ELECTRIC WORLD CUP
How late is now?
7/1/20264 min read
My friend Ricardo Bueno shared a piece about the World Cup's impact on electrical infrastructure that inspired me to write this article.
The defining characteristic of today's society—with audiences fragmented and scattered across millions of apps, websites, and media channels—is asynchronous viewership. Each person consumes content at a different time, in a different place, and on a different device; even when the content is identical, the viewing experience happens at different moments.
For the younger generation, let me explain: until the advent of the Internet, the rule was that when an event like the World Cup took place, everyone had to watch it simultaneously, all over the globe. The 1970 World Cup final in Mexico—the first to be broadcast via satellite—drew an estimated global audience of 800 million viewers. In 1985, Live Aid brought together 2 billion people across more than 100 countries.
Today, given the ease of watching events on any device, there is a growing tendency for people to watch on their own schedules. But not the World Cup—and not in Brazil.
During the Brazil vs. Japan match, the biggest challenge wasn't overcoming Japan's defensive strategy, but keeping the entire Brazilian power grid operating at 60 Hz. Why?
As soon as the match began, the load on the electrical grid started to drop simply because millions of Brazilians were doing the exact same thing at the same time: watching the game, whether on TV or on various mobile and non-mobile devices. Only a minority were using electric showers, washing machines, microwaves, and the like. The concentration of attention was so intense that power consumption fell by 21% compared to what would normally be expected at that time.
At halftime, the synchronization of people's behavior was just as pronounced. As they got up to make coffee, cook a snack, or use the restroom, they caused a consumption spike of nearly 5% over the course of nine minutes.
At the end of the match, as soon as the referee blew the final whistle, there was a 20% surge in demand over the following hour—an amount equivalent to the capacity of the Itaipu Power Plant, which remains one of the largest in the world. While Brazilians kept their eyes on the match score, operators monitored system stability, which was being put to a grueling test.
This analogy offers a few key takeaways:
. Few events today have the power to mobilize and synchronize the behavior of so many people simultaneously. Although Brazilians may be the world's most fanatical soccer fans, it is worth remembering that this behavior is mirrored globally.
. The World Cup’s power as a global mobilizer illustrates the influence of FIFA—a topic I’ve covered elsewhere—whether in terms of revenue generation or engagement. Today, FIFA is what the Catholic Church once was: a non-profit entity with a global reach that rivals governments in its power to provide relief and solace to people. The main difference lies in FIFA’s less political nature.
. Global interest in the World Cup—driven in part by the ever-increasing number of participating nations—continues to grow, turning the sport into a unique phenomenon that fuels an entire industry.
. The mobilization generated by the World Cup—spanning consumption, tourism, engagement, participation, viewership, and more—demonstrates that certain events still transcend shifting modern habits, capable of bringing diverse people together in the same place at the same time.
. Traditional advertising makes perfect sense for an event of this magnitude due to its impact, yet it makes increasingly less sense for asynchronous events. Meanwhile, interactive social media advertising makes increasing sense across all forms of communication, especially when used intelligently.
. Context and a sense of belonging are concepts that are here to stay. That is why, during the World Cup, a campaign by Coca-Cola—or even a random betting company (despite the aversion this might trigger)—makes perfect sense and yields immediate results, whereas a brand like Itaú Bank increasingly becomes mere noise. For a bank, sponsoring the national team without genuine context or a sense of belonging is an attempt to maximize awareness at the lowest possible CPM, adding little to no value to a brand image that people find increasingly less valuable. It represents a massive investment for meager results. I will discuss this further in another article.
One takeaway—especially for me—is the importance and impact of electricity on the world. While we already cannot live without it today, we will become increasingly dependent on it for survival. The problem is that, right now, it is already a bottleneck for AI, data centers, and electric vehicles... We have created a world that evolves faster than its infrastructure. A system collapse is no longer just a hypothesis but a premise that requires very little to become reality.
While water is a precious and critical resource in some places, energy is becoming even more critical and scarce—with one crucial difference: two-thirds of the planet is water. Therefore, it is easier—however costly—to turn saltwater into fresh water than to extract the necessary energy from the sun or any other natural source.
The film that best portrays this situation is The Matrix, where the machines begin to simulate reality so that human beings agree to serve as an energy source for them. Today, we already voluntarily feed social media networks in exchange for entertainment. We are not far off from surrendering our bodies.
Perhaps the 2034 World Cup will cease to be a physical event and become a virtual one. Or is that already happening, and are we merely avatars in this digital world? Since the pandemic, I haven't been sure of anything anymore.