After a twelve-year wait, the 2022 FIFA World Cup kicks off on Sunday in Qatar, the first World Cup to be hosted in the Middle East and the most expensive edition to be hosted to date.

Despite some controversies surrounding this World Cup, FIFA is projecting that by the end of the tournament, a combined five billion viewers would have watched the 64 games across the globe through various technological means.

Latest figures show that 2.89 million people are also expected to watch the World Cup in person across the eight stadiums that are hosting the games.

The World Cup is without a doubt the world’s largest single sporting event that brings with it lucrative marketing opportunities, both to the official sponsors of the tournament who splash out thousands to secure exclusive sponsorship deals as well as those who seek creative ways to ‘hijack’ the tournament for their financial gain without forking out a single cent, commonly referred to as ambush marketing.

The World Cup started to be exploited from a commercial point of view ever since the 1978 edition following FIFA’s, now long standing, cooperation with Coca-Cola which shall run until at least 2030.

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