This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: New research from the University of Nottingham has found that gambling brands were visible in 32% of Premier League soccer highlight footage, compared with less than 2% of FIFA World Cup highlights, raising questions about viewers' exposure to gambling marketing. The study, believed to be the first to analyze and compare exposure to unhealthy commodity branding in soccer highlights on YouTube, was led by researchers from the University of Nottingham.
The preprint is available here. Researchers examined Sky Sports highlights from the final 10 games of the 2025–26 Premier League season and FIFA YouTube highlights from 17 matches during the 2026 World Cup. They found that unhealthy commodity branding, including gambling, was visible during 38% of Premier League highlight footage, compared with 19% of World Cup highlights.
Gambling was the most prominent unhealthy commodity category in Premier League highlights, with gambling brands visible for 32% of total screen time. By contrast, gambling branding appeared in less than 2% of World Cup highlight footage. The findings come just days after the new Premier League season began and highlight the extent to which soccer audiences can encounter gambling marketing through match footage itself, beyond conventional ad breaks.
The research also found that only around a quarter of gambling brand appearances in Premier League highlights were on the fronts of players' jerseys—the placement targeted by the Premier League's voluntary agreement to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of match jerseys. Researchers were served up to 30 seconds of gambling ads before approximately three minutes of match footage. The Premier League says that 1.87 billion people interact with its content through media each week, while the 2022 FIFA World Cup was estimated to have engaged around 5 billion people across media platforms, with 1.42 billion people watching at least one minute of the final.
YouTube highlights are an increasingly popular way of consuming soccer, particularly among younger audiences. In the UK, 81% of 3–17-year-olds regularly use YouTube. Highlights also concentrate some of the most memorable and widely shared moments of matches, including goals and red cards, making them an important source of exposure to branding embedded in soccer coverage.
"As the new season kicks off, the scale of potential exposure is substantial. Gambling ads ran before most highlights. Gambling branding was on screen for a third of the highlights we analyzed, and only around a quarter of those appearances were on the front of jerseys, the one placement the Premier League's voluntary agreement addresses.
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