Drainage breaks hit Europe’s top leagues as US World Cup broadcasters rake in $250m
Water breaks caused a lot of controversy at this summer’s World Cup.
FIFA’s decision to mandate a three-minute stoppage during each half of each match has faced heavy criticism from those inside the stadium and football fans watching at home.
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Breaks disrupt the intensity of games and criticism from coaches and players. Loud booing from fans at all World Cup venues often follows the suspension.
But while hydration breaks are frowned upon by many, they are proving gold for TV broadcasters, and may even become the norm.
An additional four minutes and 20 seconds of advertising space per game has been sold this summer. Throughout the tournament, that added up to seven hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds of commercials served to viewers around the world.
In the United States alone, the average 30-second World Cup on Fox Sports costs between $200,000 and $300,000. That price rises to nearly $750,000 at the close of competition.
With the possibility of eight additional 30-second slots per game, the hydration breaks alone are likely to generate more than $250m.
That figure alone is more than half of the $485m Fox paid for the English-language rights to the tournament.
From a broadcast perspective, hydration breaks make no sense, and ESPN reports that it will be ‘difficult to go back’ once the World Cup is over.
Water breaks cause media ‘spitting’ and big changes may be coming
“The legacy of this summer’s World Cup will not be political meddling or a refereeing conspiracy that benefits Lionel Messi. It will be a break,” wrote sports business reporter Ben Strauss on Monday.
He suggests that, after speaking to a number of media and football executives, the breaks ‘may be an important topic in the media rights debate going forward.’
“It would be difficult to go back once hydration breaks have been shown to work because of the dollars associated with them,” David Levy, former president of Turner who now runs a sports marketing agency, told ESPN.
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“And if it’s not hydration breaks, it’s going to be something else.”
One media official explained: “This is a source of income for football, where companies can reach a captive audience during the most important parts of the game.
“There are media companies salivating over what Fox has been able to do.”
While viewers in other places, such as the United Kingdom, will not see more ads during the World Cup break, insiders have predicted that domestic leagues would welcome the change as global broadcasters battle ‘risk’ and ‘low cost’.
Can football use hydration breaks beyond the World Cup?
While it’s unlikely that Europe’s major leagues – such as the Premier League, La Liga and Bundesliga – will go on hiatus anytime soon, they can be used in the US.
“For MLS and NWSL, it makes a lot of sense,” Matt Drew, who has experience negotiating international soccer rights, told ESPN.
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Both of America’s top leagues will negotiate new media deals in the coming years, and have discussed at length how to build momentum for this summer’s World Cup.
An MLS spokesperson told ESPN that the topic of changing the hydration break policy has not been discussed, but that the league will “continue to review all aspects of our competition” as it does each year.
“In general, MLS has a long history of creating and testing new things that improve the game,” the spokesperson said, acknowledging how FIFA has implemented previous changes around injuries and time-wasting during league changes.
If MLS takes a break, Strauss suggests that in Europe, Spain’s La Liga is likely to follow, as it focuses on the American market.
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France and Italy may also be ‘looking hard’ at generating more broadcasting revenue, but the financial strength of the Premier League suggests it will be ‘the last place to make the switch’.
It remains to be seen how exactly competitions around the world will handle the arrival of the hydration break in soccer, but there is no doubt that it has already created a new dynamic among potential broadcast partners and leagues.
“The hydration break is so controversial that it can be used as a stalking horse to allow other marketing strategies,” Murray Barnett, a UK-based media rights executive, told Strauss.
“The risk of doing hydration break advertising can encourage people to be flexible about other commercial combinations.”
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