Tag Archives: soccer

Billions of Dollars for Billions of Viewers

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Few sporting events capture the attention of the world in the way the FIFA World Cup does every four years. Thanks to the truly global nature of the sport, billions of people follow the World Cup, making it a very lucrative event for the organization behind it, FIFA.

According to the global footballing body’s latest financial report, it expects to earn $3 billion selling TV rights in the ongoing World Cup cycle, i.e. the four-year period leading up to this year’s tournament in Russia, the lion’s share of which (more than 95 percent) can be attributed to World Cup broadcasting rights. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil was broadcast in 207 territories across the globe for a total of 98,000 broadcasting hours, which translates into more than 11 years of World Cup coverage and earned FIFA roughly $2.5 billion.

In general, the FIFA World Cup is a highly profitable event for FIFA. After the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, FIFA’s surplus amounted to $2.6 billion.

What Slows Down World Cup 2018 Matches The Most?

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Video replays are being used by referees for the first time at the 2018 FIFA World Cup to help make key decisions. Even though technology has been introduced to the game with the intention of causing as little interruption to the game as possible, it has still attracted criticism for breaking up play. According to website fivethirtyeight, however, VAR is not responsible to long stoppages over all World Cup match time combined.

Up to June 27, free kicks took up an average of 10 minutes and 29 seconds per match, throw-ins lasted just under eight minutes while goal kicks stopped play for just over six minutes. By comparison, video reviews stopped matches for just 31 seconds per match on average.