ITV targets record World Cup ad haul as AI brands pile in
TV is forecasting a record advertising windfall from the expanded FIFA World Cup as demand from AI brands lifts prices for scarce mass-audience inventory.
ITV expects the FIFA World Cup to deliver the most commercially successful major football tournament in its history, driven by the expanded match schedule and a surge in advertising demand from AI and big tech companies.The uplift matters in a weak UK ad market because the World Cup offers one of the few remaining chances to assemble large, shared live audiences at scale, strengthening broadcaster pricing power and giving brands a premium shop window over a condensed period.Kelly Williams, ITV’s managing director of commercial, said the broadcaster’s World Cup advertising revenues were running about 30% higher than the level achieved during UEFA Euro 2024, when England reached the final. Williams said: “This will be the most commercially successful World Cup or major tournament we’ve ever had. We feel there’s room for that to grow. Hopefully England and Scotland do well.”ITV and the BBC share UK rights, with ITV showing 51 live games including two of England’s three group matches, giving the commercial broadcaster a large volume of premium live inventory in a tournament that now features 48 teams and 104 matches.ITV is also managing scarcity tactically by holding back some prime slots around later-stage games, which become more valuable if England go deep, while still booking enough revenue early to lock in a record outcome.Williams added: “We’ve got strong support from Gemini, Copilot, OpenAI, Meta, AWS, Apple and Dell. As audiences fragment, tournaments like this become more valuable because getting big shared audiences is much rarer than it has been.”The tournament has also created room for non-standard creative. ITV will air its longest ever advertisement during the World Cup, a six-minute Nike commercial featuring Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior, scheduled in a special extended slot.ITV has opted not to use the in-game water break windows opened up by FIFA for advertising, citing UK advertising rules that cap the number of ads permitted per hour and the structure of the water break inventory, which is limited to FIFA sponsors.The momentum is not limited to the UK. Telemundo, the US Spanish-language broadcaster, has said it has sold out key World Cup advertising inventory, pointing to the largest Spanish-language media deals in the country’s history.The World Cup boost is expected to provide near-term relief for ITV’s wider ad business, which has been under pressure since a downturn linked to heightened geopolitical uncertainty earlier this year. ITV expects second-quarter ad revenue growth of about 10% year on year, equating to roughly £40m, with World Cup games the main driver.Alongside the tournament upside, ITV remains in discussions with Sky regarding a potential sale of its broadcasting business, which has been valued at about £1.6bn, with talks continuing as the World Cup delivers a rare burst of visibility into the value of live sport-led advertising.