Global advertising spending on the FIFA 2018 World Cup (WC) in Russia will amount to $2.4bn, Vedomosti daily said on June 7 citing the findings of Zenith analytical company. The mondial is expected to generate 3.5bn people TV viewership worldwide.

In Russia, the extra ad spending are expected to amount to $64mn or about 2.1%% of total annual advertising market in 2018. 

To compare, in China and the US the spending is expected to amount to $835mn and $400mn, or 1% or 0.2% of the total advertising market, respectively. The absence of the US national team keeps the spending in America low.

Russian economy could gain 0.2% annually or 1% of GDP over 2013-2018 or RUB820bn ($13.3bn) from preparing and hosting the FIFA World Cup 2018, according to earlier estimates by McKinsey.

Russia spent RUB1.2 trillion ($19.4bn) on World Cup preparations, according to McKinsey making it one of the most expensive tournaments ever.  And this is a lot more than the previous estimates of $11.5bn-$13.2bn total costs, making the tournament by far the most expensive World Cup after the $6bn and $11bn spent in South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014, respectively

Alfa Bank's chief economist Natalia Orlova on April 25 said that McKinsey's estimates "is in line with our initial estimates, at end-2017; however, since then, a number of factors have changed for the worst." 

First, Orlova believed that in order to ensure security in the 11 Russian regions, where the games are scheduled, the state authorities may limit or even stop local industrial productions, which would clearly neutralize any positive effect on growth. 

Second, Alfa's economist suggested that recent tightening of sanctions against Russia and the cooling of relations between Russia and the UK may limit tourist flows to Russia and investment activity.