How many commercials does VTV have to air to make up for the World Cup copyright fee?

The rumored price for the 2018 World Cup copyright in Vietnam in the best deal that Infront Sports & Media can offer VTV is no more than 12 million USD, 20% lower than the previous price (15 million USD) but far exceeding the actual amount the station spent on the previous World Cup (7 million USD).

However, unlike in 2014, VTV's stubbornness in 2018 about the amount of money that could be spent to own the World Cup copyright pushed the deal to a deadlock at times, and Vietnamese audiences were warned "to be mentally prepared not to be able to watch 64 matches live". By the deadline, thanks to the cooperation of some real estate giants (one company was confirmed to spend about 5 million USD), fans had faith that VTV would have a final agreement on this issue.

Even if sponsored, the TV station will have to spend a large sum of money to finance the noisy copyright purchase. It took 2 years to negotiate the contract, but VTV itself admitted that it is difficult to balance revenue and expenditure in a major tournament that lasts more than 1 month, and holds "90% of the losses".

For television programs, the way for stations to recoup their investment in copyright comes mostly from advertising revenue. The World Cup is also the program that holds the record for VTV's advertising prices, with a 30-second block sold for 350 million VND in the final match.

Currently, the price list for advertising programs before, during and after the matches of the 2018 World Cup has not been announced, but in fact, after many years, the program that reached the highest advertising price of VTV is only 300 million VND/30-second block, so it can be predicted that advertising prices this year will not likely fluctuate strongly.

This year, most of the World Cup matches will take place during prime time on television, from 7pm to 11pm every day. If we take the average of the football tournament that took place 4 years ago, each advertising block from the group stage to the final matches has a common price of 180 million VND, then VTV with about 7 million USD in actual expenditure will have to show about 881 30-second advertising blocks, equivalent to 7 hours of continuous advertising within 30 days.

In fact, the cost of the World Cup for the TV station holding the broadcasting rights is not only calculated by the money paid to foreign partners, but also the cost of producing accompanying TV programs, such as companion programs, commentary, summaries, etc.