Millions of people believe they are watching exactly the same World Cup broadcast. That is not the case. 🤯
The technology is called Virtual Replacement Technology (VRT) and it has been operating quietly for years: while you see an ad for a brand from your country on the stadium boards, someone elsewhere in the world sees a completely different one, in the exact same place on the pitch, at the exact same second. The system tracks in real time the position of cameras, players, referees, and the ball so that the advertising never covers them, and it generates different feeds depending on the country that is watching.
Most unsettling of all: not even those physically in the stands see the same thing you do from your home. This technology debuted in 2018, in a friendly between England and Costa Rica in Leeds, and today it is used in the Premier League, LaLiga, UEFA, and FIFA. Every broadcast you watch was edited live, with millisecond latency, to sell you something different from what they are selling to someone else. 🎯
