Sponsorship and advertising

Sponsorship
One of the reasons football is as popular and as massive as it is, is due to the funding it receives off sponsorship and advertising. 

Each league team in England and in many other countries is sponsored by a company on their kits, the stadiums and even behind the scenes so the club is given more money to make it a bigger, more successful club. National teams will have one major partner or sponsor and a few smaller sponsors in order to help promotion of the companies for example: England are sponsored by Vauxhall as a major sponsor and have Mars and Mcdonalds as smaller sponsors. However, to a certain degree it can be deemed unfair as the big companies don't pay attention to the smaller teams and give them a chance to earn extra money for the club as they think that they wont bring in the amount of money they want to have when compared to teams like Manchester United or Barcelona. 
Players can also be sponsored by big companies to endorse their products such as Messi being sponsored by Adidas to promote their latest training gear or football boots or Ronaldo being sponsored by Nike to promote his football boot range he has with them. These big companies pay the big name players to wear the logo as it will bring in more money because they're so popular.

Advertising
Advertising is seen all around in football. They're seen during half time on the TV or at the ground on a screen, they're all around the pitch and even some stadiums is all advertising a specific brand or company. Whenever you see someone wearing a football shirt, they're advertising the club. Whenever you see the latest football or personal equipment being used by players it is being advertised. The backboards during after match interviews also advertising themselves to make an increase in profit and popularity, like Leeds United having Macron and Flamingo land on there board has increased the popularity of those companies. 
However, there can be negative advertising. Budweiser is a big partner of many events like The world cup. Although it may not be thought of, the adverts are advertising drinking which leads to many health problems. The same goes for McDonald's and other fast food restaurants, what seem like harmless adverts are actually advertising a way for an unhealthy lifestyle and the one of the biggest customers of Mcdonalds are children so really childhood obesity is being secretly shown. On TV, before a game and during half time a gambling advert comes on with the well known Ray Winstone showing the latest odds on the next scorer for the bookies Bet365. In some stadiums there is a gambling station for people to put their bets on the game which is again promoting a dangerous addiction without highlighting it. 


This has influenced football as the money means it becomes a bigger sport with all the big name players being shown and also gives teams the chance to become bigger clubs.