additional revenue for FIFA, as all commercial agreements were signed well in advance. So, this is not a financial issue for us. For us, it is purely a sporting matter.”
FIFA is expected to take in $3.9bn in revenue from broadcasting rights deals for the World Cup.
FIFA has yet to confirm whether hydration breaks will be permanent features at World Cups
That figure represents another jump on recent tournaments — $3.4bn from the Qatar World Cup in 2022 and $3.1bn from the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Even if FIFA says it will not collect extra money specifically because advertisements air during these stoppages, the broadcasters paying for those rights are clearly positioned to benefit.
And that reality makes the rights package more valuable.
When broadcasters’ earning potential rises thanks to extra ad inventory, FIFA’s leverage grows too — strengthening its hand to seek higher fees when future broadcasting agreements come up for negotiation.
FIFA has yet to confirm whether hydration breaks will be permanent features at World Cups.
Mr Infantino said this week the main driver behind the change is straightforward: “the heat”.
With next year’s women’s tournament scheduled for Brazil and the next men’s World Cup set for Spain, Portugal and Morocco, the conditions that prompted FIFA’s move are unlikely to disappear — and nor, it seems, is the policy.
So while FIFA may not see an immediate, direct boost from these breaks during this World Cup, the size of future broadcasting deals could ultimately reveal whether the backlash was worth it for FIFA’s bottom line.
Beyond what airs on television, the commercial presence around the breaks has been hard to miss inside stadiums. As each hydration interval begins, hoardings have lit up in the bright blue of Powerade, the official sports drink of the FIFA World Cup.
Fans in the stands also see the message ‘Time For Powerade Hydration Break’ on oversized LED screens, and FIFA’s initial announcement last December was released alongside photos of Powerade bottles.
None of that, on its own, indicates FIFA is receiving money beyond what was previously agreed — but it does underline how additional exposure can lift the value of Powerade’s deal, and potentially shape the pricing of future partnerships.
Broadcasters
For many broadcasters worldwide, the hydration breaks have quickly become a natural point to cut away to full-screen advertising.
RTÉ has shown ads during water breaks on occasion but has mostly stuck to showing the players as they take on water and instruction.
FIFA is expected to take in $3.9bn in revenue from broadcasting rights deals for the World Cup
The very first hydration break of the tournament — during the opening match between Mexico and South Africa — included ads, drawing an immediate and forceful response from pundit Richie Sadlier.
He said: “This is my first experience watching a game of football that’s been broken during the first half by advertisement breaks.
“I understand it’s a water break, I know that’s a decision taken externally, but ads during a match is wrong.
“There’s a commercial argument that is legitimate, but the event is still ongoing.
“The players are still on the pitch, there’s interactions between the coaches and players, there’s something happening which may be relevant and we’ve decided ‘nah forget about it, let’s just promote stuff’.”
After that opener, RTÉ has only occasionally cut to commercials during the breaks — though it did so during Scotland’s match against Brazil, and again during Argentina’s win over Austria on Monday.
In a statement, RTÉ said that, to date, it “has made only limited use of the advertising capacity available during these breaks and does not anticipate extensive utilisation over the course of the tournament, in order to protect the viewer experience”.
“This approach supports our ability to bring the FIFA World Cup and other major international sporting events free-to-air to audiences across Ireland.”
It said: “RTÉ takes its commercial responsibilities seriously and seeks to strike an appropriate balance between generating revenue and delivering a high-quality viewing experience.”
RTÉ did not provide figures for the cost of ad space during World Cup matches or water breaks, but said it would be in a better position to provide this information closer to the end of the tournament.
Still, the broadcaster publishes rates for other marquee sports events, offering a window into how prized major audiences can be.
For example, the spot rate for a 30-second ad during the Champions League Final is €21,000 while the same ad during the All-Ireland hurling or football finals would cost €35,000.
A 30-second ad during this weekend’s football quarter finals has a €10,500 price tag while earlier rounds of the Champions League cost €9,000 for a 30-second ad.
RTÉ has shown ads during water breaks on occasion but has mostly stuck to showing the players as they take on water and instruction
The timing of matches at this year’s World Cup is also likely to shape ad prices, with audiences typically dropping sharply for games airing in the small hours compared to primetime slots.
But whatever RTÉ’s final pricing looks like, the mechanics are clear: with just over eight 30-second spots potentially available per match during hydration breaks, the new intervals offer meaningful earning power.
In the UK, the BBC — which does not carry advertising — has maintained that approach throughout the tournament, while ITV’s ability to run ads has been constrained by British television regulations.
Regulator Ofcom limits the number of ads that can be shown in 60 minutes.
In the US, viewers are accustomed to advertising woven into sports through timeouts and stoppages. Football has long been the outlier: two 45-minute halves, plus added time, with play largely uninterrupted — a structure that leaves brands fewer natural openings.
Hydration breaks change that equation by handing broadcasters an extra 260 seconds for advertising across a match.
The format is fixed: two hydration breaks, one 22 minutes into each half, with each lasting three minutes.
However, FIFA has ruled that broadcasters must wait 20 seconds after play ends before cutting to ads and must return no less than 30 seconds before play resumes.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that a 30-second ad break could cost brands in the US around $200,000 for games early in the competition.
However, this can rise as high as $750,000 for games featuring the US and for knockout games.
That would place Fox Sports’ per-game ad revenue in a wide band — from about $1.7m to $6.5m.
Even using conservative assumptions, the US broadcaster could be looking at $250m in ad revenue generated specifically from hydration breaks over the course of the tournament.
It is widely reported that Fox paid just under $500m for the English language rights to broadcast the World Cup in the US.
By that measure, the commercials sold during hydration breaks alone appear to have meaningfully helped Fox offset the rights bill it paid to FIFA.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino reiterated this week FIFA gains ‘absolutely nothing’ from the breaks’
Not every US broadcaster, however, has treated the breaks as a full-screen advertising window.
Spanish language broadcaster Telemundo has chosen a different route, running smaller ads in an on-screen box while continuing to show the hydration break and replays in another.
Speaking to Sports Business Journal ahead of the tournament, Telemundo senior vice president for sports content Miguel Lorenzo confirmed that the match feed would remain on screen during the breaks.
“Our goal is to create an authentic World Cup viewing experience,” he said.
“We think we can do that in a lot of ways, and one of the most impactful ways is by never leaving the pitch once the clock starts running.”
As the tournament unfolds, that split-screen model offers a possible middle ground — a way to capture new commercial value without fully pulling viewers away from the moment.
Altering the ‘cultural conception’ of football
FIFA insists two hydration breaks will happen in every World Cup match, regardless of the weather.
Mr Infantino said this week: “It’s very difficult to accept that a coach might have the opportunity to influence a match by making adjustments simply because it’s hotter, while in another match, where the temperature is slightly lower, the same coach doesn’t have the same opportunity.”
Yet even with Mr Infantino emphasising fairness — and the additional chance for coaches to deliver instructions — the move has not landed smoothly with everyone on the touchline.
“Playing four periods instead of two alters the cultural conception that has been constructed to interpret football,” said the outspoken Uruguay national team manager Marcelo Bielsa.
“This change of culture doesn’t add anything and takes away a lot.
“When the game was divided into four, no one thought about the effect it could have on what made football a sport that people love, but rather other kinds of repercussions were in mind.”
Whatever FIFA’s motivations, the arrival of these three-minute stoppages may prove to be more than a player-welfare tweak — potentially marking a turning point for football as sport, as spectacle and, perhaps most decisively, as business.
